Friday, January 10th, 2025

The AI advantage in KAM

How AI can help to create ideas and boost efficiency for key account managers. Implementing a strategic KAM plan that generates profitable growth for both the supplier and the key customer is notoriously difficult. As consultants and advisers to hundreds of key account managers working in multiple organisations and varied industries, we see talented managers struggle to be consistently effective… 


Wednesday, September 18th, 2024

An open letter to supplier CEOs: do you want a huge competitive edge?

Rethink your selling strategy and shift it to a value-based KAM business model. We all know that we are operating in an increasingly complex and competitive marketplace. As such, it is imperative for suppliers to adapt their sales strategies to maintain relevance in order to drive growth. The traditional sales models that once fuelled success are rapidly becoming obsolete. Today,… 


Friday, February 26th, 2021

Need to know for 2021

Q: What do you see as the “new sales normal” emerging post-Covid? What will be different from before over the longer term? Mark Davies: A few things, all of which were trends that were occurring anyway (the Covid-forced recession has just accelerated these trends). Firstly, the trend whereby customers buy via digital channels will intensify. This is because customers know… 


Friday, December 13th, 2019

Aligning KAM with procurement

Report from the Cranfield KAM Best Practice Forum 26 September 2019. Key account managers are always striving to find better ways to cooperate and co-create value with their opposite numbers in purchasing. Similarly, professional purchasing managers are always striving to obtain the best possible deal for their organisations and get away from entirely price-focused negotiations. So the most recent KAM… 


Wednesday, September 11th, 2019

Co-creating value via Fujitsu HXD

Reporting from the Cranfield KAM Best Practice Forum 20 June 2019. Key account managers and purchasing professionals are increasingly recognising the importance of co-creating value and the key part that the latest technology can have in facilitating that. So, the most recent KAM Best Practice Forum at Cranfield University decided to focus on how Key Account Managers can embrace technology… 


Wednesday, June 26th, 2019

Coaching the high-performing key account manager

Highly skilled, highly capable key account managers are essential for any organisation seeking to transform to a KAM culture. As more organisations realize that having a strong KAM capability is an absolute necessity to manage the customer base where most of their business resides, increasing focus is being placed on finding those key “few things” that guarantee success. Through research… 


Monday, November 20th, 2017

Is your organisation leaking value?

The spiral of value leakage starts when organisations fail to focus on the customer and what they value. Instead, businesses should focus on creating “infinite value”. Peter Drucker is famous for making the following observation: “Because the purpose of a business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two (and only two) basic functions: marketing and innovation.” If…