The future of KAM
23rd April 2017 | Dr Beth Rogers and Professor Malcolm McDonald
Professor Malcolm McDonald and Dr Beth Rogers look back on two decades of key account management and consider where it can go from here.
In 1998, Malcolm McDonald and Beth Rogers wrote a small book called Key Account Management: Learning from Supplier and Customer Perspectives. It was based on their research at Cranfield School of Management about the then relatively new discipline of key account management. The research had been dyadic: that is, matching suppliers and customers were interviewed in depth about the nuances of key account management – how suppliers tried to develop it strategically and operationally, and how customers rated their success versus competitors.
Recently, they have written a new book on KAM (see details below). In the last chapter, where they explore current views on the future of key account management with a number of eminent sales managers, they also cast their minds back to 1998 when a similar chapter was written. How much did they predict correctly, and where did they go wrong? In this conversation, they reflect on the past 20 years of key account management and where it goes from here.
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