Developing Key Account Management Competences [article]

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241564991 Developing key account management competences Article in Journal of Marketing Practice Applied Marketing Science · June 1996 DOI: 10.1108/EUM0000000000018 CITATIONS READS 66 1,913 2 authors, including: Kevin John Wilson Kedge Business School 34 PUBLICATIONS 385 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Key account management View project All content following this page was uploaded by Kevin John Wilson on 30 May 2014. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Developing key account management competences Key account management competences Tony Millman and Kevin Wilson 7 Introduction In an earlier article published in the Journal of Marketing Practice Vol. 1 No. 1, entitled: “From key account selling to key account management” (Millman and Wilson, 1995), we proposed a relational model for the development of key account management (KAM) over time. This model was based on exploratory research and identified six stages of development as follows: (1) pre-KAM; (2) early-KAM; (3) mid-KAM; (4) partnership KAM; (5) synergistic KAM; (6) uncoupling KAM. Our title was chosen to capture the essence of relational development after noting a discernible shift from the relatively narrow focus of key account selling to the broader, complex and more demanding requirements of key account management. Further, we associated this shift with a process of strategic realignment, expressed as a requirement on the part of the selling company to address three orders of customer need – product need, process need, and facilitation need (Wilson and Croom-Morgan, 1993). Facilitation need was described as “the way in which business is done”, rooted in joint problem resolution and mutual adaptation. That we observed selling companies finding this shift problematic is hardly surprising, although we did identify some of the critical issues arising in selling companies setting their sights on the moving target of KAM best-practice. Prominent among these issues were: • the definition of key accounts; • the receptivity of both buyers and sellers to KAM and their differing perceptions of what partnership entails; • buyer/seller strategic and operational fit; and • the implications for management practice. Subsequent research and observations have reinforced the importance of these issues and have enabled us to refocus our work towards organizational and managerial competences. Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing Science, Vol. 2 No. 2, 1996, pp. 7-22. © MCB University Press, 1355-2538 JMP: AMS 2,2 8 This article, therefore, addresses the development of key account managers and is based on our combined experience in three interrelated areas: (1) empirical research in the field of industrial sales management in 12 selling companies (sales turnover below £100 million); (2) a subset of ten buyer/seller dyads, which form part of a larger ongoing empirical study of KAM systems in multinational companies; and (3) “action research” involving over 130 account managers participating in a series of in-company management development programmes. Empirical research primarily involved conducting in-depth interviews with senior managers in a judgemental sample of ten companies in which managers in the selling companies believed that they had reached a mature stage of KAM systems development. What is a key account? Our definition of a key account is that of a customer deemed to be of strategic importance by the selling company (Millman and Wilson, 1995). We offer this simple definition in the knowledge that it is gaining wider currency, although often qualified by manag