See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228131926

A Stage Model for Transitioning to Kam

Article in Journal of Marketing Management · July 2010

DOI: 10.1362/026725709X479354

CITATIONS READS

19 682

2 authors:

Iain Davies Lynette Ryals

University of Bath Cranfield University
36 PUBLICATIONS 709 CITATIONS 53 PUBLICATIONS 1,799 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

KAM Implementation Project View project

Sustainable Entrepreneur / Enterprise Growth View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Iain Davies on 04 June 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Journal of Marketing Management. Volume 25, Issue 9/10, Pages 1027-1048.

A stage model for transitioning to KAM

Dr Iain A. Davies* Professor Lynette J. Ryals
Lecturer in Marketing Professor of Strategic Sales and Account
Bath School of Management Management
University of Bath Cranfield School of Management
Bath Cranfield
BA2 7AY Beds
UK MK43 0AL
UK

Tel: 01225 386839* Tel: 01234 75 11 22

Fax: 01234 75 18 06 Fax: 01234 75 18 06
Id218@management.bath.ac.uk Lynette.ryals@cranfield.ac.uk

* Lead author for correspondence

For submission to: Journal of Marketing Management

Date of submission: 16/09/09 (first submission 17/08/09 (submitted to Academy of

Marketing 03/02/09)

Word count: 5756 excluding figures, tables and references

1
Abstract

This paper investigates the under-researched area of key account management

(KAM) implementation through a systematic review of the literature,
syndications with a panel of industry exemplars, and a survey investigating how
organisations implement KAM. Through this we identify a stage model that
identifies not only how companies currently transition to KAM in practice, but
also suggests how they could improve their chances of success in transitioning to
KAM. We demonstrate the fundamental elements of a KAM program and the
extent to which companies feel KAM has met their pre-implementation
expectations.

Key Words: Key Account Management, Strategic Account Management, Sales

management, Industrial marketing, Implementation

Dr. Iain Davies BSc PhD

Iain is Lecturer in Sales and Marketing at Bath and principal researcher for the Key Account
Management Best Practice Research Club at Cranfield. He also has experience as a
Management Consultant in a world renowned consultancy and over 10 years experience in
sales and marketing within the fair trade movement. His interests include KAM, sales
performance, network management and marketing ethics.

Professor Lynette Ryals MA (Oxon) MBA PhD FSIP

Lynette specializes in key account management and marketing portfolio management,
particularly in service businesses, and has a PhD in customer profitability. She is a Registered
Representative of the London Stock Exchange and is the only women in the UK to have
passed the Fellowship examinations of the Society of Investment Professionals. She is also
the Director of Cranfield’s Key Account Management Best Practice Research Club.

2
 A stage model for transitioning to KAM

Key Account Management (KAM) has emerged, over that last 30 years, as one of the

most significant trends in business-to-business marketing practice (Abratt and Kelly, 2002;

Homburg et al., 2002). It focuses on adding value to relationships and creating partnerships

with a company’s most important and strategic customers (Ewart 1995; McDonald et al.,

2000). The emergence of KAM has been driven in companies of all sizes by an increase in

large, powerful, global, centralised purchasing customers becoming the norm across multiple

industries; KAM provides our current best model for servicing these customers (McDonald et

al., 1997).

Despite the rapid growth in the use of KAM by companies, research into the process of

KAM implementation and how companies transition from traditional sales to KAM

orientation has been scarce (Kempeners and Hart, 1999; Napolitano 1997; Sengupta et al.,

1997; Wengler, et al., 2006; Zupanic, 2008). This is a gap that urgently needs to be filled.

Without some agreement about which approaches to KAM implementation work (and which

do not work, called for by Zupanic, 2008), there is a danger that companies will continue to

struggle or even fail to implement KAM appropriately (Homburg et al., 2002; Napolitano,

1997).

In this paper we use empirical evidence to develop a cross-industry stage model of how

companies transition to KAM, including what elements of a KAM program they implement

through this process and the success this has led to. We identify the elements of KAM

implementation programs through an in-depth systematic review of the literature. Using a

survey based on this input we investigate 204 companies with explicit, formal KAM programs

and build a model of the key principles important to KAM implementation over time. A

syndicate of seven leading companies was also used in isolation of the results of the survey to

3
add context and analytical input. The synergy between the two methods provides a robust and

original contribution to both KAM practice and literature.

Key Account Management

The emergence of relationship marketing in the late 1980s led to a growing interest in

getting and keeping customers through relationship management (e.g. Christopher, Payne and

Ballantyne, 1991; Grönroos, 1994, 1997; Sheth and Parvatiyar, 1995; Aijo, 1996;

Gummesson, 1997). Relationship marketing was extended and developed during the 1980s

and 1990s, particularly in business-to-business markets where formalised programs of

customer management have gained increasing importance including: national account

management (Shapiro and Moriarty, 1980, 1982, 1984a, 1984b; Stevenson, 1980, 1981;

Tutton, 1987; Wotruba, 1996; Weilbacker and Weeks, 1997; Dishman and Nitze, 1998);

major account management (Barrett, 1986; Colletti and Tubridy, 1987); and, more recently, to

manage the most strategically important relationships of the business, KAM (Wilson, 1993;

Pardo, Salle and Spencer, 1995; Millman and Wilson, 1995, 1996, 1998; McDonald, Millman

and Rogers, 1997; Abratt and Kelly, 2002; Homburg, et al., 2002) or even Global Account

Management (Yip and Madsen, 1996; Millman, 1996; Millman and Wilson, 1999; Holt,

2003). For ease of use we will continue to use the acronym KAM to refer to these related

bodies of work.

KAM is a systematic process for managing business-to-business relationships that are of

strategic importance to a supplier (Millman & Wilson 1995). It first emerged as a response to

the pressures placed upon supplier companies by globalization, increasing customer power,

procurement sophistication and the need to find new ways to work with the most important

customers (Pardo 1997; Wengler et al. 2006). It involves the adoption of collaborative ways

4
of working with customers rather than traditional transactional and adversarial relationships

(McDonald & Woodburn, 2007). Therefore it represents a fundamental change in the way

companies operate their sales and marketing functions, not leading to a tactical shift in

operations, but a more broad ranging change management program (Storbacka et al., 2009).

Studies in the early 2000s found a substantial concentration of supplier business into a

decreasing number of key accounts, and that the service demands of such key accounts were

increasing (Gosman & Kelly 2000, 2002). The ability to extract better service levels and,

possibly, lower prices from suppliers meant that the benefits to the customer of being given

preferential treatment are clear and indeed there is evidence that customers may demand or

instigate KAM amongst their suppliers for such reasons (Brady 2004; Homburg et al. 2000;

Wengler et al. 2006). Therefore close collaborative relationships with suppliers are thought to

yield between 10% and 100% more value than less collaborative ones for the customer

(Hughes & Weiss 2007).

The benefits of KAM to the suppliers are less clear-cut, since customers may try to

‘bargain away’ benefits in the form of lower prices (Kalwani & Narayandas 1995) sometimes

resulting in relationships with the largest customers becoming unprofitable for suppliers (e.g.

Cooper & Kaplan 1991; Reinartz & Kumar 2002). Napolitano (1997) goes as far as to suggest

that the majority KAM programs appear ineffective as a result. This shows that the benefits to

suppliers of KAM are not automatic and require careful management. Although evidence

exists that long-term relationships with larger customers can pay off for suppliers through

higher revenues and faster growth rates (Bolen & Davis 1997), even where power

asymmetries are considerable (Narayandas & Rangan 2004), we still lack a clear generalisable

5
view of how companies implement KAM, and the respective levels of success this achieves

(Kempeners & Hart, 1999; Sengupta, Krapfel, & Pusateri, 1997; Wengler et al., 2006). We

therefore explore this in our next section.

Implementing Key Account Management

There is limited research on how KAM is implemented. A few scholars have attempted

synthesis of the existing research to form frameworks and surveys for further research on

KAM implementation (Homburg, et al., 2002; Wengler et al., 2006; Zupanic, 2008) and a

similar process has been undertaken for this paper. Table 1 represents a synthesis of the

elements that the literature suggest firms implement as part of their formal KAM programs.

Broadly speaking, these elements represent the core components to most KAM

implementations, with suppliers doing more or less of certain activities at different stages of

the KAM programme’s life cycle.

Insert Table 1 Here

In Zupanic’s (2008) synthesis the elements of KAM are separated into the activities of the

individuals within the organisation (Operational KAM) and those at the organisational level

(Corporate KAM). Although a neat separation, the activities of the individual in a formal

KAM program are likely to be driven from an organisational level decision and as such we

have not separated these out in our analysis because we are interested in what the organisation

is attempting to implement.

6
 Furthermore, we have not differentiated the elements of KAM based on the A-R-A model

(Activities – Resources – Actors) as undertaken in the seminal work by Homburg et al.

(2002), because we are interested in the elements of KAM that companies are implementing,

rather than the artefacts or interested parties which result from implementation. This is a

fundamental difference in how we look at KAM in this paper compared to both Homburg et

al. (2002) and Zupanic (2008). We are investigating KAM as an ongoing transitioning process

rather than the pre-existing, fully implemented program assumed in these previous works. For

instance, of the eight typologies which result from the Homburg, et al. (2002) synthesis and

survey, only two types of KAM [1) Top management KAM and 4) Cross-functional dominant

KAM] represent effective KAM programmes and there is little explanation of what these

KAM programmes are like or how the organisations achieved them. The other six typologies

[2) Middle management KAM; 3) Operating level KAM; 5) Unstructured KAM; 6) Isolated

KAM; 7) Country Club KAM; 8) No KAM] represent either highly inefficient KAM

(typologies 2, 3, 5 and 6) or are not a formal KAM program (Typologies 7 and 8). This may

be an artefact of the sampling method because only 9% of the respondents were actually Key

Account Managers (Kams), but this still leaves us with little understanding of how companies

could implement KAM better, or move from one of these inefficient models to a better

performing, more robust model.

Wengler et al. (2006) provide us with a detailed exploration of some of the rationales for

companies implementing KAM, as well as a limited exploration of what the programmes can

look like. Indeed Wengler et al (2006) indicate this same tendency to view KAM

implementation as a long transitioning process when they suggest “Implementing Key

Account Management thus requires a lot of coordination effort and intensity (Moon & Gupta,

1997) and often seems to be a long-lasting, laborious process” [p108]. They are also able to

7
identify that companies are utilising customer prioritisation processes, changing the role of

Kams in the organisation and defining different levels of responsibility for the KAM program.

However their low respondent numbers (only 49 respondent companies had actually

implemented KAM) and limited exploration of the different elements of KAM still leave us

with few generalisable indicators of how companies transition from sales-led to KAM-led

organisations. This considerable gap in the previous research is explored in this paper

Research approach and method

To meet our exploratory research objective of understanding how companies transition to

KAM we developed a 7-point Likert scale survey applicable across industries based on the

literature summarised in Table 1. We specifically targeted companies with existing formal

KAM programmes and sought information around three research questions: Why they

implemented KAM; to what extent the elements of a KAM program were implemented; and,

how successful their KAM programme had been. The aim was to gain broad insight across

multiple industries.

For a field of research in its third decade it is surprising that the KAM literature has still

produced few generalisable empirical insights. The majority of the extant literature is

conceptual (Cheverton, 2008; Ojasalo, 2001, 2002; Pardo et al., 2006; Piercy and Lane,

2006a+b; Ryals and Holt, 2007 etc.), with the majority of empirical work preferring case

studies (Helander and Möller, 2008; Natti et al, 2006; Rogers and Ryals, 2007; Ryals and

Humphries, 2007; Spencer, 1999) or interviews (McDonald, Millman and Rogers, 1997;

Pardo, 1997; Zupancic, 2008), which, although useful for building rich context and new

insights, offer little in the way of generalisability. Much of the existing quantitative research,

as summarised in Table 2, suffers in terms of generality due to small sample sizes (most too

8
small to use with ANOVA, MANOVA, SEM or LCM packages effectively without data

augmentation through bootstrapping), and surprisingly few studies actually investigate key

account managers (Kams), preferring to focus on customers or colleagues to gain insights.

Both of these could be explained through the difficulty in identifying Kams within

organisations because: they rarely have KAM in their title, are few in number compared to

their sales or marketing equivalents, and are sometime not well known within their own

organisation as distinct from either of these two groups. Problems of this sort affected earlier

pilots of this study and to overcome this we targeted Kams specifically through executive

education programs, as did Guenzi et al. (2007, 2009), McDonald et al. (1997), Montgomery

et al., (1998), Ryals and Rogers, (2007) and Wengler et al. (2006).

Insert Table 2 Here

The survey sample comprised attendees at a series of KAM-specific executive educational

programs, making it a highly purposive sampling method. To gain a large enough sample size

the data took 3 years to collect; analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests between the years of

collection suggested no significant differences between collection years. Over the 3 years a

total of 286 delegates attended these events and 212 surveys were returned, eight of these

indicated they did not yet have a formal KAM programme leaving 204 usable surveys (71.3%

response rate). Surveys were handed out before the commencement of the course to be

completed during registration and collected as the course began, to minimize the impact of the

course on the responses (Table 3 shows descriptive statistics for the respondents).

Insert Table 3 Here

9
Data testing and analysis

A second method was used to add greater depth and clarity to our definitions and

understanding of transitioning to KAM through a year-long syndication with senior

representative of seven mixed-industry companies with a strong track record of KAM

(although not identified in this research for reasons of commercial sensitivity, some of these

companies have previously been used as exemplars in other scholars work, including Yip and

Bink, 2007; Ryals and McDonald, 2008 and Eccles et al, 2009). All were companies with

established KAM programmes and they cooperated with the principle aim of identifying a

process for implementing KAM that could be transferable across industries. They provided a

5-phase model of implementation running through Scoping KAM (Yr 1), Introducing KAM

(Yr 2), Embedding KAM (Yrs 2-4), Optimising KAM (Yrs 4-6), and Best Practice /

Continuous Improvement (Yrs 6 and over). They were adamant that, across all their

industries, it takes at least this long to have a properly-established KAM program and that,

especially in the later years, re-engineering KAM was always needed. They did however

admit that the Scoping KAM period is a theoretical “ought to happen” stage as, in reality, it

happens in parallel with, or even after, implementation. We therefore merge Scoping and

Introducing KAM phases and show them as one initial 2 year Introducing KAM phase. These

insights were used to segment data for analysis purposes and provide structure for

demonstrating the process of transitioning to KAM.

Analysis was conducted using mean comparison tests to identify differences between

groups within the data. ANOVA assumes normality of data, which rarely occurs with Likert

scales. Kolmogorow-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk normality tests demonstrated that 18 of the

25 elements of KAM distributions were probably not normal, mostly cause by -/+ kurtosis.

10
However, visual inspection of the Normal Q-Q diagrams suggest that 20 of the elements

appeared evenly distributed and 16 of the items passed the Levene test, again suggesting

fairly even distribution. Bearing all these in mind we conducted and compared both Kruskal-

Wallis H nonparametric and Games-Howell Post-Hoc ANOVAs as they both have reduced

distribution assumptions. We found almost unilateral agreement between the two tests so

report the more powerful and more easily interpreted Games-Howell Post-Hoc ANOVA.

Results

The first important result from the data was the lack of significant differences based on

industry. We found the only major area of difference amongst the four industry groups was in

relation to how successful the respondents thought their companies were at KAM, with the

professional and financial services companies rating themselves significantly higher and

manufacturers significantly lower than the other groups. This suggests that at least the

elements of KAM are similar across industries. The main area of difference however emerged

when we segmented the data based on the timescales suggested by our transitioning syndicate,

breaking the data into four groups based on the age of their program (Table 4 shows the

Games-Howell results for the elements of the KAM program and Table 5 shows the success

measures).

We discovered that, as the syndicate had indicated, there was a general progression of

gearing up and implementing, rejuvenating and expanding the KAM programme which

provide a statistically significant difference between groups in the different stages of

transitioning to KAM. On the vast majority of scales the companies were implementing

elements of KAM at a noticeably increasing rate over the life span of the program. This

indicates that, firstly, the program takes many years to put in place and, secondly, that there is

11
a progression through the different elements the organisation focuses on in each stage. Figure

1 synthesises what the syndicate said and what the data represent about the transition to

KAM.

Insert Figure 1 Here

Figure 1 shows KAM to be relatively slow to take off when introduced but then builds up

rapidly during the Embedding and Optimising stage before slowing into a process of

Continual Improvement. We also see this pattern replicated in Table 4 where the extent to

which companies are implementing different elements of KAM is limited all the way up to

the end of year two, but then begins to rise rapidly, before slowing after six years. The best

example of this is Senior manager buy-in (4th from bottom) where the average extent of buy-

in within Introducing KAM companies is relatively low, before a significant (at the <0.05

level*) increase in focus during the Embedding period, followed by an even more significant

(at the <0.01 level**) increase in the Optimising period, followed by a small non-significant

rise in the Continual Improvement period (although it is still significantly higher in this period

than in the Embedding period, represented by †).

Insert Table 4 Here

Following a similar logic to Table 4 we show the respondent’s perceptions of the success

of their KAM programme in Table 5. Here we find that the perception of success increases in

the more established formal programs. It is worthy of note, however, how many times the

oldest programs suggest lower success scores on measures, particularly relative revenue

12
growth (line 2), customer satisfaction (line 6), advocacy (line 8) and shared investment (line

9) than the earlier Optimising group. There could be a number of reasons for this but Table 4

shows that although not statistically significant (perhaps because of the small sample size for

the Continuous Improvement group), they have higher scores than the Optimisation group for

both the extent of performance measurement and customer feedback. This may mean that the

Continuous Improvement group have a clearer idea of their actual success.

Insert Table 5 Here

In relation to success measures respondents were given the option to mark if they had not

seen any evidence on which to based their assessment of success. This data is captured under

the “Not Known” column in Table 5. It is important to gain this insight as it informs us of the

lack of either collection or reporting of success measurement in KAM. We find the

Introducing KAM group has an average of 44% unknown success measures, Embedding

KAM 26%, Optimising KAM 11% and Continuous Improvement KAM 8%. It is a surprising

finding that such a high proportion of organisations would embark on a 6+ year organisational

change strategy without any specific targets or performance measurement and reporting

structure in place to ensure its continual usefulness, and is something organisations should

perhaps start investigating earlier in the process. We now continue with a discussion of what

KAM looks like in each of the 4 stages.

Four Stages of Transitioning to KAM

Introducing KAM - The Introducing KAM stage is typified by the formal announcement

of a program driven to a certain extent by a business case (although this becomes more

13
important as KAM develops) and the identification of specific key accounts (usually by

volume). This leads to the creation of a new role of “key account manager” (Kam), which the

seven syndicate members suggested usually consists of a title change for some members of

the sales force, but should have more careful consideration bearing in mind the objectives

companies have for implementing KAM in the first place.

Much of the Introductory KAM stage is driven by a KAM Champion (mean score, 4.3 out

of 7), and in some organisations they are able to count on senior managers to buy-in to the

initiative thereby assisting its development. However, there is too much focus at this stage on

superficial “naming” parts of a KAM programme and on raising the service levels for key

accounts, rather than actually changing the dynamic of customer engagement or the culture of

the organisation. This means the company is likely to have increased its costs, perhaps even

communicated a desire to increase service levels for customers, without actively identifying

how this would improve revenue or profits in the long term (relatively few targets, low

performance measurement and few policies and procedures to limit Kams’ activities).

Embedding KAM - The Embedding stage moves focus from identifying accounts and

changing sales people into Kams, and puts far more emphasis on appointing the right sort of

person and investing in training them to fulfil a distinct role. This role is now perceived as a

team role (development of KAM teams), with higher levels of policy and procedure to follow,

including a planning role (development of individual account plans) and monitoring role

(increase in targets for KAM and performance measurement), all of which add to the

administrative burden on the Kams and make it less about selling and more akin to marketing.

14
 In this stage some companies become disillusioned with KAM if they are unable to make

the transition from sales-led KAM to marketing-led KAM. This is driven by the frequent

realisation at this stage that KAM has increased costs to serve (Table 5, line 3) including joint

investment and activities which may not necessarily involve immediate revenue return. There

are also substantial increases in the amount of additional services they offer key accounts and

the amount of internal resource Kams are accessing. However, on the positive side, more

senior managers are buying into the system at this stage and more of the organisation is

engaged in the program, which starts to influence leadership and organisational culture.

Companies may also start to look beyond volume as the signifier of account selection, and

concentrate more on future growth potential than historical performance.

Optimising KAM - This phase sees high financial investment in building the program

into the fabric of the organisation. We find structural change in the organisation to adapt to

being KAM-structured, a big push by senior management to change the organisation’s culture

to KAM orientation through education and engagement of the entire organisation in KAM,

and internal processes, policies and IT systems being adapted. In customer management we

also find a move towards more senior people being Kams, and this is reflected in a large

increase in the active involvement of top management with the accounts (perhaps even acting

as Kams themselves). There are also increased service levels (again) and more joint activities

and joint investments with customers, all of which add to the cost of the programme.

However this increase in expenditure does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with an increase

in measurement. We find targets begin being set for KAM, but there is actually a reduction in

the internal performance measurement, leading the companies to rely more on benchmarking

against competitors and customer feedback to measure performance. This of course is likely

15
to rise if the customer is getting all of this increased service – but does it lead to higher

profits?

The overall performance of KAM measure is far higher in this group than in the others

(Table 5). However, although Table 5 shows a clear perception of an increase in revenue, it

also shows that the rate of profit increase does fall (steeply but not significantly). It may be

that the large investment in KAM and a change in measurement may be causing some

delusion in this group about actual performance; perhaps, as the organisation has become so

focused on KAM success, they have to believe it is successful. This issue notwithstanding, the

KAM program is now definitely bigger, more expensive and for many companies they may

have reached a point of no return in relation to the company’s future being invested in a

successful KAM program.

Continuous Improvement KAM - The work of the syndicate was explicit in suggesting

that best practice KAM is not a stationary position, but that KAM needs continual

rejuvenation and support and understanding from across the organisation. Therefore the

transition to a best practice KAM organisation is reliant on persistent and continuous

improvement of the program, refining it to make it best value for the firm. One of the

implications of this is that companies become more targeted and focused on the business case

for KAM, leading to higher levels of customer selectivity (more defined selection criteria and

clearer segregation between key accounts and non-key accounts) and a reduction in the levels

of structural change to the organisation as it consolidates the program, allied with a reduction

in the involvement of top management (who tend to be more expensive resources and are later

used for relationship building rather than maintenance). There is even a decline in the number

16
of accounts defined as key according to the syndicate, which leads to a more focused,

business case led, widely understood and supported program with internal target setting and

measurement of contribution, not revenue or benchmarking, being the driving force behind

perceived success. Therefore in the Continuous Improvement phase of transitioning we

actually see KAM as an embedded nexus for strategic management of the biggest potential

customers, supported by an organisation-wide commitment to investment in these

opportunities. However, there is also a strong focus on cost management. Whereas in previous

stages companies were looking to expand and invest heavily in KAM, in this final phase we

see increased attention on selection, more focus on the business case and a slight reduction in

expensive human and structural refinements.

Discussion and Implications

Previous literature has struggled to provide generic models to assist companies with KAM

implementation. The transitioning model in this paper represents a firm contribution to the

KAM literature in this area by providing not only a clear model of the long term process of

KAM implementation (Wengler et al, 2006) but also a model that transcends industry and

sales type.

The first major contribution of this paper is that is identifies that KAM is never

implemented but that there is an ongoing, continuous and very long term commitment to

continual improvement for the best practice KAM companies. This makes intuitive sense,

because if a company is competing based on better relationships it is subject to continuous

change through evolving interpersonal relationships and network ties. It is also a less tangible

value proposition to customers than new product innovation or cost leadership. Therefore the

competitive advantage of a good KAM programme can never be taken for granted by the

17
supplier, and must be continuously refined and built upon to maintain an industry leading

customer management system. This has practical implications for firms undertaking KAM,

which need to be aware of the time and resource commitment they are instigating, and accept

the level of organisational upheaval resulting from successful KAM programmes.

There is also a considerable theoretical implication from this research which challenges

the existing paradigm that KAM is a sales and marketing tactic which can be implemented by

and within those departments (e.g. Guenzi et al., 2007; 2009; McDonald et al., 1997;

Montgomery et al., 1998; Cheverton, 2008; Ojasalo, 2001, 2002; Pardo et al., 2006). This

research suggests that KAM is a long-term organisation-wide change management process,

taking in excess of 6 years to impact and that impacts upon the whole organisation

infrastructure, from top management through to product development and service providers.

Our work challenges researchers to account for the dynamic nature of KAM within their

choice of methodology, and not view their research subjects as having achieved their ends,

but being on a trajectory towards continuous improvement.

The stage model itself provides a substantive contribution to the field as it shows a clear

process through which companies have adapted from sales-led to KAM-led organisations.

They start most often with a champion who instils the need for change in the company.

Implementation then flows through a series of phases starting with the Introductory phase

which is about raising awareness and renaming sections of the organisation without

fundamentally changing anything of substance. Then comes the Embedding phase where the

realisation that KAM is more than a sales and marketing tactic is identified, leading to a

growth in specialised training and change in job specification for Kams and their newly

18
established teams. This is then supported by a growth in organisation wide support for the

program and changes to policies and procedure. Ultimately this leads to the Optimisation

phase where the sheer scale of required change for successful KAM is realised. Top

management begin to take active involvement in the accounts, and in so doing reshape the

entire organisational structure and culture to realign the strategic thrust of the organisation

through a broad scope, high investment group of Key Accounts. However, ultimately these

high levels of investment cannot be sustained over such a large KAM program and as the

business begins to understand the business case for KAM and the methods of measuring

performance are improved, they begin to improve selectivity of accounts and build a

sustainable business model around a reduced selection pool of investment accounts. This

requires Continuous Improvement, but leads to consistent and measurable growth and

improved competitive capability. Taken together these stages provide the first generalisable

and robust exploration of the process of transitioning to KAM within the extant literature, and

therefore acts as a starting point for identifying how companies could improve and shorten

this process to reduce the mistakes and inefficiencies inherent within KAM implementation

(Montgomery et al., 1998; Napolitano 1997; Ojasalo, 2001).

A commonly made mistake is obvious from the analysis here: companies appear to act

and implement KAM without appropriate planning, or even scoping to see if KAM is right for

their company in the first instance. This typically leads to an initial two-year period of

renaming parts of the sales and marketing structure, and making promises to customers about

higher service levels, without ensuring the ability of the organisation to deliver on these

promises at a profit. The cascading effect of this is to lead to long periods (up to 6 years) of

over-servicing accounts that have been inappropriately selected for investment, i.e. high

volume as opposed to high growth potential (Gosselin and Bauwen, 2006; McDonald et al.

19
2000; Ojasalo, 2001; Spencer, 1999; Wong, 1998). This is exacerbated by a lack of

understanding about the nature of KAM as a different role to sales (Davies et al., 2009, Holt

and McDonald, 2001), leading perhaps to inappropriate people appointed into Kam roles and

over-servicing inappropriate accounts, without targets, measurement and controls to identify

when the accounts or Kams are underperforming (Montgomery et al., 1998; Napolitano 1997;

Ojasalo, 2001). Even if the company has managed to identify an appropriate account

portfolio, they are still left with a situation where Kams have insufficient institutional,

structural, informational and resource support to provide the necessary customer service and

relationship management for successful KAM (Ojasalo, 2001; Workman et al., 2003).

Therefore we return to the need for a period of Scoping KAM as suggested by our

syndication.

A further managerial contribution of this paper is the identification of problems with self-

delusion on the behalf of the supplier in a KAM relationship. The bottom two lines of Table 5

show a comparison between the perceived performance of the KAM programmes based on an

average of all the measures above, compared to a single-question measure provided in the

survey. The average performance measure shows a slight increase in real terms over the

groups, whereas the single answer measure shows strong significant variability, particularly in

the Optimising group. The better-informed Continuous Improvement group has an identical

score over the two comparables, whereas Introductory and Embedding KAM groups have

much lower overall rated performance compared to their average, although the lack of

reporting of some of these measures could mean that the average measure may be artificially

higher than reality. What this perhaps suggests is something again identified during the

syndication that, as more money is invested in the programme during the optimisation period,

people can get emotionally attached and “deluded” as to how successful KAM actually is as

20
an offensive competitive technique. However, as they progress towards better practice they

notice the over-investment and over-stretching of the program and begin to condense it down,

becoming more selective in terms of both the account selection criteria (leading to a reduced

number of key accounts) and where and how much money is invested in relationship building,

non-revenue generating activities. This finding suggests that practitioners should aim to be

selective earlier in the process, aiming to prevent over-stretching of the KAM program from

the beginning.

Limitations and Conclusions

Although this study provides valuable insights into the practice of transitioning to KAM,

it is affected by a number of limitations. Firstly the data was collected from KAM executive

education programmes; this may lead to bias because companies sending their employees on

externally-provided KAM training may do so because they have experienced difficulties with

their KAM implementation. The extent to which this impacts on the data is unclear, but based

on the data provided in table 2 we believe it was a compromise worth accepting to gain true

insight into real KAM programs. A second limitation (caused by UK-based nature of the

training) was an over-reliance on UK-based Kams. Although we did have more than 90 non-

UK Kams and there appeared to be no significant difference based on nationality, it is

possible, based on evidence from papers such as Al-Husan and Brennan (2009), that cultural

differences may exist within KAM programmes that are not accounted for in this model. This

is something which will require future research.

Beyond sampling methods a further limitation is created by the sample size. Although

three years in collection, the data set is still small for utilizing many analysis techniques. We

21
therefore have been reliant on qualitative assessments on which to base group delineation

within the data (i.e. the syndicate’s opinions), as well as a more limited selection of

techniques to apply to the data. However, taken as a 100% sample of Kams rather than other

sales people or customers, the sample size is larger than previous research published in this

field; moreover, we argue that the contribution of the paper is important and timely to the

ongoing exploration of this topic.

The paper itself provides an exploratory model of transitioning to KAM. Through this

model we can identify both the length of time and resource commitment required by firms in

undertaking this initiative, as well as the need for the literature to view KAM as an ongoing

process, rather than a stationary, already implemented tactic. The model demonstrates both

the elements of a KAM programme and the organisational learning that occurs through the

process of transitioning from sales to KAM. It shows a number of weaknesses in how

companies have approached KAM implementation and through careful analysis can provide

some tentative suggestions on how to improve this system. However, there are still large gaps

in both the identification of how general this model is, and in providing a better method of

transitioning. This stage model therefore provides an empirically strong and much requested

model of transitioning / implementing KAM which can provide insight and practical value to

practitioners and academics alike in understanding KAM and how successful programs look.

22
References
Abratt, R and Kelly, P M (2002), “Customer -- supplier partnerships Perceptions of a
successful key account management program”, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol.
31, No. (5), pp. 467-476.
Aijo, T. (1996), “The theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of relationship marketing:
environmental factors behind the changing marketing paradigm”, European Journal of
Marketing, Vol. 30, No. (2), pp. 8-18.
Al-Husan Baddar, F. & Brennan, R (2009), “Strategic Account Management in an Emerging
Economy: A Case Study Approach”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.
Forthcoming.
Alonzo, V (1996), “Selling changes”, Incentive, Vol. 170, No. (9), pp. 45-46.
Arnett, D B, Macy, B A and Wilcox, J B (2005), “The role of core selling teams in supplier-
buyer relationships”, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Vol. 25, No.
(1), pp. 27-42.
Barrett, J. (1986), “Why major account selling works”, Industrial Marketing Management,
Vol. 15, No. (1), pp. 63-73.
Bolen Jr., W.H. & Davis, R. J. (1997), “Overreaching For Mass Retailers”, McKinsey
Quarterly, Vol. 4, pp. 40-53.
Brady, N (2004), “In search of market orientation: An experiment in Key Account
Management”, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, Vol. 22, No. (2/3), pp. 144-159.
Cheverton, P (2008) “No accounting for difference [global account management]”,
Engineering & Technology, Vol. 3, No. (7), pp. 78-81.
Christopher, M., Payne, A., & Ballantyne, D. (1991), Relationship Marketing: Bringing
Quality, Customer Service and Marketing Together, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Colletti, J.A. & Tubridy, G.S. (1987), “Effective major account management”, Journal of
Personal Selling and Sales Management, Vol. 7, pp. 1-10.
Cooper, R & Kaplan, R.S. (1991), “Profit Priorities from Activity-Based Costing”, Harvard
Business Review, Vol. 69, No. (3), pp. 130-135.
Davies, I.A.; Ryals, L.; Holt, S. (2009), “Relationship Management: a sales role, or a state of
mind? An investigation of functions and attitudes across a business-to-business sales
force”, Industrial Marketing Management, forthcoming.
Dishman, P. and Nitze, P.S. (1998), “National accounts revisited”, Industrial Marketing
Management, Vol. 27, No. (1), pp. 19-30.
Ewart, J (1995), “Building better business relationships”, Management, Vol. 42, No. (9), pp.
30-32.
Georges, L and Eggert, A (2003), “Key Account Managers' role within the value creation
process of collaborative relationships”, Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, Vol.
10, No. (4), pp. 1-22.
Gosman, M. L. and Kelly, T. (2000), “Increased Buyer Concentration and Its Effects on
Profitability in the Manufacturing Sector”, Review of Industrial Organization, Vol. 17,
No. (1), pp. 41-59.

23
Gosman, M. L. and Kelly, T. (2002), “Big customers and their suppliers: a case examining
changes in business relationships and their financial effects”, Issues in Accounting
Education, Vol. 17, No. (1), pp. 41-56.
Gosselin, D P and Bauwen, G A (2006), “Strategic account management: customer value
creation through customer alignment”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing,
Vol. 21, No. (6), pp. 376-385.
Grönroos, C. (1994), “From marketing mix to relationship marketing: Toward a paradigm
shift in marketing”, Management Decision, Vol. 32, No. (2), pp. 4-32.
Grönroos, C. (1997), “Value-driven relational marketing: from products to resources and
competencies”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 13, No. (5), pp. 407-19.
Guenzi, P, Georges, L and Pardo, C (2009), “The impact of strategic account managers'
behaviors on relational outcomes: An empirical study” Industrial Marketing
Management – Forthcoming.
Guenzi, P, Pardo, C and Georges, L (2007), “Relational selling strategy and key account
managers' relational behaviors: An exploratory study”, Industrial Marketing
Management, Vol. 6, No. (1), pp. 121-133.
Gummesson, E. (1997), “Relationship marketing as a paradigm shift: some conclusions from
the 30R approach”, Management Decision, Vol. 35, No. (4), pp. 267-272.
Helander, A and Möller, K (2008), “How to become solution provider: System supplier's
strategic tools”, Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, Vol. 15, No. (3), pp. 247-
287.
Holt, S. & McDonald, M. (2001), “A boundary role theory perspective of the global account
manager”, Journal of Selling and Major Account Management, Vol. 3, No. (4), pp. 9-
31.
Holt, S. (2003) The role of the global account manager: a boundary role theory perspective
PhD Thesis Cranfield School of Management.
Homburg, C Workman J P and Jensen, O (2002), “A configurational perspective on Key
Account Management”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 66, No. (2), pp. 38-60.
Homburg, C., Workman Jr. J.P. & Jensen, O. (2000), “Fundamental changes in marketing
organization: the movement toward a customer-focused organizational structure”,
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 28, No. (4), pp. 459-478.
Hughes, J. & Weiss, J. (2007). Getting Closer to Key Suppliers. CPO Agenda, Vol. 3, No. (1),
pp. 18-25.
Ivens, B and Pardo, C (2007), “Are key account relationships different? Empirical results on
supplier strategies and customer reactions”, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 36,
No. (4), pp. 470-482.
Ivens, B S and Pardo, C (2008), “Key-account-management in business markets: an empirical
test of common assumptions”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 23, No.
(5), pp. 301-310.
Kalwani, M.U. & Narayandas, N. (1995), “Long-term manufacturer-supplier relationships: do
they pay off for supplier firms?”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 59, No. (1), pp. 1-16.

24
Kempeners, M A and van der Hart, H W (1999), “Designing account management
organizations”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 14, No. (4), pp. 310-
327.
Koka R B and Prescott, J (2002), “Strategic alliances as social capital: A multidimensional
view”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 23, No. (9), pp. 795-816.
McDonald, M, Millman, T and Rogers, B (1997), “Key Account Management: Theory,
practice and challenges”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 13, No. (8), pp. 737-
757.
McDonald, M, Rogers, B and Woodburn, D (2000), Key Customers: How to Manage them
Profitably, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
McDonald, M. & Woodburn, D. (2007) Key Account Management: The Definitive Guide,
Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
McDonald, M., Millman, T., & Rogers, B. (1997), “Key account management: theory,
practice and challenges”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 13, No. (8), pp. 737-
757.
Millman, T and Wilson, K (1999), “Processual issues in key account management:
Underpinning the customer-facing organisation”, Journal of Business & Industrial
Marketing, Vol. 14, No. (4), pp. 328-337.
Millman, T F (1996), “Global Key Account Management and systems selling”, International
Business Review, Vol. 5, No. (6), pp. 631-645.
Millman, T. & Wilson, K. (1995), “From key account selling to key account management”,
Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing Science, Vol. 1, No. (1), pp. 9-21.
Millman, T. & Wilson, K. (1996). Developing key account management competences.
Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing Science, Vol. 2, No. (2), pp. 7-22.
Millman, T. & Wilson, K. (1998), “Global account management: reconciling organisational
complexity and cultural diversity”, Proceeding of the 14th Annual Industrial Marketing
and Purchasing (IMP). Turku School of Economics and Business Administration,
Finland, (September).
Millman, T. & Wilson, K. (1999), “Developing global account management competencies”,
Proceedings of the 15th Annual IMP Conference, University College Dublin, Ireland,
(September).
Millman, T. (1996), “Global key account management and systems selling”, International
Business Review, Vol. 5, No. (6), pp. 631-645.
Montgomery, D., Yip, G., Villalonga, B. (1998), “The use and performance effect of global
account management: an empirical analysis using structural equation modeling”,
Stanford Business School Working Paper, pp 1481.
Napolitano, L. (1997), “Customer – supplier partnering: A strategy whose time has come”,
Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Vol. 17, pp. 1-8.
Narayandas, D. & Rangan, V. K. (2004). Building and Sustaining Buyer-Seller Relationships
in Mature Industrial Markets. Journal of Marketing, Vol. 68, No. (3), pp. 63-77.
Natti, S.; Halinen, A. and Hanttu, N. (2006), “Customer knowledge transfer and key account
management in professional service organizations”, International Journal of Service
Industry Management, Vol. 17, No. (4), pp. 304-319.

25
Ojasalo, J (2001), “Key account management at company and individual levels in business-to-
business relationships”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 16, No. (3),
pp. 199-321.
Ojasalo, J (2002a), “Customer commitment in Key Account Management”, Marketing
Review, Vol. 2, No. (3), pp. 301-319.
Ojasalo, J (2002b), “Key Account Management in information-intensive services”, Journal of
Retailing & Consumer Services, Vol. 9, No. (5), pp. 269-277.
Ojasalo, J (2004), “Key network management”, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 33,
No. (3), pp. 195-206.
Pardo, C (1997), “Key Account Management in the Business to Business Field: The Key
Account's Point of View”, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Vol. 17,
No. (4), pp. 17-26.
Pardo, C (1999), “Key account management in the business-to-business field: A French
overview”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 14, No. (4), pp. 276-290.
Pardo, C, Henneberg, S C, Mouzas, S and Naudë, P (2006), “Unpicking the meaning of value
in key account management”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 40, No. (11+12),
pp. 1360-1374.
Pardo, C., Salle, R. & Spencer, R. (1995), “The key accountization of the firm”, Industrial
Marketing Management, Vol. 22, pp. 123-134.
Piercy, N F and Lane, N (2003), “Transformation of the traditional salesforce: Imperatives for
Intelligence, Interface and Integration”, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 19,
No. (5+6), pp. 563-582.
Piercy, N F and Lane, N (2006b), “The hidden risks in strategic account management
strategy”, Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 27, No. (2), pp. 18-26.
Piercy, N F and Lane, N (2006a), “The underlying vulnerabilities in Key Account
Management strategies”, European Management Journal, Vol. 24, No. (2+3), pp. 151-
162.
Reinartz, W J and Kumar, V (2000), “On the profitability of long-life customers in a
noncontractual setting: an empirical investigation and implications for marketing”.
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 64, No. (4), pp. 17-35.
Reinartz, W J and Kumar, V (2002), “The mismanagement of customer loyalty”. Harvard
Business Review, Vol. 80, No. (7), pp. 86-94.
Reisel, W D, Chia, S-L and Maloles III, C M (2005), “Job insecurity spillover to Key
Account Management: Negative effects on performance, effectiveness, adaptiveness,
and esprit de corps”, Journal of Business & Psychology, Vol. 19, No. (4), pp. 483-503.
Rogers, B and Ryals, L J (2007), “Using the repertory grid to access the underlying realities
in key account relationships”, International Journal of Market Research, Vol. 49, No.
(5), pp. 595-612.
Ryals, L and Rogers, B (2007), “Key account planning: benefits, barriers and best practice”,
Journal of Strategic Marketing, Vol. 15, No. (2+3), pp. 209-222.
Ryals, L J and Humphries, A S (2007), “Managing key business-to-business relationships:
What marketing can learn from supply chain management”, Journal of Service
Research, Vol. 9, No. (4), pp. 312-326.

26
Ryals, L J and Rodgers, B (2006a), “Sales compensation plans – one size does not fit all”,
Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, Vol. 13, No. (4), pp.
354-362.
Ryals, L J and Rogers, B (2006b), “Holding up the mirror: The impact of strategic
procurement practices on account management”, Business Horizons, Vol. 49, No. (1),
pp. 41-50.
Ryals, L J. And McDonald, M. (2008) Key Account Plans: The Practitioners' Guide To
Profitable Planning. Oxford: Butterworth-heinemann.
Ryals, L J.and Holt, S (2007), “Creating and capturing value in KAM relationships”, Journal
of Strategic Marketing, Vol. 15, No. (5), pp. 403-420.
Sengupta, S and Krapfel, R E (1997), “Switching costs in Key Account Relationships”,
Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, Vol. 17, No. (4), pp. 9-14.
Sengupta, S, Krapfel, R E and Pusateri, M A. (1997), “The strategic sales force”, Marketing
Management, Vol. 6, No. (2), 28.
Senn, C. (1999), “Implementing global account management: a process oriented approach”,
Journal of Selling and Major Account Management, Vol. 1, No. (3), pp. 10-19.
Shapiro, B.P. & Moriarty, R.T. (1980), “National account management”, Report 80- 104,
Marketing Science Institute.
Shapiro, B.P. & Moriarty, R.T. (1982), “Management: emerging insights”, Report 82-100,
Marketing Science Institute.
Shapiro, B.P. & Moriarty, R.T. (1984a), “Organizing the national account force”, Report 84-
101, Marketing Science Institute.
Shapiro, B.P. & Moriarty, R.T. (1984b), “Support systems for national account management
programs: promises made, promises kept”, Report 84-102, Marketing Science Institute.
Sharma, A (1997), “Who prefers Key Account Management programs? An investigation of
business buying behavior and buying firm characteristics”, Journal of Personal Selling
& Sales Management, Vol. 7, No. (4), pp. 27-39.
Shetcliffe, J (2003), “Key Account Management”, Insurance Brokers’ Monthly and Insurance
Adviser, Vol. 53, No. (10), pp. 22-25.
Sheth, J.N. & Parvatiyar, A. (1995), “The evolution of relationship marketing”, International
Business Review, Vol. 4 (4), pp. 397-418.
Spencer, R (1999), “Key accounts: Effectively managing strategic complexity”, Journal of
Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 14, No. (4), pp. 291-309.
Stevenson, T.H. (1980), “Classifying a customer as a national account”, Industrial Marketing
Management, Vol. 9, pp. 133–196.
Stevenson, T.H. (1981). Payoffs from national account management. Industrial Marketing
Management, Vol. 10, pp. 119–124.
Storbacka, K.; Ryals, L.; Davies, I.A.; Nenonen, S. (2009) “The changing role of sales:
viewing sales as a strategic, cross-functional process”, European Journal of Marketing,
Vol. 43, No. (7/8), pp. 890-906.
Tabachnick, B G and Fidell, L S (2001) Using Multivariate Statistics (4th Edition), Harper,
New York.

27
Tutton, M. (1987), “Segmenting a national account”, Business Horizons, Vol. 30, No. (1), pp.
61-68.
Weeks, W.A. and Stevens, C.G. (1997), “National account management sales training and
directions for improvement”, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 26, pp. 423-431.
Weilbaker, D.C. & Weeks, W.A. (1997), “The evolution of national account management: a
literature perspective. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management”, Vol. 17,
No. (4), pp. 24-39.
Weilbaker, D.C. (1999), “Global account management and compensation: lessons to be
learned”, research report, Northern Illinois University, De Kalb, IL.
Wendel, M. & Kamakura, W.A. (2000), Market segmentation: conceptual and
methodological foundations, 2d ed. Kluwer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Wengler, S, Ehret, M and Saab, S (2006), “Implementation of Key Account Management:
Who, why, and how?: An exploratory study on the current implementation of Key
Account Management programs”, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 35, No. (1),
pp. 103-112.
Wilson, K and Millman, T (2003), “The global account manager as political entrepreneur”,
Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 32, No. (2), pp. 151-158.
Wilson, K. (1993), “Managing the industrial sales force of the 1990s”, Journal of Marketing
Management, Vol. 9, No. (2), pp. 123–139.
Wong, Y H (1998), “Key to key account management: relationship (guanxi) model”,
International Marketing Review, Vol. 15, No. (3), pp. 215-231.
Workman, J P, Homburg, C and Jensen, O (2003), “Intraorganizational determinants of Key
Account Management effectiveness”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
Vol. 31, No. (1), pp. 3-21.
Wotruba, T.R. (1996), “The transformation of industrial selling: causes and consequences”,
Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 25, No. (5), pp. 327-338.
Yip, G. Adn Bink, A. (2008), Managing Global Customers: An Integrated Approach, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Yip, G.S. & Madsen, T.L. (1996), “Global account management: the new frontier in
relationship marketing”, International Marketing Review, Vol. 13, No. (3), pp. 24-42.
Zupancic, D (2008), “Towards an integrated framework of key account management”,
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 23, No. (5), pp. 323-331.

28
 Figure 1: Transitioning to KAM Summary
Rejuvenate program
Revise program to
new knowledge Become more selective
High
Restructure org. Expand knowledge in
and processes org.

Involve top Mgt.

Become customer Continuous
centric Improvement
Redefine program
Capability

Gear up
Train specialist KAMs
Locate Champion
Indiv. customer plans
Build the case Optimising
Targets and
Appoint KAMs Measurement KAM
Define KA’s
Embedding
Introducing KAM
Low KAM

1 2 3 4 5 6…
Time (yrs)

29
 Table 1: Elements of KAM implementation in the literature
Elements of KAM
Implementation
Senior manager buy-in
Company wide knowledge of
KAM
A KAM Champion
Active involvement of top
management in KAM
An organisational culture that
supports KAM
Everyone in the organisation
understanding KAM
Defined key account selection
criteria
Clearly identified key
accounts
Individual key account plans
A well developed feedback
process with key customers
Joint activities with key
accounts
Joint investment with key
accounts
A business case for KAM
Targets for key accounts
Benchmarking against other
organisations for KAM
Measurement of the
performance of the KAM
program
Appointed Key Account
Managers
Fully trained Key Account
Managers
KAM teams
Specific motivation and
reward schemes for Key
Account Managers
Changes in organisational
structure to accommodate
KAM
Established policies and
procedures for handling key
accounts
Key Account Managers
having good access to internal
resources
Differentiated and higher
service levels for key accounts
IT support for KAM
Papers
Brady, 2004; Homburg et al., 2002;
Montgomery et al., 1998; Napolitano
1997
Napolitano 1997; Workman et al., 2003;
Yip and Madsen, 1996
McDonald et al. 2000
Napolitano 1997; Millman and Wilson
1999; Workman et al., 2003
Homburg et al. 2002; Millman and
Wilson 1999; Pardo, 1999; Workman et
al., 2003
Homburg et al. 2002; Brady 2004; Reisel
et al., 2005; Workman et al., 2003; Yip
and Madsen, 1996
Gosselin and Bauwen, 2006; McDonald
et al. 2000; Ojasalo, 2001; Spencer,
1999; Wong, 1998
Gosselin and Bauwen, 2006; McDonald
et al. 2000; Ojasalo, 2001
McDonald et al. 2000; Ojasalo, 2001;
Ryals and Rodgers, 2007
Napolitano 1997
Koka and Prescott 2002; Workman et al.,
2003
Koka and Prescott 2002; Ojasalo, 2001
Reinartz and Kumar 2000, 2002
Napolitano 1997
Napolitano 1997
Montgomery et al., 1998; Napolitano
1997; Ojasalo, 2001
McDonald et al. 1997; Weeks and
Stevens, 1997
McDonald et al. 1997; Ojasalo, 2001;
Shetcliffe 2004; Weeks and Stevens,
1997; Yip and Madsen, 1996
Alonzo 1996; Guenzi and Pardo, 2007;
Arnett et al., 2005
Ryals and Rodgers, 2006a; Weilbaker,
1999
Coletti and Tubrity, 1987; McDonald et
al., 1997; Millman and Wilson, 1996;
Pardo, 1999
Gosselin and Bauwen, 2006; McDonald
et al. 2000; Senn, 1999
Ojasalo, 2001, 2002; Workman et al.,
2003; Ryals and Humphries, 2007
Workman et al. 2003; Ivens and Pardo,
2007
Brady, 2004; Ojasalo, 2001; Workman et
al. 2003
Description
Manger buy in is necessary for success
Increased overall knowledge of KAM
improves
A pioneer often pushes KAM through the
organisation
Manger buy in and active involvement is
necessary for success
Culture is one of the three biggest
influences on KAM implementation in
M&W and HW&J discuss espirit de corps
Espirit de corps
Customer portfolio matrix
Identify those accounts that are growth
attractive
Each account should be planned separately
to ensure appropriate service
Evaluation procedure in KAM is lacking
Social exchanges such as KAM can provide
competitive benefits
Strategic relationship can lead to mutual
investment
Look at the lifetime value of customers
Evaluation procedure in KAM is lacking
Evaluation procedure in KAM is lacking
Evaluation procedure in KAM is lacking
Skill sets for KAMs are different to those in
sales
Skill sets for KAMs are different to those in
sales
Clear move since the mid-1990's towards
teams of sales and account managers
Account managers are usually rewarded
with higher salary and less bonus
KAM organisations should be differently
structured to Sales organisations
formalised arrangements for accounts lead
to improved co-ordination
Key accounts are better served and
therefore the managers need influence over
gaining the necessary service levels
Key account should get higher service
levels
Key account should get higher service
levels
30
Table 2: Summary of quantitative studies in KAM
Sample % of Which
Authors Year Survey's target Size KAMs
Guenzi, Georges & Pardo 2009 KAMs 127 100%
Ivens & Pardo 2008 Purchasers 297 0%
Ivens & Pardo 2007 Purchasers 297 0%
International companies +
Ryals & Rogers 2007 customers 37 43%
Guenzi, Pardo & Georges 2007 KAMs 127 100%
Gosselin & Bauwen 2006 Account Managers 115 100%*
Wengler, Ehret & Saab 2006 Sales Engineers 91** 18.7%
Reisel, Chia, & Maloles 2005 Operations 353 0%
Arnett, Macy & Wilcox 2005 Selling teams 60 50%
Homburg, Workman Jr., &
Jensen 2002 Head of Sales Organisation 385 9%
Georges, Laurent; Eggert,
Andreas 2003 Purchasers 102 0%
Workman, Homburg & Jensen 2003 Head of Sales Organisation 385 9%
Abratt & Kelly 2002 KAMs and Customers 190 48%
Homburg, Workman Jr., &
Jensen 2000 Head of Sales Organisation 385 9%
Montgomery, Yip & Villalonga 1998 Senior International Execs. 191 0%‡
Sengupta & Krapfel 1997 NAMA members 176 100%
Sharma 1997 Purchasers 109 0%
* 100% is assumed as the actual figures are unreported, the evidence shown elsewhere however may suggest this assumption is in error
** Only 54% actually had a KAM program
† 49% of the sample were Sales and Marketing VPs indicating a responsibility for KAM, however 171 (45% of the sample) had no
formalised KAM Program according to the results of the Homburg et al., 2000 paper.
‡ GAM survey with only 136 reported using GAM

31
Table 3: Descriptive statistics on respondents
Number
Region of companies
UK 113
North America 22
Northern Europe 38
Southern Europe 18
Middle East and North Africa 9
Australasia 4
204
Industry
Service 48
Professional & Financial Service 48
Industrial & Complex
Manufacture 41
Manufacture 49
Unknown 18
204
Years in Sales / KAM
1-5yrs 49
6-10yrs 63
10-15yrs 40
15-20yrs 36
20-25yrs 12
25-30yrs 4
204
Years of KAM Program
<2 77
2 to 4 46
4 to 6 53
>6 28
204

32
Table 4: Results of the Games-Howell post hoc ANOVAs for the Elements of KAM,
segmented by age of program
Elements of the KAM Program Introducing Embedding Optimising Continuous
KAM KAM KAM Imp.
(<2 yrs.) (2-4yrs.) (4-6yrs.) (>6yrs.)
Benchmarking KAM 2.24 2.46 3.06* 1.79**
All in Org. understand KAM 2.06 2.37 3.53** 4.00†
Specific motivation & reward 2.07 3.36** 4.13† 4.07‡
Have IT support systems 2.11 3.35** 4.28* 4.07†
Measure performance 2.62 4.22** 3.75† 4.64‡
Fully trained KAMs 2.61 4.30** 4.45† 4.64‡
Joint investment with KA 3.24 3.37 4.62** 4.54†
Est policies & procedures 2.93 3.93** 4.68† 4.68‡
Organisational culture 2.96 3.76* 5.08** 4.64‡
Co.has good knowledge of KAM 2.86 3.93** 4.83** 5.10†
Change org. structure for KAM 3.20 3.54 5.64** 3.64**
Well developed feedback 3.39 3.91 4.47† 4.75‡
Have KAM teams 2.80 4.39** 5.04† 5.29†
Individual key account plans 3.49 4.67** 5.08† 4.25‡
KAM champion 4.30 4.17 4.66 4.36
Defined selection criteria 3.39 4.47** 5.00† 5.57*
Joint activities with KA 3.35 4.46** 5.57** 4.86‡
Internal resources 3.45 4.61** 5.47* 5.04‡
Top mgt active involvement 3.59 4.35 5.74** 4.71**
Business case 3.94 4.59 4.96** 5.39†
KA higher service levels 3.94 4.86* 5.47* 4.86‡
Senior manager buy-in 3.94 4.67* 5.22** 5.32†
Targets for KAM 3.74 4.98** 5.98* 6.00†
Clear identification of KA 4.51 4.98 5.49** 6.25**
Appointed KAMs 4.17 5.27* 6.30** 5.50‡
* = Significantly different to the preceding group at < 0.05 level
** = Significantly different to the preceding group at <0.01 level
† = Significantly different to the group two levels preceding but not to the directly preceding group (at least 0.05 level)
‡ = Significantly different to the group three levels preceding but not to the directly preceding group (at least 0.05 level)

33
 Table 5: Results of the Games-Howell post hoc ANOVAs for the success of KAM,
segmented by age of program
Introducing Embedding Optimising Continuous
KAM KAM KAM Imp.
Mean Not Mean Not Mean Not Mean Not
Known Known Known Known
Increased share of customer 4.14 34 4.62 7 4.94 5 5.08† 2
spend
Revenues from key customers 3.81 34 4.75** 14 5.38* 4 4.78* 3
have grown faster than from
non-key customers
Costs to serve key customers 3.84 45 4.33 16 4.45 6 4.77 4
have grown faster than for non-
key customers
Profit margins on key customers 3.63 34 4.72** 17 4.13 8 4.91‡ 3
have increased
Relations with key customers 4.80 27 5.37 3 5.75† 0 5.85‡ 1
have improved
Our customer satisfaction 4.31 32 5.14** 17 5.72* 7 4.96 2
ratings with key customers has
gone up
Retention of key customers have 4.11 32 5.26** 11 5.08† 7 5.11‡ 0
gone up
We have obtained increased 3.66 39 4.76** 13 5.45† 11 4.81‡ 2
advocacy
Amount of shared investment 3.07 31 3.69 10 4.77** 3 3.85 2
has increased
Average of Performance 3.93 34 4.50 12 4.51 6 4.53 2
Measure
Overall Rated Performance 2.86 3.89** 5.28** 4.53*
* = Significantly different to the preceding group at < 0.05 level
** = Significantly different to the preceding group at <0.01 level
† = Significantly different to the group two levels preceding but not to the directly preceding group (at least 0.05 level)
‡ = Significantly different to the group three levels preceding but not to the directly preceding group (at least 0.05 level)

34

View publication stats