Great Account Management

7/27/2019 Great Account Management

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GreatAccountManagement



Sell Smarter. Manage Better.

Share this White Paper! Copyright © The TAS Group. All rights reser ved. 1

WHAT IS ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT?When we talk about Account Management, what exactly do

we mean? Many readers will have dierent ideas o what

Account Management is and what it involves. The TAS Group

sees three areas. First, it’s about penetrating our key accounts,

getting into as much o the account as we want to. This works

on two dimensions. On the one hand it’s about reaching

the entire breadth o the account. On the other hand, it’sabout getting as many o our products and solutions into the

accounts.

Great Account ManagementINTRODUCTION

The TAS Group has been developing and sharing

Account Management Best Practices since the late

1980’s. In the last 7 years alone we’ve helped almost

55,000 account management proessionals. Some

o our customers have also helped ne-tune and

inuence the content o what we deliver over the

years. With that experience behind us, chances are that

we’ve seen all the variations and issues that can crop

up, and we’ve helped organizations the world over to

beat them.

This White Paper addresses what Account

Management is about. It also covers the how, that is

the how to do account management, and how you can

get great at it. Thirdly, it looks at the benets o being

great and overcoming the typical challenges that

business in the 21st century throws at us.

Within the readership o this White Paper there will

inevitably be dierent levels o knowledge and

experience in Account Management. Some readers

will perhaps just be starting out on their Account

Management career. Others may be sophisticated

practitioners, looking to validate their own insights into

the market. This White Paper is aimed at the middle

ground, to cater to the widest range o requirements.

I you eel that your needs are not met, or would like

to learn more about The TAS Group sales perormance

methodologies, technologies and solutions, we urge

you to get in touch with us directly. You can do this via

[email protected].

I we’re doing this well, and have the right level o

relationships with our customers, then we ull the second

role o Account Management, which is to create the kind o

relationships that help to deend against any competitive

encroaches.

Thirdly, Account Management has a very important role intargeting and creating new business within the account base

or accounts portolio. This could be in the orm o brand new

accounts, new products, or nding new routes to market.

mailto:info%40thetasgroup.com?subject=White%20Paper%20-%20Great%20Account%20Management






WHAT ARE THE TOP INITIATIVES FORACCOUNT MANAGEMENT?

What challenges are acing the account managementproession? Interestingly enough, The TAS Group has been

asking over 2000 organizations this very question since 2007.

What came out o this was that existing customers were

identied as a key, i not the key revenue growth opportunity

going orward. Indeed, the top 5 initiatives or organizations

were Revenue Growth, Customer Retention, Prot Growth,

Sales Eectiveness and Increased Revenue per Customer.

Four o these are lagging indicators, business results that

come in some time ater sales activity or a certain time

period. They tie directly to account management work and

how well it is done. Sales Eectiveness, while it’s number 4 inthe table, is still viewed as ‘mandatory’, or ‘very important’ by

84% o all respondents, and this a leading indicator.

Account management is all about using resources eectively

and it is sales eectiveness that drives the success in the other

initiatives. I the sales eectiveness is right, the others ollow,

and that is the ocus o The TAS Group.

Furthermore, the same survey ound that 55% o

organizations eel that they’re not maximizing the potential

o their existing accounts. That means account management

proessionals are collectively leaving billions o dollars on the

table every year, or worse still, leaving all that business there

or the competition to sweep it up.

This is probably why, in the same survey, 48% o companies

said they were planning signicant investment in account

management improvement.

Top 5 Initiatives Percentage

Revenue Growth 92%

Customer Retention 87%

Proft Growth 84%

Sales Eectiveness 84%

Increased Revenue per Customer 70%

WHAT ARE THE ISSUES IN ACCOUNTMANAGEMENT?

So what are the issues here? What is preventing us romdoing this, what is stopping us rom getting where we need

to be, to be great?

The rst issue is oten lack o knowledge, and that’s not

just the ‘what’ to do. With account management you also

need to know how to do something. In many cases while

account management proessionals know what to do,

they’re sometimes at a loss as to how to go about doing it.

We make this distinction when we talk about process and

methodology. Process is the ‘what’ you should do in order

or you to get rom A to B. Methodology is the ‘how’ you

choose to do it. To choose a driving analogy, how you getto your destination is a unction o what lane you drive in, at

what speed, down which roads, where you decide to break

your journey, all with the desired eect o getting to your

destination given your requirements.

Account management, especially when it involves account

teams, marketing departments and partner organizations, can

be a complex task. Inormation sharing and communication

are critical. Everyone needs to be on the same page, knowing

the objectives and their specic role in accomplishing them.

When people are in dierent regions and don’t have the

right tools at their disposal, then planning, updating and

disseminating the knowledge and instructions becomes a

major ordeal.

These problems get thrown into even greater relie when you

consider global accounts and global account teams. Getting a

global account team properly aligned across regions, borders,

languages and cultures, to act as one unit, helping each

other, can be a very big task. These reasons are probably the

main ones that contribute to the eeling among the 55% o

organizations that their account management is not yet great.





HOW DO YOU DO GREAT ACCOUNTMANAGEMENT?

In the TAS Group’s experience, which distils two decades’worth o best practice, it is generally lack o knowledge that

is the most critical issue. So how do you do great account

management? There are ve main areas to great account

management. These are: prole, segment, create, select and

execute.

Beore you develop your

‘go to market’ strategy, you

rst need to do the market

research. Only then can you

begin to understand the

prole o the market andyour customer – the issues

your customers think about

and their organizational

structure.

Certain slices o an account are more attractive than others.

So you need to segment the account – establishing which

particular destinations in the account are o high value to

both you and your customer.

Once you’ve prioritized the segments in your account, then

you can look to create new opportunities. These solutions

must address the business needs o the customer, based on

your ability to understand their needs.

With lots o new opportunities created, you need to select the

appropriate strategy to approach the account and ocus on

those areas that will provide maximum return on your eorts.

But as they say – when a ship misses a harbor, it’s rarely the

harbor’s ault. With the right strategy, you need to ocus on

great execution – building a business development plan or

the account while leveraging marketing, partners and other

resources to help you succeed.

I you adopt, use and keep using a structured account

planning methodology, you’ll x issues beore it becomes too

late, lose your way less oten, and get to where you want to

be.

PROFILE YOUR CUSTOMERIn the physical retail business they say it’s all about 3

important things, location, location and location. In Account

Management it’s also about 3 important things, research,

research, and research.

When you are developing an account plan – it’s all about

knowledge and knowing your customer’s mind comes rom

understanding it. Beore you even start planning, you need

to know a lot o things about the customer. These include:

goals, markets, industry trends, competitors, relative market

position, nancial perormance, merger and acquisitions

activity, and the structure o the account itsel.

Today, the role o the proessional account manager –indeed that o the entire account team – is to create value,

not just communicate it. You need to understand what the

customer values beore you know how to position your value.

Understanding the landscape your customer is living on is

critical and is related to something called mutual value.

Mutual value is the desired destination you want to reach

when building a business relationship with your customer

and it’s where the investment levels o you and your customer

are truly aligned. I you don’t get that alignment, then either

you or your customer is not getting the return on eort.

Organizations are usually comortable articulating the

value or their own products or services. And this is where

the homework comes in, because you can’t nd the areas

o mutual value until you know what is valuable to your

customer. I organizations get the homework right, they have

a great oundation. This will save a lot o time in the long

term and will also help establish immediate credibility or you

when you collaborate with your customer.

S 1 S 2

BU1

BU2





a true partnership with your customers or very signicant

value – and that’s what account management is all about.

Operating as a trusted advisor can be expensive. I your

customer is not willing to invest with you then you’re wasting

resources. You need to understand what the customer values

and how or i, based on your resources, you can deliver that

value protably. I you’ve ever been unable to answer the

question ‘what business project o my customer’s does my

product support?’, then you’ll know you haven’t gured

out the elements that are central to understanding your

customer’s business.

Ater determining the kind o relationship you should have,

you also need to think about the client’s business driversand associated critical success actors. Then you’re able to

categorize the kinds o opportunities you have, and develop

new ones – rom the installed base variety through to the

potential new opportunities.

It is important to acknowledge that opportunities created by

you are by denition unqualied, and you need to choose

careully which ones to work on.

SELECT YOUR STRATEGY

Strategy selection is built on the work you will have doneso ar, and you need to regroup and look at all business,

installed, current and potential. By giving your installed base

opportunities and current opportunities due consideration,

you can decide which ones are worthy o taking their place

alongside the potential opportunities in your view o the

account. This picture will enable you to determine your

entire account level objectives and devise your strategies to

maximize the return rom the Account.

You must consider the resource implications, the risks and

the costs o your selected strategies – and equally look at

the balance o your account plan. Think about the correct

combination o business and service units. Think about

whether there really is mutual value there. And think about

revenues in the short versus the long term.

The last part o strategy selection is to develop a revenue

objective or each target unit. This gives you a good picture o

the overall revenue potential your eort represents.

SEGMENT YOUR ACCOUNTAccount segmentation is the process o identiying all the

discrete divisions or units within an enterprise account, where

you might nd a t or one o the solutions you oer.

A good place to start is Business Units and Service Units.

Business Units manage the primary customer-acing activity

o the company. Strategic decisions are made here. Service

Units work internally to serve the Business, and they are

typically areas like IT or purchasing, HR and so on. There is

a tendency or account managers to ocus their attention

on service units as the easy to spot budget holders, at the

expense o the opportunities lurking in the business units.

When you’ve gured out the Units, you need to weight them,

to help you nd those intersections o what is important toyou and important to them. The rst part o this equation is

easy. But you can’t get the second part unless you adopt the

customer’s perspective. Put yoursel in their shoes and be as

objective as you can. Looking at how these map out, mark

out the various ocal points – yours and your client’s – and

look at the points o intersection. Some are going to be more

important than others. A proessional approach to Account

Management walks you through the steps o identiying the

mutual priorities, and these are where the potential lies.

This is a very important stage in great account management

too, because the decisions that you make here build theoundation o your account plan. You should make sure

they’re all taken with the customer’s perspective as your

spectacles.

CREATE NEW OPPORTUNITIESIn the create stage, you’re looking to create new opportunities

within your accounts. It has already been emphasized how

important it is to understand your customer in order or you

to do this. Account management is a partnership with your

customer, and this partnership can be thought o in three

broad areas: rst the level o relationship you enjoy with them;

second, their business drivers, business initiatives and how

they measure success; third, the mutual value o potential

opportunities.

Taking level o relationship rst, The TAS Group identies

a number o levels o relationship. The highest orm o

relationship is called the Trusted Advisor where you orm





EXECUTEIn many ways execution is the last 10 yards o the race to get

to the tape. You’ve got to be decisive there. But you’ve got

to be in the right position ater the rst 90 yards, and that rst

90 yards is about planning. Here’s where the methodology,

or the how to do it, can help. Remember that Account

Penetration is a team event, and you’ll want to involve your

team in this planning.

Once you have identied the goal or your account, there are

a number o objectives you will want to achieve: Revenue

objectives – or your current and installed base opportunities;

Business Development objectives – or your potential

opportunities that you identied in your Account Map and

Cross-Account Objectives – which ensure that you eectively

manage your extended team o specialists, such as marketingand partners and which cover other non-revenue issues such

as ‘customer satisaction’ – in other words, keeping your house

in order. Remember, don’t try and do everything, you have

your Account team, other internal teams like marketing, as

well as partners and other third parties to help you.

An individual’s decision orientation is oten determined by the

role they play in a company or their natural leaning toward

one approach. Understanding an individual’s orientation

is critical to being able to relate to them, and oering them

solutions which t their needs.

A company’s culture also impacts how that company buys,

and thereore how you should sell to it. As with decision

orientation, there are a number o types to consider. Each

culture requires a dierent selling approach, and you need

to assess the prevailing culture in your account to correctly

position yoursel, your company, and your value proposition.

It is unrealistic to expect that you can provide all o the

answers or your customer all o the time. Maybe there are

partners whose skills and resources you can leverage. In act,

there are probably many other organizations involved with

your account and you may need to nd partners that canhelp. These could be inuence partners who can provide

access or complementary oerings, or reseller partners,

who can provide additional coverage and implementation.

Leveraging partnerships can accelerate and extend your

reach, but you should treat them well, like you would treat

your customer, while making sure you see return on your

eorts.

RECAP ON GREAT ACCOUNTMANAGEMENT

First there is the research, so that you can prole the marketand the business challenges your customers think about and

their organizational structure.

Then you need to segment the account to nd out the

pockets o the customer’s business which are important to

them and also to you.

Third, you should look to create new opportunities which

meet the business needs o your customer, built on your

understanding o their needs.

Fourth, you should analyze and select the appropriate

strategy to address the account and ocus on those areas that

will provide maximum return on your eorts.

Fith and nally, you need to ocus on great execution,

which involves building a business development plan or

the account while leveraging marketing, partners and other

resources to help you succeed.

Keeping a structured account planning methodology will

make sure that your account management team is on

the same page, they all understand their role and what is

expected o them. You can’t do great account management

on your own, it won’t scale. It is denitely a team exercise.





HOW TECHNOLOGY HELPS YOUEXECUTE

In The TAS Group’s experience, organizations nd thatexecution is the most difcult. Technology has been at

the oreront o trying to make things easier and better or

salespeople or quite some time. While some salespeople

struggle to see the ‘what’s in it or them’ rom CRM systems,

there are now sotware applications that are designed with

the sales person exclusively in mind and are built around what

they need to do.

It is important to see technology as just another delivery

mechanism, but it has the power to scale, the power to

leverage and the power to inorm and communicate, when

done the right way.

The sotware-as-a-service model, o which the screenshot

o Dealmaker rom The TAS Group is an example, provides

anytime, anywhere access to a whole team o people,

and in the account management domain, this means that

the process o sharing, updating and communicating

inormation is made straightorward. In this picture, which

is an Opportunity Map or an enterprise account, all team

members can see at a glance the business units and service

units down the let hand side, they can see what solutions are

in the organization’s portolio across the top, and they can see

where the opportunities are and the value associated withthem. There are also links to business drivers, initiatives and

critical success actors or the team to ollow. This is just one

screen o a sotware application, but what it illustrates is that

your account management team is properly inormed and

engaged, and this greatly increases the chances o successul

execution.

As well as sotware tools to improve communicationand productivity, the Internet is also making account

management more eective. The advent o web 2.0, with

blogs, discussion orums and multi-media content means

account management proessionals can reinorce their own

knowledge and execution best practice whenever they like.

Account Managers can simply go to the web and view the

appropriate content. Rather than being pulled back to base

or time-consuming reresher courses, they can get what they

need on the job, which is ‘just in time, just enough, just or me.’

THE GLOBAL ACCOUNT

Nowhere is the idea o team execution more crucial thanin the global account. Global accounts can be raught

with problems, with geographically dispersed teams,

language and cultural dierences, and dierent divisions or

departments overlapping and trying to sell dierent solutions

or sometimes the same solutions into the same account.

Communication and awareness o what the other team

members are doing can be a nightmare. You’ll know what we

mean i you’ve been in a meeting with the global account and

the customer is telling you things about another part o your

company that you didn’t know about and which aects your

customer in some way. What kind o a signal does that send

out to your customer about your ability to coordinate youraccount management and to execute properly?

Global accounts are generally very large, and commercial

activity, merger, takeover or sell-o activity is happening

somewhere in an account like this all the time. But when a

company is properly aligned around the account’s Business

and Service Units, has a deep understanding o the customer,

and all the regions are interacting properly, helping each

other out where necessary, then great things can happen and

the bond between global team and global account is almost

impregnable.





GREAT ACCOUNT MANAGEMENTBEHAVIORS AND BENEFITS

So what does rst class account management look like? Itis about a collection o certain kinds o behaviors. It’s about

sound planning, thoughtul opportunity creation and

intelligent strategy selection. It’s about good team interaction

and great team execution. And it’s about committed

inormation sharing and communication.

When this set o behaviors is consistently replicated in

account management, the right results emerge. These results

can be grouped into 3 headings: revenue and prot growth;

customer satisaction and retention; and internal alignment

and velocity. In terms o revenue and prot growth, this

is the creation new opportunities. Organizations are also

penetrating more o the account and selling more o their

products or solutions. All these good things come rom

adherence to account management best practices.

In terms o customer satisaction and retention, organizations

develop a greater understanding o their customer’s business.

They also garner a deeper two-way relationship with their

customer. Their solutions are aligned to their customer’s

needs, solving their problems, doing what’s important and

valuable to them and hitting their critical success actors. All

this comes as a result o doing the research and earning the

right to collaborate with their customer on mutual business

value.

Internal alignment and velocity reers to both the account

team and other areas outside it. This generally relies on

good technology as the oundation, walls and roo. With it,

account teams can update and disseminate account plans

quickly and easily. There is real-time inormation sharing.

Finally, teamwork is accelerated because o the productivity

gains o being hooked in to a CRM-type system, your account

management system, and your opportunity management

system.

HOW TO APPLY GREAT ACCOUNTMANAGEMENT TO YOUR OWN ROLE

Applying this to your own account management role is worthexploring, because the best practices in the world don’t work,

i they don’t work or you. This Paper has covered account

management in general terms, with a slight bias towards

larger account management, and not all readers do ‘general’

account management. It is a complex, challenging but

rewarding proession, and some readers will be working at a

global level, some at a national level and some at a regional

or territory level. Some will be perorming hybrid roles.

Terminology abounds in the Account Management business,

and some will also reer to their accounts as ABC accounts, or

perhaps Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 accounts.

Whatever the

terminology, The TAS

Group likes to take a

role-based approach

to thinking about

account management,

because a ‘one size ts

all’ approach will not

always work. At the

top o the pyramid

shown there is the

global account, and the role would be as one o a large global

team supporting the account, as represented by the n:1. Atan enterprise level, there might be one dedicated account

manager per account, but although that person’s role is 1:1,

it would still be to treat their account as a marketplace and

penetrate business and service units.

With a portolio o smaller accounts, portolio account

managers would clearly perorm a 1:several or 1:n role

and work even harder to leverage partner and marketing

organizations to work on B and C accounts. Then there

are hybrid roles, usually territory managers, who would

manage both a region rom a direct perspective and a range

o partners. With such a range o account managementroles, The TAS Group strongly recommends readers think

about where they are in the pyramid and establish their best

practice accordingly.

n:1

1:1

1: n





SUMMARY This White Paper addressed what account

management is, the results it is looking to achieve and

what the issues are that prevent organizations rom

achieving this.

Having covered the what, the Paper then covered

how great management should look. The ve stages

o the account management approach are to prole

the market and customer, segment the account,

create new opportunities which reect the customer’s

perspective on business, analyze and select the

strategy best able to achieve the goals or the account,

and nally plan and execute on that strategy.

Teamwork and team execution is o paramount

importance. Technology can help here, and the

leveraging and reinorcing power o technology can

keep an account team inormed, committed and

coordinated, no matter how globally dispersed they

might be.

Finally, the Paper outlined the behaviors synonymous

with great account management and detailed the

results in terms o revenue and prot growth, customer

satisaction and retention, and internal alignment

and velocity, with the proviso that readers adapt best

practice to their own account management role.

The TAS Group hopes that this White Paper has given

readers an insight into how The TAS Group and our

customers believe that great account management is

within your reach. I you wish to nd out more, please

contact us at [email protected].





ABOUT THE TAS GROUP The TAS Group helps sales proessionals sell smarter and manage better. Through a unique combination o deep sales

methodologies and intelligent sotware applications, customers achieve measureable results including increases in win

rates, deal sizes and qualied opportunities, as well as decreases in sales cycle length. According to the Aberdeen Group,

customers o The TAS Group realize 21 percent greater attainment o sales quotas.

Dealmaker® intelligent sotware is the engine driving revenue growth and sustained adoption o improved sales

practices.

The TAS Group has helped more than 850,000 sales proessionals in more than 65 countries, rom small privatecompanies to market leaders. For more inormation visit http://www.thetasgroup.comand read the dealmaker365 blog

at http://www.dealmaker365.com.

ABOUT DEALMAKERDealmaker sotware rom The TAS Group delivers real-time opportunity and account management, intelligent

deal coaching, accurate sales orecasts, smart playbooks, sel-paced learning, and predictive analytics, resulting in

measurable sales growth.

Dealmaker can be delivered as a standalone application or can be integrated with Salesorce CRM, Microsot Dynamics

CRM, Oracle CRM On Demand, Oracle’s Siebel CRM and SAP CRM, or with any third party sotware application through

the Dealmaker API. For more inormation visit http://www.thetasgroup.com.

Copyright © The TAS Group. All rights reserved. This brieng is or customer use only and no usage rights are conveyed. Nothing herein may be reproduced in any orm without written permission o The TAS Group.

http://www.thetasgroup.com/

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Great Account Management

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