samamarketing, Author at Strategic Account Management Association

Account-based marketing, Strategic account management process

How Aramex’s Young SAM Program Provides Strategic Value and Impact

By Shahaboddin Wahdatehagh, Sr. Director Global Account Management, Aramex

Aramex is a leading global provider of comprehensive logistics and transportation solutions, headquartered in Dubai and listed on the Dubai Financial Market. Aramex services include international and domestic express delivery, freight forwarding, integrated logistics and supply chain management, and e-commerce solutions. The company has grown into a global brand and a market-leading express delivery and logistics services provider to the Middle East and other emerging economies.

Aramex was the recipient of the 2021 SAMA Excellence Award for “Outstanding Young SAM Program.”

Responding to Market Shifts

The logistics and transportation industry has been going through big changes in recent years, thanks in part to challenges wrought by new competitors who have disrupted the industry through technology. Additionally, customers have started to explore greater independence through forward integration (a push by carriers entering the freight-forwarding business) as well as through backward integration (insourcing, in some cases, the capabilities needed to manage express and domestic deliveries).

“In response to these market shifts, Aramex decided to move from a purely product-oriented approach to a market-shaper approach through deep integration with its customers.”

To succeed, we established four objectives that went beyond technological changes to include people and processes.

Form an organizational capability around co-creating products and solutions with our customers
Redesign our philosophy around our customers’ needs
Make a positive business impact on our customers’ operations
Ingrain a deeply customer-centric vision and mission for sales.

We needed a different sales strategy and go-to-market approach with regards to strategic and global key accounts, as our existing country-focused structure could not support, let alone scale, the required new concepts.

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Strategic account management program organization

Want to Accelerate Your SAM Journey? Create a Center of Excellence

By Dominique Côté, Founder & CEO, Cosawi
& Principal, The Summit Group

Disruption Leads to Innovation

Disruption, although most times unwelcome, gives way to innovation. This last year has certainly proven this saying. Could the mother of creativity and innovation, in fact, be disruption?

We have seen seismic shifts in industries like events and hospitality that have been devastated by the pandemic. However, many have pivoted and transformed themselves by, for example, providing office spaces for people in need of a quiet working environment. Customer-buying behaviors have also reshaped Amazon and other retailers in delivering everyday goods.

In general, engagement models have been shattered. Although we all look forward to interacting with humans again, we know that the end of the pandemic will not mean a return to normal. This past year has created a new normal, where virtual engagement will remain even as we re-introduce face to face into our lives. Organizations are already planning for this new- or next-normal hybrid model and have worked hard to elevate the needed skill sets of their commercial teams – especially strategic account managers.

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Strategic account manager skills and competencies

The Challenge of Selling Expertise (Not Product)

An interview with Michael Thomas by Harvey Dunham, Managing Director of Business Development at SAMA

Michael Thomas is the founder of Magnetic Services. He also spent years as a managing consultant for Microsoft’s global consulting organization. This interview is based on a recent SAMA podcast.

Join us for a Next Practice Symposium on September 15 when Michael Thomas will be speaking more on this topic. Register here.

Becoming a Trusted Advisor

Harvey Dunham: We are asking the smartest customer-facing people in B2B how to become trusted advisors to customers they cannot afford to lose. How do you think SAMs can learn to sell expertise and not products and transform themselves into trusted advisors?

Michael Thomas: There are two ways to look at this. First, there is how SAMs communicate, articulate and exchange their expertise based on their sales and professional experience. Second, you can view a SAM as a broker or bridge to the expertise that lives within their organization. While the first topic is interesting, the second is more germane.

There are exceptions but generally SAMs are used to thinking of themselves as a bridge to products and solutions for their customers. This is historically the role they have played. SAMs however have a much more important role to play. When we talk about expertise, you could label it as knowledge-intensive business services or expertise-based services that don’t show up in a product catalog. These services are not documented like products, technologies or platforms that have solution sets customers can find online and have at their disposal. So, the SAM is critical to connecting the customer with the expertise inside the seller’s organization.

Service teams generally have that expertise but can’t scale as broadly as your SAM community. So, from the customer’s and service team’s perspective the SAM represents the expertise and can make things happen for those customers.

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By Shahaboddin Wahdatehagh, Sr. Director Global Account Management, Aramex

Responding to Market Shifts

By Dominique Côté, Founder & CEO, Cosawi& Principal, The Summit Group

Disruption Leads to Innovation

An interview with Michael Thomas by Harvey Dunham, Managing Director of Business Development at SAMA

Becoming a Trusted Advisor

By Dominique Côté, Founder & CEO, Cosawi
& Principal, The Summit Group