Sustainability Archives - Strategic Account Management Association

Strategic account management process, Strategic account manager skills and competencies, Sustainability, Uncategorized, Value co-creation

Understanding the Hidden Needs of Key Accounts for Sustained Growth

By Dave Irwin, Founder & CEO of Polaris I/O

Given the pace of change during the pandemic — an accelerated digital economy, in addition to the current economic climate, supply chain issues, ESG initiatives, and world events — there are constantly new and shifting needs for any B2B company. Different groups of people across departments, regions, divisions, and elevation levels are having to adapt daily to new challenges. Fixed demand for products and services is being overrun with new demand for solutions to emerging problems. This shift in demand is both a threat and an opportunity for suppliers needing to protect, retain, and grow these valuable account relationships. And everyone knows it.

B2B Buyers Want Relevant Information Fast

When you combine constantly changing needs with a fundamental desire of B2B buyers to make most buying decisions without the involvement of salespeople, the threat to the traditional sales-and-marketing model becomes even more pronounced. According to a Harvard Business Review article, “Traditional B2B Sales and Marketing are Becoming Obsolete,” from last year, “Helping today’s B2B buyers buy isn’t a sales challenge, nearly so much as an information challenge (or, alternatively, an information opportunity). The companies that best provide customers the information they most urgently seek, specifically through the channels they most clearly prefer, are in a far better position to drive commercial success in today’s rapidly evolving digital commercial landscape.”

From a traditional go-to market perspective, the historical focus of sales and marketing, the information a buyer is seeking has been about your product and services. But that has changed. What about unknown demand and the unmet needs of today’s business executives who are bombarded with new challenges every day? This is a fundamentally different dynamic to understand, and critical for effective cross-selling in key accounts. In a buyer journey of unknown demand, it isn’t the channel you deliver the information to that is the issue, but rather the very information itself you are delivering.

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Strategic account management process, Sustainability

Sustaining profitability: Measuring and quantifying the ROI of a strategic account management program

This article is based on a panel discussion that took place involving Frederic Kahn, Vice President Global Sales at Wavelength Pharmaceuticals; Alessio Arcando, Professor at Bologna Business School and former Director of Strategic Key Accounts for West Europe for 3M; and Harvey Dunham, Managing Director for Strategy and Marketing at SAMA. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Measuring ROI is vital in today’s world

It is essential in today’s world that SAMs prioritize measuring the return on investment (ROI) of their programs. Whereas approximately one third of attendees at SAMA’s 2020 Pan-European Conference measure and share their SAM program’s ROI metrics with key leaders in their company, 100 percent of SAMs should be continually assessing their program’s ROI.

There is pressure on SAMs to not only design, define and implement a strategic account management program but also to prove its value. By measuring ROI, SAMs safeguard their programs from cost-cutting measures. Often, the first areas to be targeted for cost cutting are central functions. SAM programs typically reside in these areas and thus are at risk. By having solid metrics at their disposal that demonstrate a return from the current level of investment, SAMs are better equipped to defend their programs.

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Sustainability

SUSTAINABLE SAM: ARE YOU READY FOR THE NEW REALITY?

By Edmund Bradford, Managing Director, Market2Win Ltd.

We have passed the tipping point of interest in sustainability. Sustainability and other good behavior metrics now need to be reported, meaning your strategic accounts will no longer be satisfied with bland statements of intent from your company. Sustainable SAM will be a key differentiator in the near future.

I was recently interviewing the head of sustainability at a global hospitality company when she told me an incredible fact: “In the past 12 months, for the first time ever, more investor funds have gone into proven sustainable companies than into non-sustainable companies.” So, if you are working in a company that has not proved itself sustainable to investors, you are in the wrong half of where the investor money is going.

If you want to see an example of this transition, just consider Blackrock, one of the world’s largest investors, with $8.68 trillion in assets under management at the end of December 2020. In his 2021 letter to CEOs, Blackrock’s CEO, Larry Fink, wrote about the fact that the pandemic had accelerated the tectonic shift to sustainable investing with a near doubling of Blackrock’s investments in this area compared to 2019.

Why is this?

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