Category: Uncategorized

By Saleh Al-Ben Saleh

Strategic Account Manager, Emerson Automation Solutions

It is quite rare you get into a global economic struggle with two, simultaneous disruptive factors, but we have just this situation now with the combination of the COVID 19 pandemic and the deterioration of the price of oil. As if one of them wouldn’t be enough to wreak havoc around the globe, it’s almost like they joined together to achieve their goal of maximum disruption.

The overall impact of these two simultaneous disruptors is something I doubt any of us will forget any time soon. It has forced decision makers to enact abrupt cost cuts (fixed and variable), encourage remote working, reduce active manpower on sites, adopt high dependence on virtual communications and virtual teamwork technologies, and finally to acknowledge the harmful impact of the pandemic and seek to at least minimize the damage. Only a lucky few end-users are still on the upper side of the revenue/cost chart. 

I would say there has never been a more important time for strategic account managers to proactively steer business efforts aimed at creating new business value for both the supplier and the customer. While SAMs have surely already created and captured real business value for his or her accounts, it’s time to take these efforts to the next level. But how?

Continue reading “In difficult times, sometimes red tape turns orange” →

By Robert Hueber, Business Unit Director, Packaging, Herrmann Ultraschall

Artur Wagner, Founder and Partner, MP Consulting

Today, an increasing number of medium-sized B2B technology companies are establishing a global strategic account management (SAM) program for their most important customers. This was not always so. In the past, CEOs of such companies did not believe that customers, vastly larger than themselves in size, would be interested and willing to engage in a partnering and co-development process.

The SAMA slogan “It’s not about size, but all about relevance!” can become reality if the foundations for such a program are laid and a systematic process for building a SAM program is established.

We are convinced that our findings are perfectly applicable to larger companies as well. Many of these have already implemented a SAM initiative, but not all are reaping its benefits. This, we will argue, is mostly due to a sub-standard design and/or faulty implementation.

The aim here is to provide a specific methodology for assessing an optimal level of customer-centricity and the best way for integrating the SAM organization into the matrix organization.

Continue reading “DESIGNING THE CUSTOMER-CENTRIC ORGANIZATION: A NINE-STEP GUIDE TO LEVERAGING A SAM PROGRAM AS AN ENGINE FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH” →

By Tania Lennon, Global Space Lead, Talent Assessment and Leadership, ZS Associates, and Namita Powers, Principal, Customer Engagement Excellence, ZS

ZS has conducted extensive research into strategic account management success profiles. Using in-depth profiling, behavioral observations and manager reviews, ZS has identified critical competencies, skills and characteristics that drive high-performance outcomes in SAM roles, such as a shift in focus from achieving goals to achieving success and a more sophisticated approach that ZS identified in women account managers.

Men and women: Different paths to success

While there were some clear themes in the drivers of success for SAM roles, there were also some gender differences in how they achieved success. The graph highlights the key areas of difference between successful men and women SAMs.

Women SAMs demonstrated more sophisticated skills in three key areas important for success.

Continue reading “Interesting!: New research shows male and female account managers take different paths to SAM success” →