Managing a company’s strategic customers is critical to sales growth.

Key Account Management (KAM) is the set of integrated relationship management processes that promote the preferences of a company’s strategic clients, so as to develop and retain long-term, profitable and relevant business relationships with each. Said differently, KAM is a way to relate to strategic customers that provides them with added value, thus setting them apart from others.

Key Account Management presupposes that the ability to retain the most relevant customers is crucial to a company’s survival, especially in periods of crisis.

The Key Account Manager plays a central role in the implementation and development of strategic accounts, fostering the building of partnerships that deliver results to the company.

To assist in the management of strategic accounts a company can use the KAM Strategy Matrix to compare key accounts (see Figure 1).

The goal of KAM’s strategic matrix is ​​to enable a comparison of the various key accounts in terms of:

• Each key account’s attractiveness for the future of the company.
• The company’s competitiveness for each key account.
• Each key account’s contribution to revenues and profits.
• Each key account’s support for the definition of feasible objectives and strategies that will be implemented.

Does your company use KAM?

If you would like to delve into the subject, I recommend Key Account Management by Malcolm McDonald and Beth Rogers.