Typical Account Management Challenges
It is universally recognised that organisations are increasingly facing higher levels of competition, in rapidly changing environments. This is in part due to the maturity of business markets (at least in developed countries), the impact of globalisation and technology, and the increased buying power of customers.
Customers are becoming increasingly demanding and sophisticated, and as a result their expectations from suppliers have increased dramatically. Suppliers must evolve to meet these new requirements. Customers need to be treated as strategic assets, a nd as such their importance should be recognised through new approaches to strategic partnership and relationship building processes.
Yet evidence suggests that highly competent Account Managers are in short supply.
ICDL has developed a range of training workshops to address the key Account Management challenges that organisations face in the process of developing High Performance Sales Teams.
Click on the links below to see how ICDL can start to help your organisation today:
- Determining Which Key Accounts Hold The Most Potential For Future Growth
- Retaining Key Accounts Despite Supplier Rationalisation
- Achieving Profitable Customer Relationship Management
- Creating Partnerships That Drive Business Growth And Inspire Customer Delight
- Selling at the Executive Level
- Our Customers Say They're Satisfied. So Why Do We Need Anything Else?
- Achieving Market Leadership Through Your Routes To Market
Related workshops:
- Strategic Sales Research
- Opportunity Creation
- Advanced Group Communications
- Channel Dynamics
- Partnership Dynamics
- One-on-One Communication
Determining which of your Key Accounts has the potential for future growth
Determining which of your Key Accounts has the potential for future growth is a challenge faced by many organisations today. In a world where margins are being constantly squeezed; where it seems competition is increasing almost daily; and where the demands on the few precious resources you have are stretched to breaking point, how do you determine where you should invest, and what you should invest in, to ensure maximum future return?
History is no gauge for future success. Why not? The rate at which your customers' markets are changing, and hence the rate at which their demands on you are changing means that something that was right only last month, may no longer be valid today.
The problem is, whether you currently have a framework agreement, an outsourcing agreement, or you are working on a project with these clients, future success will require investment now, in the right things and on an ongoing basis if you are to retain and grow these valuable customers.
ICDL have developed a number of workshops to enable you to ensure that your organization is investing in the Key Accounts that hold the highest potential for future growth of your business.
Related workshops:
Retaining Key Accounts Despite Supplier Rationalisation
Mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances or partnerships have all lead to a reduced number of suppliers being utilised by each organisation, meaning that successfully managing your Key Accounts has never been of a greater importance.
Increasingly, companies are moving towards a leaner procurement structure, making the importance of customer retention - without eroding your margins - more evident than ever before. So how can you ensure that your Key Accounts continue to chose you over your competition?
The answer is by building stronger relationships, by clearly demonstrating the Value of choosing your offering, in the context of your customer's business operations and environment.
ICDL have developed a number of workshops to ensure your Account Managers are able to retain their Key Accounts in a world where more and more organisations are reducing their number of suppliers, in a bid to increase simplicity and reduce administration and overhead costs. Avoid cost-based competition.
Related workshops:
Achieving Profitable Customer Relationship Management
The ability to source and analyse customer-specific information, and integrate this into interfaces and Value Propositions to your customer is a pre-requisite for developing and sustaining a profitable relationship with your customers.
Research shows that senior level customers are looking for organisations who can offer new insights into their challenges, and who can help them develop new strategies. These organisations become 'Trusted Advisors'. To become a Trusted Advisor, an organisation needs to have a deep understanding of the customer's business challenges, an equally deep understanding of their own organisation's capabilities and to be adept at helping customers break out of old assumptions and become bold and innovative, creating differentiation, competitive advantage and net new Value.
At the 42nd Strategic Account Management Association conference, one speaker stated, "In a recent survey of decision makers only 7% of sales people were seen by those customers as being worthy of their time."
The reason is simple: most sales people simply don't come prepared with the appropriate knowledge required to persuade decision-makers that the conversation is of value to them.
To build credibility and trust with the decision-makers in your Key Accounts, this requires in-depth information into the needs of the customer, what is driving their industry, what challenges they are facing and, most importantly, the impact of your offering on their organisation.
When decision-makers are asked about their reluctance to meet with sales people, the responses almost always include factors such as 'they don't know enough about my industry and the challenges we are facing' or 'they don't have a full understanding of my needs, and how they can meet them'.
ICDL has developed a number of workshops which will enable your Account Managers to ensure they fully understand the needs of their key customers, and how to align their offerings to not only meet the customer's needs, but to evidence Value Creation for their organisation.
Related workshops:
Creating Partnerships That Drive Business Growth And Inspire Customer Delight
It is no longer enough just to be good at what you do; you are now expected to help the customer solve their business challenges. Yet it is a very rare organisation today that has all the capabilities required to resolve any given challenge for their customers from their own resources. The result? Those organisations who understand 21st Century Value selling, also understand the need for dynamic partnering.
More importantly, customers know that you do not have all the capabilities in your business to solve their business problems, so they are now demanding more choice over who you partner with to ensure they get best value. The higher up in a customer's organisation you sell, the more complex and far-reaching are the expectations.
The concept of partnering has been evolving over several decades. Started by Walmart, the concept of dynamic partnering has now been championed by Harvard, through the guise of the Harvard Value ECO System. This is the ultimate model framework for organisations seeking to use partners as the means of creating differentiation and competitive advantage through enhancing the value they create for their customers around each specific need. It is a thinking process that starts from the customer and asks "who do I need as my partner(s) to deliver maximum benefit to my customer for this opportunity?"
ICDL specialises in helping our customers understand, apply and benefit from this very advanced way of partnering and hence doing business with your customers. The benefit for you is clear. If you can deliver better value for your customer's organisation than anyone else, the buying decision is simple for your customer, you win more business and your Brand image in enhanced.
Related workshops:
Our Customers Say They're Satisfied. So Why Do We Need Anything Else?
In a recent survey by AC Nielsen, 65-85% of customers who say they are satisfied are actually looking for something better and will not think twice about switching to a competitor.
The problem with 'business as usual' today, is that this ideal state no longer exists. Today's market is characterized by great organisations who customers choose to buy from, and the rest. The rest however are being driven to adopt lower and lower cost models to survive.
In a world where competition is growing stronger by the day, driving down revenues and margin, reducing win ratios, whilst concurrently increasing the effective cost of sale, the need for a genuinely high performance sales team has never been so critical to any organisation's future as it is today.
ICDL have developed a number of workshops to enable Account Managers to not merely 'satisfy' customers, but ensure that they remain to choose you, instead of your competition.
Related workshops:
SUCCESSFUL EXECUTIVE SELLING
lies at the core of ICDL's thinking.
Differentiation from an ever growing band of global competitors can no longer be achieved through better positioning of product, service or solution, so your approach to selling has to change [+]
ICDL'S RecruitSMART PROGRAM
ensures successful recruitment of fully trained and capable Executive level sales people.
If Executive level selling is key to successfully differentiating your company and growing EBIT, yet sales people of this calibre are rare - how can I achieve success? [+]