Successful account management of routes to market is a bit like caviar. We all know what it smells and tastes like, but it is a rarity.  Few people know how to get it. 

The sad truth is that most account management is a tasteless, flaccid fish finger.  Often short-term, it is centred on quarterly sales targets and fails to engage the intermediary. 

Defining successful account management is the easy part. Your partners welcome your account managers with eager arms.  They want to work with and buy from your organisation.  They are happy to actively help you meet the customer’s requirements. They are loyal.  They love and value you.  Meanwhile, your account managers are building a real-time picture of the needs and capabilities of your partners – inputting the data into your customer-relationship management system.  Using this tool you can spot new trends, seize new opportunities.

So how do you get your hands on the caviar?  Here we look at the main issues covered by speakers and delegates at the last Routes to Market Association conference, entitled Building Successful Account Management. This lively event attracted over 50 delegates from industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to IT and from oil to financial services.

What came out loud and clear was that the caviar comes only when you have addressed a whole series of factors.  Many of these are internal to the organisation, such as structure, reward, training and culture.  Others are external, and centre on how the partner is engaged.

Here we look at the internal issues first.

Much hangs on how account management is viewed internally. Rosemary Wyatt, a director of VIA International, says that, while accounts want contact with the decision- makers in a vendor, many account managers are not empowered. ‘Sometimes you come across the eagle syndrome, where senior managers fly in, have a meeting with the account team , and then fly out again. This leaves the account manager disempowered.  And recent head-count cuts, which often leave senior account managers fire-fighting, do nothing to improve their status.’ 
 
This often goes with what she terms a fear of heights. ‘Often you find that suppliers are not engaging at a high enough level in the organisation. Account managers feel more comfortable dealing with relatively junior managers and are frightened to go to people whom they perceive as much more senior than they are.’ The outcome of this is that the short-term, tactical approach to account management is perpetuated.