It has been sometimes that I haven’t updated this blog. But, after reading the “Case Study Trade Marketing” section about success of Samson penetration published on one of my favorite Marketing and Communication magazine triggers me to write down my own analysis. Since I’m so fond of the classic 4 P’s on Marketing Mix theory, this analysis will be based on that philosophy.

1. PRODUCT

Samson is a carbonated drinks product comes with various flavors under the same brand. The SKU’s being offered comes in PET with big volumes (535ml and 2, 5 liter?), much bigger than commonly offered size by other carbonated beverage.

1. PRICE

Although it comes with bigger size, Samson comes with more economical price. If we compared with Goliath, Samson’s 500ml SKU is still lower with Goliath 425ml ones. With this strategy, seem they focusing on the middle to low SES class of consumers, at least on the beginning.

1. PLACE

Samson since the beginning flushes their products trough volumes on the Traditional Segment. Yet, I’ve seen they changed their strategy, from focusing to only high quantity sales trough the big players (high quantity wholesalers’), nowadays they push their products trough small agents. What is the different some of us may say? Isn’t that the whole sellers sell the products to its channel anyway? I think, the different is what we can see now. By distributing the products directly to the small agents, they can ensure their products are closed to the consumers faster. These agents will distribute their products to concentrated area nearby from them, because they don’t have enough power (cash) and access (fleet) to sell to places far distance from them. And, the reality is with what we can see now, they are everywhere!

Nowadays, Samson distributes their products to the modern market, focusing on Convenience Store. I personally believe that this is a good choice. As we know, convenience stores are booming, and they have enormous number of stores, scattered around areas. Some even found it ridiculous, because these stores sometimes open more than 2 on every street, especially in Jakarta. Competition! Focusing their sales here again bring their product closer to the consumers, and off-course, volumes. Especially, this kind of beverage products is not our primary needs, in fact, more to impulse products.

1. PROMOTION

For me, this’s interesting. With lower price and higher volumes, they still can have various impactful promotion activities. Why? Well, activities need funds right? So, even with lower price, the products seems provide a significant margins. But, let’s not go there, let’s focus to the activities.

1. TVC’s

Although we are rarely seen them (which is understandable), Samson do have TVC’s. Endorsing the biggest football league, they quickly catch the consumer’s attention. Especially here in Indonesia, most of the consumers are fan of this sport. I personally think that they create the occasions to consume their products, which is during the football game. The magazines mentioned that they approach the most phenomenal football team to be their new endorser.

1. In Stores activation

Relates to the “Place” strategy, they ensure that the consumer aware of Samson presents trough strong visibility with placement their POS* Materials, such as stickers, banners, etc. With more and more stores available, they can put more and more of these materials.

1. Below the line activities

Strengthening their presents, they also create some below the line activities. They focus in building relationship with the traders, especially street vendors and semi permanent shops in bus terminals and leisure areas trough sales games with prizes. This is very effective, since most of our consumers is not brand minded on those area. Millions of Indonesians commuting every day with busses and trains, and they need a lot of drinks. During this time, they will consume almost everything near to them to quench their thirst. So, if the street vendors offer them Samson, most likely they will buy it anyway.

1. Trade Promotion

When you are new, it is tough to come to this market. They push in by incentive the traders with consignments. Sometimes even with bonuses when reach certain quantity.

Samson good result comes from the applications of combined strategies as mentioned above, or what so called, Marketing Mix. It’s supporting one another to gain the success as written on the magazines. I personally believe, the persistent of their sales teams executing strategy 3 combined with 4b and c is the essence of their success.

On the article, one of the magazine’s expert opinion mentioned that one of Samson success is because Goliath fails to justify the price to the benefit of the consumers, even put as the column headline. Honestly, I have to disagree with his opinion, at least I say you way to early Sir. Why? Let’s review the fact:

1. Goliath still holds 96% of the market share. On the other hand, besides Samson, there are other brands in the category; at least we can easily name the other 2. That shows the game still not even.
2. Both Goliath and Samson strongly play their role in Traditional Market. I know it is debatable, but Goliath still have better distribution so far. Goliath still the “Category Captain” on Modern Trade, all segments. Meanwhile, at the moment Samson still playing only on the Convenience Store, and (sorry, can’t present with any data, just my observation) with less in store activation than Goliath. So, Samson presents still don’t match with Goliath. Especially, Goliath invest a lot on their in store activations on providing chillers to create more on consumption on site with the theme of “cold sells more” (again, my opinion). You can imagine how you going to drink carbonated products but doesn’t cold at all right!
3. Price is only a part of strategy. However, comparing both strategies, this 2 are using different one, meaning: different Price Value Proposition strategy being played here. In my opinion, what Samson obviously to maximize their presence in middle to low SES consumers, where being economic stands on the number 1 place of the consumer value.
4. As mentioned earlier, thumbs up to the militancy of Samson’s’ team. Their consistency and being persistent execution on 4 c plays a great success. And, as mentioned on the article (which I agree), they can push their product to be consumed by the consumers with the traders activation somehow might gain volume from other category instead of gaining from Goliath. This is the key, and why I agree with the article that Samson effort enlarges the size of carbonated drinks market, in term of volume.
5. Although this is only my opinion, Goliath team is less militant than Samson’s. Please believe me that this is not a subjective opinion, but seems they make a lot of mistake on the execution. For example, big type of chiller being placed at the small potential stores not resulting any business, most of them are investment going to waste! Those big chillers need a lot of powers, so by placing those on small potential stores will end up the chillers being off! Small stores don’t have large electricity my friend!

Again, thumbs up with Mr. Canales team! Gaining this much on a very short period is an award winning result!

*POS: Point of Sales Materials, is the promotion materials usually comes in the form of stickers, sunblind, display items with strong visual of the products or brands as communication tools to the consumers of the present of a products. Sometimes POS also communicate a promotion to gain extra sales from the consumers.

Today, I accompany my girlfriend for her examination to enter post graduate school. We have prepare for today, such as, checking the location, map our road to reach the place, all of her tools for this exam, etc. Yet, still, we underestimate one thing, time!

Yet we know we need only 45 minutes to reach the location, we just left the house an hour before. Guess what! We made it right on time! That mean, she’s will not have some relax time for her to prepare herself to the exam at the location, even she have to walk to the location, not as plan! And the other reason for us to reach the location just in time is because we have to stuck in traffic for some (and I believe that is many) of the participant still looking for their own test location. If you know the University of Indonesia campus at Depok, well, it is huge for for you to search your locations on the time of your exam!

I try to put this situation into my own professional life, especially on my daily “sales” activity. I still find that is a common things for my colleague, subordinates find that preparation is just a waste of time. I have to admit, sometimes I still do this “identified mistakes” quite often, keep on trying not to let it happen again and again. With what so called, “experience”, we always find everything is just another day at work, and we automatically anticipate for all things coming. And, guess what! None of that ever happen.

And today will become another mark for me to not let this happen again. Knowing that some of the participant today has at least caused us at least 10 minutes of our time, and will be our remembrance that our lack of preparation can effect others to. To be prepare at least we can save us from potential loses, not only ours, but others too. 

1. Luxury Taxy

When I took this pictures, I don’t have any ideas it can describe for us. I took this picture simply because this luxury taxy stopping in the middle an office drive way that designed for 2 cars to drive trough side by side and stay there until his passenger get out of the car. This driver blocking the other cars in the way to the parking lot, and one of them is mine.

I remember a couple year ago, a friend of mine that operating his oil consultant business here in Indonesia (by the way, he is an American), yet he is very difficult to recruit high quality professional here in Indonesia. At first, I feel offended about his statement. But, he explain that with recommendation, he is hiring some graduates from a well-known local universities (actually he is mentioned several top level Indonesian Universities) but he is disappointed. Why? He found out that these professional have high intelligence, however they cant work properly. How come? He found out, that the person he is hiring is very bright, yet doesn’t have the capability to do the job. So bright they are, when they face a problem, instead to go find the root of the problem, they blaming that they doesn’t have enough data to analyze such problem. Well, the data is not complete, but this person expecting his professional people can help him work it out, instead of complaining, and again, don’t contribute at all at the end. My friend so sure that the professional can asked his subordinates, but he simply doesn’t feel comfortable to do so. He might feel ashamed if his subordinates called him un-qualified. Rather to do that, the company face a halt in the process, until he actually fired by my friend. Please note, my friend fired him not because his lack of knowledge, but more to his attitude. His sense of pride has brought the business experience un-necessary costs due to the late process.

When I took the picture, instantly bring me the ideas to associate to the problem describe above. The luxury taxy doesn’t care about the others, or his existence blocking the others to get to their journey. This person attitude placed himself as an outsider, when he faced a problem, he doesn’t want to be involved and find the solution. Why? Because, he find himself as “passing by” instead of a part of the team. Yet, he has the capability (see that the car doesn’t actually blocked to bring his car a little bit to the left so the others can pass trough him), instead he is putting everybody on halt just because he want to have clear exit.

2. Luxury Car

When I took the picture simply because I find it very funny finding such luxury car broke down in the middle of the road and bring an extra effort to the others to avoid it. And, of course, including me.

But then, this picture also give a visualization of another friend of mine (a high level executive) mentioned that he face a problem that he find annoying.

He has a bright (he even says “genius”) person as subordinates. However, this person cant perform well when faced problems when handed out a group of people as his subordinates. He find that his team is not as “bright” as he is, and always end up in “communication gap”. He as a leader can’t empower his team, instead keep on fighting with them. He found that everything his subordinates do is substandard, un-qualified result.

Instead of empowering his team with his high qualification, his existence just bring the team even worse than before. Before he join, this team show a good performance. Yet, when the management believe that this person can enrich his team with his extra’s, yet it just put them in to a stand still. Just like the car, it just doesn’t designed to perform in the situation. What is the use to have a luxury car, yet it just give us continuous problems, instead of supporting our activities.

Well, without judging the situation, I think we all agree that this two luxury vehicle cant performed. One is because the person lack of involvement, and the other one is failure in empowerment.

To complete this article, I try to find another picture that shows an old car, broke down and caused the traffic jam to the others. However, I fail to find one. But, should I succeed to find one, it will be perfect to have all three pictures. It will shows, that it will not bring any value for the snob luxury taxy, a broke down luxury car when they as useless as a broke down old car. They all caused a traffic jam and lost of potentials to the others. Don’t you agree?

How on earth that can happen? I’m suggesting for us not to put lots of efforts to find it. It will comes to you, whether you want them or not. As human being, we’re all a social form in our way of living. That means, we do communicate, interact to one another. As we life, we’ll form a tribes, or being in a tribe. Many of us, if I can’t say all of us become a member, even might be a leader of several tribes. For us who don’t really know a tribe, it means a group of people, slightly bigger than a team (maybe about 20 people to 150 people) who interact to each other based on the similarity of culture. Please understand what meant as culture here is as wide as what its possibly be, such as, mutual in interest, mutual in ideas, mutual of geographical society, etc..

I don’t know whether this is a an Internationally acknowledged Tribal stages, but I would like to describe this stages based on how Dave Logan from University of Southern California classifies them on Tribal Leadership Talks on TED x USC 2009.

1. Life Sucks

This is mentioned as the lowest stages of tribes, which most of the members only understands what they understand. They will formed their own world and do not mixed with others.  felt that they have similar feelings, mostly will not interact with others outside their tribes, even worst, they have the urge to banished everybody outside their tribes.

2. My life Sucks

This is interesting.  At this stages, the tribes members actually socialized with the situation, yet still found that what surrounds them making them even worst. Such as, keep challenging status quo’s without knowing and more the less giving suggestions how to make it better. Most common to recognize tribes on this stages mentioned how bad is the system, how ridiculous how things were been. But, in fact, they still follow them, because they don’t feel able to go against and/or suggest how to improve them.

3. I’m Great and You’re not

I hope I’m right, but tribes within this stages formed with by individuals that actually try to annihilate each individuals within their own tribes. They give fake appreciations, yet they will not acknowledge each other achievements by saying “the reason that they don’t get the achievement because they already know yet find something more important“. Some of this expressions will be publicly expressed, some will be done by rumoring each other within the tribes. Although it is arousing, yet still better than the previous ones right. At least, each of them potential to create something, I suppose.  I will find the way to make you’re not Great, but I do.

4. We’re Great, Who don’ts

At this stage consist of tribes that acknowledge their individual achievements, and encourage everybody to do their best and achieve something. They will welcome,  respect every achievements, yet they don’t understand what the achievements all about.

5. Life is Great

This is the highest level of tribes. The tribes at this stages will recognize and respect everyone based on 2 simple values, that is:

- truth; - reconciliation

This kind of tribes describes by Dave Logan as the tribes where Desmond Tutu has been. The tribes that appreciate, values, understand and willing to accept and to adapt and reconsolidates within their selves to be better. This stages of tribes that he mentioned as the stages of tribes which capable to change the world to become better.

I don’t want to expand to the area of “Leadership”, but lets go to that area just a little bit. Our world consists tribes that will be scatters within this stages. But, how to unite them? That’s where the great leaders will perform their magic, with how he or she bring them selves when they are in the area of stages. How that they performed, and nudges forward the tribes in to the next stages. The tribes can only understand and connected to one higher or lower level of stages where they are. But great leaders must influence every tribes leaders to nudges their tribes forward in to the next stages and also performed “Triadic Relationship”, networking each tribes one to another to communicate their ideas and performed Innovations.

It is essential of us to recognize the stages that we are on. And how we bring ourselves and our tribes nudges forward to the next stages until we reach the top.

Yet, what most important is, do we want to move forward? Or, we think that we already on top? Or, stay within this spot is so comforting, and don’t feel challenged to be better. Questioned ourselves, what is our values, my friends.

For the past 7 years and 8 months I’ve build my career in great and market leader Beer company. This company is an affiliated of an old and well establish Beer company and known as one of the best in its competency. And I’m telling you, it was a wonderful experience, also a very proud of ever become one of the member, and also member of the big family. The opportunity provided for me to develop myself within the organization shaped me into what I’ve become now.

Starting on middle of October this year, I’ve made a huge decision, and that is to join another strong root company yet just become a member of the biggest of International group of companies, also the best in its competency. Now, I think you can understand now why I feel blessed, as I stated on my opening remarks.

Being active join the new company, I immediately recognize something that I’ve long trying to understand. It is a great leadership inspired action, something I’ve so difficult to digests what Simon Sinek mentioned on his sharing session on TED, back in 2009. I’ve never been there actually, but I’m one of the followers of TED. I just never get the chance to participate on TED seminars in Indonesia, but someday I will. Not to long I hope!

Both of these two old and well establish company I easily recognize what’s Simon mentioned as “The Golden Circle”

What : What they do, all aspect of the organization must be understand what they do

How: How they do, some people of the organization understand how they do what they do

Why : Why they do, what the caused, the believe! Supposedly only small population of people within the organization knows about this.

My previous organization communicates very clearly from the inside out. The owning company of my previous organization was from Netherland, and to us in Indonesia, they always communicate with us about the products, and how we need to pass them to the market. Although I’m still new on the new organization, yet even met with the founder and the top level management, I can sense this from my colleagues, especially the one that spends all of their career life with this company. Regardless to the situations that happens to all organizations, the newly join, especially they whom hold a quite significant positions tends to have gaps to the “old” gangs, yet even become their subordinates, but I must say that the person act of leadership is on the test! However, I personally believes that it is essentials for me to work with them, so I can immediately pick up this “WHY” from them! Yet still new, I’m very enthusiast to dissolved into the organization, yet provide my contributions with my capability to re-shape the organizations and not losing my color. That is the reason why I’m being invited in the first place.

So, guy’s, have you already know Why your organization/Company do what they you all doing? Find out if you still don’t, and it will effect you and your work.

Enough on the person, I’m not plan to go public complaining anyhow. But, that moment I made me want to share some personal development, we all might want to consider for our development.

1. Understand What you Want

Believe me! This is very difficult. It’s easy to identify things you’re NOT happy with and to get stuck in that negative state of mind.

If you want to change things, then identify what you Want and Be happy with. This is very important to set the direction for your next steps.

With the root cause identified, "what you want" is the reverse of that condition.

2. Set your Goal

Ken Blanchard and Don Shula in The Little Book of Coaching mentioned that, "A broad target that’s easy to achieve leads to the ‘puddle’ of mediocrity." For our next step, express “what we want” as goal to achieve. A very popular concept of setting our goals is to use SMART Goals setting to help us structure our goals. SMART Goals means our goals that are :

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Write down your goal to help you clarify your thoughts and helps us as indicators to monitor our progress as we review the various steps you’ve set for yourself. This way, you can see if you’re on track or not.

3. Take Action

Formulize what needs to happen to move you toward your goal:

• Do you need be better on English? Then, take an English course.
• Do you need help from others, such as your superior to guide you to achieve your goals? Then, ask them for their help. Be open minded and learn from them.
• Do you need to give extra attentions, such as time for instance to achieve it? Then, make time! See your others agenda, and what you can do with it.

4. Be enthusiast

Be focus and always enthusiast to have some change within you. Don’t hold back, go for it. But wait, with that enthusiasm, ensure that we’ve:

• Think about how we react, feel, and think when we’re worried and uncertain. How we stand, what thoughts that going through our head, and how we communicate.
• How we react and feel and think.
• Think about our goal. Breathe, stand, and talk the way you do when you’re certain of success. Find yourself approaching your new goal with much more conviction and determination.

5. Committed

Whether we like it or not, I strongly believe that we will experience obstacles during our journey of success. So, when we hit one, again, be focus on our goals on site, then achieve it persistently.

Remember, none of this will work without our own effort.

It is always interesting to learn about ourselves. We, human beings are the most gifted among others God’s creatures, that we’ve given minds to think, and determine our own destiny, because it is lies in our own self. How lucky we are, but then, how arrogant we’ve become.

On daily basis, we are deciding to take which believe the best way to deal with any issues. Since I decided that this blog’s dedicated to share my ideas, knowledge and values within my professional life’s, then this discussion will limits only to the issue relates to professionalism.

The higher we grow ourselves within a company, the higher responsibility being trusted for you to be responsible with. Relates to the matter, most of the business issue being handled will rely on our expertise, so it is a responsibility being assigned, and it is plays a significant impact to the company.

Trust me, it is not easy. But, how we do it? It is easy, make the calculations, find the best value between, and see which one gives more benefits to us. But, that’s exactly most of the problems come from.

In 1738, a young Dutch scientist named Daniel Bernoulli gives a remarkable heritage to the mankind by inventing this mathematical equation.

It is a simple and absolute trueness can’t be challenged. However, calculations will be totally wrong if the variables are wrong. That’s exactly most of us starts to become wrong. It calls “Dynamic Inconsistency due to Shifting of Comparison, which highlighted on:

1. Our brains will goes to the one most easiest to pronounced or recognized

Which of 2 possibilities gave more quantity? Is is the word that have R in the 3^rd position or the one with R as the 1^st letter. The research ones made shows that most of the participant chooses the R as the 1^st letter has more set of possibility on words instead of the other one. Believe me, it is the other way around.

Why we acting that way? Because, it is easy to say Run, Roost, Robust then the other set, and we perceived that it is the right one.

2. Which one gives us the better image

In any mathematics equations shows that gambling is the same idea with flushing the same amount of money to the toilet. So, why we do it anyway?

Well, simple, it is because the image in the minds as the lottery winners drives us to do it.

3. That’s what we do in the past

We always decide on things based on the past experience that we had. So, when meet a problem, we will try to find the similar experienced we’ve had in the past, and just apply that memory believing will effectively solve it.

4. We are afraid to lose

Afraid to lose. That motive drives us to try making fast decisions believing that it is actually matters.

5. We believes on the impression

The first impressions counts. That’s actually the reality. When the last time you felt struck by lightning when someone you thought you knew well actually stealing. I bet it will be a mind struggling for sometime.

6. Perceptions

Perceptions are made as reaction of something we saw. We memorized an event of someone made terrible mistakes, and we labeled them associated to that one occasions. But as the impact, believe me, you’ll find very difficult recognizing huge improvement to the person and will use your perceptions when you deal to the person.

7. Impatience

We are most likely make terrible mistake on asses a situation with 2 different variables. Most of the decisions will based on the mind set of the soonest is the better, and will easily disregard other values that most of the time shows different results.

8. Dramatized / Downscaled

When we see a small problem, yet it will benefit to you, you will upscale the problems and making it such a big deal. However, we are most likely play things safely by recognizing smaller things are smaller risks.

For example:

Which one will you choose? Rp. 5, 000, 000, – now or Rp. 5, 100, 000, – in 30 days. Most of us by research chooses the 1^st one.

But, which one will you choose: Rp. 5, 000, 000, – in 12 month or. Rp. 5, 100, 000, – if you can spare another month, so the total will be Rp. 100, 000, -. Guess what, the research shows the majority choose to have the 2^nd choice.

Imagine, you agree to lose Rp. 100, 000, – in 30 days, instead, you try to fight Rp. 100, 000, – in 13 month.

Remarkable huh!!

So, take something to put more attentions on handling problems, or, suddenly you’ll be surprised when the company gives you the letter as agreement to voluntarily resign from the company or you’ll be paying the lost that you’ve made, then, you’ll still be fired, but just with some extra cash but no recommendations.

Standards of conduct encompass knowledge, skills, attitudes, and actions that distinguish excellent performers. The following behavioral competencies should be considered during performance review discussions. Other competencies, which are specific to unit’s strategic plan or the employee’s development plan in general, may also be used.

The Values Commonly based on the 5 C’s, that is:

Competence

1. Strives for excellence through developing and demonstrating innovation in the performance of responsibilities
2. Complies with legal standards, adheres to Organization policies and lives morality beyond legality
3. Solves problems and supports members of the Organizations at all needed times
4. Asks questions and seeks assistance when the proper course of action is uncertain.
5. Engages in free, active and original intellectual inquiry

Conscience

1. Cultivates the formation of one’s conscience which honors the dignity of the whole person
2. Demonstrates conscience through honesty, integrity, and morality in every situation
3. Values inter-religious collaboration and respects the faith of diverse religious communities
4. Through conscience deepens own belief and clarifies ethical conduct in the ongoing quest for enlightenment, understanding and truth

Compassion

1. Embraces and shows compassion through patience with and understanding of other people in different situations
2. Practices compassion by demonstrating effective communication skills by listening, seeking first to reflect and understand before making decisions and taking action
3. Demonstrates selflessness when interacting with others
4. Seeks forgiveness when appropriate

Commitment

1. Implements responsibilities with honesty and perseverance
2. By honoring commitment displays respect for others and self
3. Through commitment fosters civility with others
4. Through commitment enhances ethical performance and personal conduct

Community

1. Respects the dignity of others
2. Promotes dialogue and decision making which addresses ignorance, injustice, poverty, racism, and educational needs
3. Works to build teamwork
4. Offers mutual support
5. Welcomes all members regardless of racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds

That’s is the basic needs of what should one demonstrate within our daily social interactions.

I myself still need lots of improvements in several areas mentioned. But what mosts important is, when you can identify which are you’re lack and start to improve.

If KPI and/or Balanced Score Cards attentions are more to the performance shown by employee, now also comes what so called, “Talent Management”. What is Talent Management? Talent Managements is a method used to identify high performance employee within the company that believes will give a significant contributions to the company futures development. By applying Talent Management, the company should be able to maintain the high performance people and develop them to be ready as the future leaders for the company. By applying this method, it is believed that company should have more strong because the leaders has a strong bound to the company and also cheaper at cost.

Talent Management works by identifying the High Performance / High Achievers to match them to certain area of work / business. This element are called competency.

A competency is defined as a behavior or set of behaviors that describes excellent performance in a particular work context. A competency model is a set of success factors, often called competencies that include the key behaviors required for excellent performance in a particular role.

"A core competency is an area of specialized expertise that is the result of harmonizing complex streams of technology and work activity." – C.K.Prahalad

There are three groups of competencies we all need to explore in our career planning. The three groups are:

Functional/Technical Competencies. These areas identifies as function-specific technical competencies required on a given career path (e.g., finance, engineering or computer systems). Development for these competencies are assigning or conducting training that usually ready and available. Undergraduate major or trade school gives us a basic foundation of competence in the specialty we choose. When we are moving ahead, knowledge is also developed very rapidly in many of these specialties (e.g., physics, psychology or automotive mechanics) we usually have to keep ourselves up-to-date through ongoing reading, graduate studies, or periodic participation in specialized courses offered by local schools or professional societies. Often our work organizations offer a variety of in-house training to keep employees up to date in the specialized technical competencies required for their work.

Core Non-Technical Competencies. Overlooked, underestimated and ill-defined competency group, yet lately becomes hot discussions among executives or professionals who don’t aspire to managerial positions. In current flatter and less hierarchical work environments anyone who wants to get his/her ideas heard and implemented will require a set of core competencies (e.g., communication, influence, planning, organizing and customer responsiveness) that in past, more hierarchical organizations have often been associated primarily with managerial positions. The experts identify these as cores because they are not technical or function-specific. Those who want or need others to listen to, fund, act on, or support their ideas will require these core competencies no matter what technical/functional career specialty they pursue – and whether or not they ever aspire to formal managerial positions.

Leadership Competencies. In addition to the core competencies, the research shows there are some further supplementary competencies required for success by those who aspire to positions involving leadership of other people. Like the core competencies these are generic across all career specialties. These leadership competencies are important in both formal managerial positions and in informal non-managerial leadership positions. For instance, in today’s organizations people often serve as team or project leaders directing the technical work of others who do not administratively report to them. The people whose work they lead report administratively to other managers and move in and out of their groups depending on when various projects need their expertise. While the core competencies are required by everyone at all organizational levels, the supplemental leadership competencies evolve and change depending on the level of leadership involved.

Combining all three competency groups believes will produce people who are heard and provides more impact to the business and / or the company.

Functional/technical competencies varied, of course, depending on the specific business or technologies different organizations were pursuing. They were absolutely essential, but most organizations thought they were at least competing on a level playing field in these. They could define what was required and usually had ready access to training resources equal to those their competitors were using.

DEPTH TO LEADERSHIP AND LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES

However, the core and leadership competency requirements presented a different story. Most felt these were harder to identify and define than the functional/technical competencies and that the universities and trade schools were doing very little to identify, define, or teach them. Because most organizations were having difficulty identifying and defining these competencies in any coherent and focused fashion, it was also difficult to learn much by tracking or benchmarking what other organizations did. Interestingly, most also felt these were the competencies most likely to give their organizations a competitive edge – or keep them alive if organization survival was an issue.

Core and leadership competencies were seen as critical catalysts. These provided the rare spark that was typically required to ignite innovation and new technology. These provided the energizing motivation that could steer innovation through the many roadblocks and tedious details required for successful implementation. Because the core and leadership competencies are often fuzzy and ill defined, those organizations that can identify and focus on teaching them to their people will have a performance edge that can tilt otherwise level global playing fields in their favor.

But what makes the critical difference in the core and leadership areas?

KEY LEARNING

Functional/technical competencies differed significantly depending on the type of organization and specific career specialties involved. However, it is needed further own methods to identify those for the specific career field that interests you. First, lets focus on 12 core and a small number of supplemental leadership competencies that have emerged as most important for success across most career fields and organizations.

- Personal Values

1. Continues Learning

The Continues Learning Competencies will be able to observe when the candidate performs these behaviors:

• - Proactively defines and pursues personal goals ( ie. identifies and addresses development needs, negotiates growth assignments, etc )
• - Uses lessons from previous positives and negatives experiences to improve performance and effectiveness.
• - Continually looks and/ non-traditional ideas and approaches to improve personal and team effectiveness
• - Identifies appropriate role models and adopts the effective adopt the effective behaviors and techniques they exhibit
• - Seeks and apply new information and concepts quickly

2. Initiative and Risk Taking

Consistently shown personal ability to perform:

• - Identifies and takes steps to prevent potential situations that could result in unpleasant confrontations.
• - Manages and resolves conflicts and disagreements in a positive and constructive manner to minimize negative impact.

3. Honesty and Integrity

Consistently shown personal ability to perform:

• - instills mutual trusts and confidence
• - creates a culture that fosters a high standards of ethics
• - behaves in a fair and ethical manner toward others
• - Demonstrates a sense of corporate responsibility and commitment to public service.
• - Assures that effective controls are developed and maintained to ensure the integrity of the organization.
• - Holds self and others accountable for rules and responsibilities.
• - Can be relied upon to ensure that projects within areas of specific responsibility are completed in a timely manner and within budget.
• - Monitors and evaluates plans; focuses on results and measuring attainment of outcomes.

4. Flexibility

Consistently shown personal ability to perform:

• - open minded and express readiness to change when receiving a new way of work or information
• - adapts behaviors and work methods in respond to new information, changing conditions or un-expected obstacles
• - adjust rapidly to new situations warranting attentions and resolution

5. Self Confidence

Consistently shown personal ability to perform:

• - deals effectively with pressure;
• - maintains focus and intensity and remains optimistic and persistent, even under adversity.
• - recovers quickly from setbacks.
• - effectively balances personal life and work.

Team Player Values

6. Judgment and Problem Solving

Consistently shown personal ability to perform:

• - identifies and analyzes problems;
• - distinguishes between relevant and irrelevant information to make logical decisions;
• - provides solutions to individual and organizational problems.
• - exercises good judgment by making sound and well-informed decisions;
• - perceives the impact and implications of decisions;
• - makes effective and timely decisions, even when data is limited or solutions produce unpleasant consequences;
• - proactive and achievement oriented.

7. Teamwork

Consistently shown personal ability to perform:

• - inspires, motivates, and guides others toward goal accomplishments.
• - consistently develops and sustains cooperative working relationships.
• - encourages and facilitates cooperation within the organization and with customer groups;
• - fosters commitment, team spirit, pride, trust. Develops leadership in others through coaching, mentoring, rewarding, and guiding employees.

8. Creativity / Innovation / Change

The Candidates perform his/her ability to:

• - develop new insights into situations and applies innovative solutions to make organizational improvements;
• - creates a new work environment that encourages creative thinking and innovations;

- design and new or cutting-edge programs/process

9. Communication and Influence

From all of the literatures I read to have full understanding regarding the Talent Management Concept points that Communication and Influence Competency are often become the barrier of most candidates to succeed. The key element of Communicational and Influence Competency when the candidates able to perform:

• - Actively solicits inputs from others to clarify issues and potential actions before acting
• - Takes action to help insure that key strategies, goals and plans are understood by all team members
• - Able to provides important information quickly and accurately to internal and external customers
• - Acknowledges and addresses problems and issues in an honest, up-front, non-judgemental manner
• - understands and responds appropriately to the underlying (often unexpressed) motivations, values and concerns of others

- Operational Values

10. Responsiveness to Internal/External Customer

Consistently shown personal ability to perform:

• - Considers and responds appropriately to the needs, feelings, and capabilities of different people in different situations;
• - is tactful, compassionate and sensitive, and treats others with respect.
• - Identifies the internal and external politics that impact the work of the organization.
• - Approaches each problem situation with a clear perception of organizational and political reality;
• - Recognizes the impact of alternative courses of action.

11. Planning and Organizing

Consistently shown personal ability to perform:

• - Identifies and analyzes problems;
• - distinguishes between relevant and irrelevant information to make logical decisions;
• - provides solutions to individual and organizational problems.

12. Quality Result Orientation

Consistently shown personal ability to perform:

• - formulates effective strategies consistent with the business and competitive strategy of the organization
• - examines policy issues and strategic planning with a long-term perspective.
• - determines objectives and sets priorities; anticipates potential threats or opportunities
• - takes a long-term view and acts as a catalyst for organizational change;
• - builds a shared vision with others.
• - influences others to translate vision into action.

None of those mentioned above are mysterious psychological traits. These are simple actions anyone can consciously choose to perform or not perform. Should you able to rate yourself – or others rate you – as low on some of these behaviors that doesn’t mean you’re defective. It simply means you are not remembering or choosing to do them. The simple solution is to start doing them. You always have that option if you want to improve things. Practice can bring significantly increased skill in exercising each of the behaviors.

On the surface, many of these behaviors may seem obvious. When they are spelled out this clearly, most people would agree these are things we should be doing.

When less successful people read through the key behaviors for the competencies they usually agree these behaviors are important, but typically they don’t really do them and their excuse is they don’t have time. Successful people acknowledge the importance of the behaviors and agree it’s difficult to find time to do them, and they force themselves to take the time because they’ve learned that doing these things saves much more time in the long run. It eliminates much wheel spinning and repetitive false starts which less successful people waste time on because they won’t take time to rise above day-to-day fire fighting and find a way to prevent the fires from starting.

OBSERVES

How to actually learn about these critical competencies? Simply try to:

1. Observing other successful people and copying what they did (i.e., productive behaviors)

2. Observing and learning from the mistakes (i.e., critical behavior omissions and counter productive behaviors) of unsuccessful people

Few of us are intuitive observers. We watch others’ behavior but in the daily rush it isn’t so easy to isolate what specific actions are making others successful – or unsuccessful – in their performance.

For instance, I’m a race car enthusiast that obtains my driving skills actually by observing my seniors or watch the films to learn how to perform a precision maneuver. Although I understand the basics of how to perform such move, I still need to rewind the tape to recognized what must to recognized as mark then to perform the next action. So, make a list, recognize it, and improve it time to time, that’s the key. The checklist can help us learn in real time what works and doesn’t work. It can also be a valuable self-assessment tool. When we succeed or fail at a leadership or communications attempt, we can later sit quietly at our desk and pinpoint what we specifically did or failed to do that influenced the outcome.

Focus and Multiple Uses

Reading through the competencies in the profile can be informative in that it gives you a quick overview and probably some new insight. However, just reading through the competencies is unlikely to have much lasting impact on your personal growth. Believe me, by the time you get to the last competency in just reading a list like this you may not remember much of what you’ve read.

The competencies only come alive when we assess ourselves against them. You can use the self-assessment profile to identify the few behaviors you want to focus on first. Then you can take action to improve your performance in those areas. It is impossible to learn all of it simultaneously.

Again, the key word – and the antidote to being completely overloaded with busyness – is focus. Start it by carrying copy of the profile in your brief case. Use it on a day-to-day basis to identify and maintain focus on precisely where you want to concentrate your personal improvement efforts. It has multiple uses that can help you maximize the limited time you have available for self -development by directing your energy to more highly leveraged areas with the greatest potential payoff.

Having a tool can help those of us who are not always intuitive observers do the same thing.

Diagnosing Problems - When you observe unsuccessful performers failing you can glance at the profile to diagnose what’s causing the problems in real time – or you can go over it later to identify what happened.

Self-Diagnosis – You can better analyze what went wrong in your own performance failures. After a specific incident where you have not been effective, you can sit quietly in your office or at home and use this tool to take a few minutes and identify what you can do better – or avoid doing- to be more effective next time.

Getting and Giving Focused Performance Feedback - The profile provides a tool to solicit feedback from others about your own performance, or to give more objective feedback to others who solicit it.

Identifying Personal Development Needs - With limited time and resources available for personal learning, you can use the profile to determine your most critical competency gaps and seek out and negotiate appropriate training and on-the-job development experiences to fill the gaps.

Many do what has come to be known as a 360-degree feedback. Individuals give copies of the profile to a sampling of their managers, peers, customers, and subordinates (if they have any). These people rate them anonymously on the behaviors and fax an answer sheet to our office. Then the individual being rated gets a confidential (i.e., no one else in his/her organization sees it) computerized profile showing the averages of how various groups (e.g., customers or peers) evaluated each behavior. The feedback report also highlights participants’ top ten behavioral strengths and weaknesses, and identifies those areas where their own self-assessment differs most from the averages of how others rated them.

Leadership Competencies

There are four generic roles that leaders passed through as they moved from team member (i.e., individual contributor) positions to increasingly more demanding levels of ad hoc leadership and/or administrative managerial responsibilities:

- Team Member – (Individual Contributor)

- Team Leader – (Coach)

- Mid-Level Manager – (Multiple Team Integrator)

- Executive – (Strategist)

When you starting aspire to one or more of the leadership roles try to look for Leadership Competency Self-Assessment Form, you can use to assess yourself against those few additional competencies required for each role.

Leadership Competencies Identify by its characteristics roles, that is

A. Leading Change

Key Identifications of Individuals possessed this characteristic are their ability to perform:

Continual Learning – Grasps the essence of new information; masters new technical and business knowledge; recognizes own strengths and weaknesses; pursues self-development; seeks feedback from others and opportunities to master new knowledge.

Creativity and Innovation – Develops new insights into situations and applies innovative solutions to make organizational improvements; creates a work environment that encourages creative thinking and innovation; designs and implements new or cutting-edge programs/processes.

External Awareness - Identifies and keeps up to date on key national and international policies and economic, political, and social trends that affect the organization. Understands near-term and long-range plans and determines how best to be positioned to achieve a competitive business advantage in a global economy.

Flexibility – Is open to change and new information; adapts behavior and work methods in response to new information, changing conditions, or unexpected obstacles. Easy to adjusts to new situations, warranting attention and resolution.

Resilience – Deals effectively with pressure; maintains focus and intensity and remains optimistic and persistent, even under adversity. Quick recovers from setbacks. Effectively balances personal life and work.

Service Motivation – Creates and sustains an organizational culture which encourages others to provide the quality of service essential to high performance. Enables others to acquire the tools and support they need to perform well. Perform commitment to public service. Influence others toward spirit of service and meaningful contributions to mission accomplishment.

Strategic Thinking – Formulates effective strategies consistent with the business and competitive strategy of the organization in a global economy. Ability examines policy, issue and strategic planning complying to the terms perspectives. Identify key objectives and sets priorities; anticipates potential threats or opportunities.

Vision – Takes a long-term view and acts as a catalyst for organizational change; builds a shared vision with others. Influence others and able to visualized planning into action.

B. Leading People

Key Identifications of Individuals possessed this characteristic are their ability to perform:

Conflict Management – Identifies and takes steps to prevent potential situations that could result in unpleasant confrontations. Manages and resolves conflicts and disagreements in a positive and constructive manner to minimize negative impact.

Leveraging Diversity – Recruits, develops, and retains a diverse high quality workforce in an equitable manner. Leads and manages an inclusive workplace that maximizes the talents of each person to achieve sound business results. Respects, understands, values and seeks out individual differences to achieve the vision and mission of the organization. Develops and uses measures and rewards to hold self and others accountable for achieving results that embody the principles of diversity.

Integrity/Honesty – Instills mutual trust and confidence; creates a culture that fosters high standards of ethics; behaves in a fair and ethical manner toward others, and demonstrates a sense of corporate responsibility and commitment to public service.

Team Building – Inspires, motivates, and guides others toward goal accomplishments. Consistently develops and sustains cooperative working relationships. Encourages and facilitates cooperation within the organization and with customer groups; fosters commitment, team spirit, pride, trust. Develops leadership in others trough coaching, mentoring, rewarding, and guiding employees.

C. Results Driven

Key Identifications of Individuals possessed this characteristic are their ability to perform:

Accountability – Assures that effective controls are developed and maintained to ensure the integrity of the organization. Performs personal accountability by the rules and responsible. Reliable ensuring that projects within areas of specific responsibility completed within the scheduled in-line with the budget being planned. Monitors and evaluates plans; focuses on results and measuring attainment of outcomes.

Customer Service – Balancing interests of a variety of clients; readily readjusts priorities to respond to pressing and changing client demands. Anticipates and meets the need of clients; achieves quality end-products; is committed to continuous improvement of services.

Decisiveness – Exercises good judgment by making sound and well-informed decisions; perceives the impact and implications of decisions; makes effective and timely decisions, even when data is limited or solutions produce unpleasant consequences; is proactive and achievement oriented.

Entrepreneurship – Identifies opportunities to develop and market new products and services within or outside of the organization. Is willing to take risks; initiates actions that involve a deliberate risk to achieve a recognized benefit or advantage.

Problem Solving – Identifies and analyzes problems; distinguishes between relevant and irrelevant information to make logical decisions; provides solutions to individual and organizational problems.

Technical Credibility – Understands and appropriately applies procedures, requirements, regulations, and policies related to specialized expertise. Ability to make sound hiring and capital resource decisions and to address training and development needs. Having depth understandings to linkages between administrative competencies and mission needs.

D. Business Acumen

Key Identifications of Individuals possessed this characteristic are their ability to perform:

Financial Management – Demonstrates broad understanding of principles of financial management and marketing expertise necessary to ensure appropriate funding levels. Prepares, justifies, and/or administers the budget for the program area; uses cost-benefit thinking to set priorities; monitors expenditures in support of programs and policies. Able recognize and execute cost-effective action within the area of working.

Human Resources Management - Assesses current and future staffing needs based on organizational goals and budget realities. Using merit principles, ensures staff are appropriately selected, developed, utilized, appraised, and rewarded; takes corrective action.

Technology Management – Uses efficient and cost-effective approaches to integrate technology into the workplace and improve program effectiveness. Develop strategies using new technology to enhance decision making.

E. Building Coalitions/Communications

Key Identifications of Individuals possessed this characteristic are their ability to perform:

Influencing/Negotiating - Persuades others; builds consensus through give and take; gains cooperation from others to obtain information and accomplish goals; facilitates "win-win" situations.

Interpersonal Skills – Considers and responds appropriately to the needs, feelings, and capabilities of different people in different situations; is tactful, compassionate and sensitive, and treats others with respect.

Oral Communication – Makes clear and convincing oral presentations to individuals or groups; listens effectively and clarifies information as needed; facilitates an open exchange of ideas and fosters an atmosphere of open communication.

Partnering – Develops networks and builds alliances, engages in cross-functional activities; collaborates across boundaries, and finds common ground with a widening range of stakeholders. Utilizes contacts to build and strengthen internal support bases.

Political Savvy – Identifies the internal and external politics that impact the work of the organization. Approaches each problem situation with a clear perception of organizational and political reality; recognizes the impact of alternative courses of action.

Written Communication – Expresses facts and ideas in writing in a clear, convincing and organized manner.

Well… Hope that this article helps you to pursue your career advancement and development. 

Andre Sibuea

HISTORY

So, what is Account Management? Account management has a rich tradition starting in the early 1960’s. At the same time, the concept is still ill-defined and under-researched. Consequently, some basic research questions remain unanswered. Is account management sales driven, marketing-driven or a strategy-driven process? Should the primary focus be on the management of sales activities towards important customers or should account management focus on relationship building and value creation in order to create a competitive advantage?

This situation was mainly due to the impact of globalization, the maturity of business markets in most developed countries, the increase of the buying power of the customers and the impact of the information and communication technologies and mass customizations, companies are faced with high levels of competition in a rapidly changing environment.

In order to bring stability to their operations, to respond quickly and flexibly to accelerating change in technology, competition and customer preferences, companies have tried to create new business organizations emphasis partnerships and strategic alliances with customers and suppliers, instead of putting the focus on market transactions. One type of seller initiated strategic alliance, applied in situations where the structural change is due to supply base rationalization, is account management. Due to the existing relationship between: customer retention, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty with company performance and shareholder value creation, marketing academics have turned their attention to study the subject of account management as a way to implement long-term buyer/seller relationships in business markets. Account management from this relationship marketing perspective occurs as the natural development of a customer focused organization.

The concept of account management emerged in de mid 1970,s because several environmental conditions stimulated companies to change the way they sold their products to a limited number of large customers. Those conditions were caused by:

1. increased concentration of buying companies accounting for a large portion of the sales and increased pressure to improve services,
2. increasing geographic dispersion of buyers of the same company,
3. increased pressure on cost and communication,
4. increasing desire to develop partnerships,
5. increased sophistication of buyers.

To address these new pressures, some companies assigned one salesperson the responsibility to manage and develop a limited number of key clients. Very rapidly, it could be observed that these sales people did much more than just selling products. They increasingly became in charge of understanding the customer’s operations in order to increase the efficiency and productivity of these important customers.

This transformation of sales organization then approach the market based on the ideas of:

- Sales-driven approach.

Sales driven approach emphasizes “how to do it”, but provides little theoretical or empirical underpinnings. Let’s put a tag this as the “Key account selling” (KAS). Because of these primary sales driven approach, the emphasis towards key customers is operational and short-term sales driven. Relationship building is here a means to increase sales. The KAS approach does not focus on strategic objectives such as the creation of entry barriers. Key account selling started in the mid 70,s in the USA, Because of this primary sales driven approach, the emphasis towards key customers is operational and short-term sales driven. Relationship building is here a means to increase sales. The KAS approach does not focus on strategic objectives such as the creation of entry barriers.

The globalization of the economy, the maturity of most business markets in the developed world and the increased power of customers because of mature markets, have all contributed to a rethinking of the way companies approach and service their customers. Companies realize that not building a competitive advantage with key customers can have a dramatic impact on revenues and profitability if a key account decides to switch suppliers.

- Marketing Relationship approach

Marketing Relationship approach emphasizes long-term relationships with key customers. Lets tags this as the “Key account management” (KAM). Under KAS, the objectives are simple and trivial: sell more and make more profit with your existing customers who already present a major part of the revenues of the company.

When an industry or a company faces a growth decline, companies start to realize more than ever the benefits of customer loyalty: keeping existing customers is more cost effective than systematically finding new ones.

KAM takes a more relationship marketing approach. Its purpose is to create strategic alliances with key customers and suppliers in order to become the sole or one of the main suppliers. Through those strategic alliances, companies want to create a competitive advantage and bring stability to their operations when faced with high levels of competition in a rapidly changing environment. KAM must be able to create a long-term relationship with key customers by giving them special attention through a better and dedicated service and customer specific solutions compared to other customers.

The business logic behind this approach is that those key customers represent both a major opportunity, for cost reduction and profitable growth, and as a major risk if they stop buying. As a result, companies allocate special and sufficient resources to satisfy key customers in order to create entry barriers and switching barriers. A company should therefore identify its key customers; set-up a dedicated marketing and sales channel and finally manage the interaction with the most important customer from a strategic point of view.

What appeared to be a simple concept: keep your most important customers and sell more to them, turns out to be a very complex process requiring not only the implementation of a dedicated sales and marketing approach but the development of a well-defined company and marketing strategy as well. Ultimately the challenge is to create a customer focused organization implying all the complexities to build a market driven culture. When companies realize the difference between “selling more to important customers” and “rethinking the way to approach their main customer base from a strategic point of view”, they are ready to move from KAS to KAM.

WHAT IS KEY ACCOUNT?

The definitions of key account reflect the historical evolution of the concept over 30 years. This leads to a multitude of proposed definitions resulting in a series of different approaches and concepts behind the general terminology of key account. Both from an academic and from a practitioner point of view, different words with different meanings are used to indicate an “important customer”. Two terms commonly used today are: “key account” and “global account”. The global accounts nowadays known as “national” or “major account”, highlighted by two characteristics:

1. geographical spread (local, national, international, multinational, global),
2. importance (large, big, major, key, strategic) of the customer for the supplier.

This evolution in terminology is due to two reasons:

• - impacted from the globalization on the customer-supplier relationship during the last two decades, and,
• - the acceptance that a special marketing approach is required if suppliers want to enhance their competitive position towards strategic important customers.

Key Account: definitions

A key account is a well defined and identified customer, selected based on its current or potential contribution to the realization of the strategic objectives of the company.” Earlier definitions define a key account simply as being an “important customer” for the supplier. The problem of defining a key account on the sole basis of the customer’s characteristics is that one risks losing a major dimension. Indeed key accounts can be both large and small, can be local, international or global, they may be prepared to establish a strategic relationship or may be of a highly opportunistic nature.

Key Accounts then transformed its meaning and definitions when realized that the way of doing business still focusing on the traders, not to the consumers, and operates based on:

• - A key account originates when markets are segmented by type of customer and by type of customers importance. The segment of very important or strategic customers is called key accounts.
• - Variables for customers, importance are:
• a. turnover or potential turnover
• b. profit margins or potential profit margins,
• c. importance or potential importance of the market segment,
• d. image or Status provided by these customers,
• e. innovation capacity of these customers and
• f. reference value for other markets.

It is characteristic of the key accounts segment that not just one variable but usually a combination of variables are used.

• - The current definitions and approach towards key account do not take into consideration the conditions under which the customer should be selected as a key account.

WHAT IS KEY ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT?

Regarding account management however, no accepted definition has yet emerged. As was the case for terminology used on key accounts, we also find numerous terminologies for account management in literature and in corporate life. Terms used as synonyms for account management range from national account marketing in the early 70,s (Stevenson and Page 1979) to national account management (Shapiro and Moriarty 1982), major account management (Anderson and Narus 1999), and more recently global account management (Arnold et al. 2001; Montgomery et al.1998), and strategic account management (Verbeke and Nagy 2000).

Stevenson (1981) was one of the first to define account management. It is important to note from his definition that account management consists of allocating corporate resources in function of the importance of the customer. This focus on resources is highlighted on the one hand by the allocation of a specialist sales team and on the other hand by the investment in major customers through price reduction, inventory management and special services. His definition does not refer however to a payback effect on investment, to the justification for making these investments, or to the goal one seeks to achieve before setting up this type of organization.

Stevenson,s definition differs from the definition proposed by Shapiro and Moriarty (1982). Their definition puts forward a series of important new terms, which indicate both the purpose and characteristics, of the management of national (key) accounts. According to Shapiro and Moriarty, the purpose of account management is primarily to have current or potentially future major customers to yield higher profits. This must be achieved by creating an institutional relationship in order to become the main or sole supplier. Moreover, this institutional relationship is more than a personal relationship. The creation of an institutional relationship means that relationships are established at different levels resulting in a relationship that is stronger than the sum of all individual relationships. Marketing literature refers to this type of relationship structure as “multilevel selling”.

Millman and Wilson (1995) propose a definition of account management later adopted by McDonald (1999). The notion of profit and turnover has not been included in their definition. They include concepts such as continuity, long-term relationship, dedicated sales teams, and special customer treatment as proposed by earlier authors. Apart from the issue of profit and turnover, we may conclude that over the years a consensus has emerged concerning most characteristics of account management. However, there seems to be no consensus as to the purpose of the process. This is surprising since we are dealing with an essential marketing

I think now we all have the common perception about the meaning of Account Management and Key Account Management as it is progressed nowadays. However, should you wondering, whether account management sales driven, marketing-driven or a strategy-driven process? I haven’t successfully found the literatures confirming either one. But I think it will be decided based on us, our company and our business.