Create Value with Strategic Accounts

Create Value with Strategic Accounts
Kaj Storbacka, Petteri Sivula & Kari Kaario (Kauppakaari Oyj, 1999)

Are you managing your most valuable customers? Do you know who your most valuable customers are? Are you systematically managing opportunities in these customer relationships? How do you involve your customers in value creation?

It is not unusual for small percent of a customer base to provide most of a firm’s positive cash flow. This fact alone is a sufficient reason to focus on the most valuable customer relationships. Other dimensions, such as business potential, reference value and learning value, should, however, also be considered when evaluating customer relationships.

Managing the most valuable customer relationships well makes good business sense. The book Create Value with Strategic Accounts introduces a Strategic Accounts Management (SAM) program, which provides tools for situations such as:

• Planning a SAM program
• Implementing and managing a SAM program
• Selecting Strategic Accounts
• Implementing relationship and opportunity management

The book also contains a number of cases which illustrate critical issues in building Strategic Account Management programs. In addition, it presents milestones in Account Planning processes and the tools needed for these processes.

Strategic Account Management is about building customer and shareholder value. This Strategic Account Management book is an integrative handbook, which we hope will prove a useful tool for senior executives in general management, marketing, and sales whose aims are to build shareholder value. Account Managers will also benefit from the practical viewpoint presented through cases and tools to develop and enhance long-term customer relationships.