Driving firm performance with strategic account management

Nyenrode Inaugural Book: Driving firm performance with strategic account management
Kaj Storbacka (2007)

The essay is a long version of Professor Storbacka’s inaugural speech, as he accepted the position as professor of Sales and Account Management at the Nyenrode Business Universiteit in the Netherlands. Churchill once said “I am going to give a long speech as I have not had time to write a short one”. In order to give a short and concise speech, Professor Storbacka took time to make a synthesized essay of a research process that started with a multi-client study in 1998-1999, initiated by the consulting practice Vectia Ltd., called “Key Client Management”. The research process is longitudinal in its true sense as Professor Storbacka has , since then, participated in an additional four multi-client studies run in the Vectia context, all of which have had an impact on the content of this essay (see Appendix 2).

Professor Storbacka started to prepare the essay during the summer of 2006. As he did so, he noted that he had not utilized the very rich empirical data gathered during the interaction with the tens of individuals from organizations that financed and participated in the studies. He also noted that there was a clear thread of logic throughout the years: the idea that effective management of value creation in customer relationships will have a positive impact on the performance of both the firm and its customer. The process of integrating the ideas and previous texts, with research published on strategic management, relationship and business marketing, value management, network management, and key account management, proved to be very rewarding. “I should have done this earlier!”, concludes Professor Storbacka.

Download the essay through the link below:

Nyenrode Inaugural Book: Driving firm performance with strategic account management (2007)