How to make Global Account Management programs really work
Many have tried – fewer have succeeded... Global Account Management is a well-known sales engagement approach which has been around since the mid 90’s. Running a multi-national business is not the same as running a global one. It’s not about addressing single countries across continents but to master the increasing globalization driven by consolidation and the ever-increasing pressure from customer’s global procurement in a well-orchestrated TOTAL way.
Global procurement has changed the business environment
During the last 20 years, companies like IBM, DHL, Tetra Pak, Ericsson and others have invested into programs and initiatives focusing on improving and building a comprehensive and efficient global account handling. Many B2B companies’ business rely on relatively few customers, often even fewer when it comes to profit contribution. Although a diverse company like Proctor & Gamble still has around 30% of its revenue from 10 customers. Global procurement has led to dramatic reduction of number of suppliers, often 70-90%.
Either you join and invest or you risk declining your business and lose out on competitiveness. Furthermore, today, digitalization provides even stronger possibilities to transform business engagements in a new more fierce and efficient way. Are you in or out?
Well-designed Global Account Management will generate benefits
Do you know that only a third of the hundreds of suppliers that adopted a Global Account Management program are happy with the outcome. Other studies show that within a few years, these programs can improve customer satisfaction by more than 20% and increase sales and profits by 15%. When the program is more mature it can generate increases twice as large….so the question comes back. How to make Global Management Programs really work.
Take one step at the time
When starting your global account organization, it’s paramount to ensure that you have made a thorough analysis of your top global customers, not only from top line or geography perspective but also from capability and maturity perspective, i.e you must mirror your customer’s ambition to act global versus if they can execute on their ambition and compare that with your own organizations capability and willingness to change.
Many times, companies have started boldly with a senior sales head with a broad and open charter…”to develop and drive the global business…” and forgotten that it takes time, you need at least three years with the right top management commitment and people with the right competence. If you go too broad and have limited resources…you are going for failure and will reach a dead-end. Instead, find your ”Ice-breaker customers” which allow you to go deeper and have a much more strategic engagement with. Use these (3-15) as your pilot and ensure that you focus on providing true value. Scaling is as always key to release the benefits of your learnings. This last phase is the most critical one – changing and optimizing your overall processes (not only sales) and organization without adding complexity and non value-add cost. Let them then be embedded as an integrated part of your sales Go to Market. Remember, it’s not an ”one off effort” or a costly trial and error process – it’s a nitty gritty but strategic continuous learning one.
Where are you today? And how can you evolve your sales organization from Multinational to Global into Total Account Management?