Listen for FREE: Four things you must do to ensure your KAM programme succeeds

In this episode of Talking KAM, The Association for Key Account Management's podcast, board member Richard Ilsley and fellow board member and global KAM consultant Olivier Riviere discuss failure in KAM and four fundamental points for success.

Usually available exclusively to members, we're giving you the opportunity to listen to part 1 of this 2-part episode completely FREE! Click here to listen or carry on reading for more information.

KAM programmes are notoriously difficult to create. Furthermore,?defining their criteria for success and driving necessary organisational change is seriously challenging.

However, that does not mean a KAM programme is thwarted before it’s started. On the contrary, done well it is transformative for a major business. Given these issues, we at AKAM decided that analysing what makes a KAM programme succeed or fail is an essential topic for our podcast.

Four key elements for KAM success are identified:

• Be smart when planning your roadmap - The importance of setting smart and ACHIEVABLE goals in given periods is vital to winning colleagues’ trust and engagement. Achieving short-term successes that build momentum are far more likely to create a viable long-term KAM programme than expecting huge wins within the first two years.
• Build momentum - The distribution of attitudes to a new initiative within your organisation is the typical bell curve of many new products and services. Early adopters will be a minority, and a similar number will be completely opposed or apathetic. The bulk of your people will be in the middle, non-commital until success can be proven. That’s why clear communication, celebrating small wins, and being clear about goals in each period are vital to building momentum and engagement.
• Clarify why you are introducing a KAM programme - KAM can be designed to defend strategic accounts, others to win them. If your people don’t understand why they are being asked to participate and what it means to the business, it will become increasingly difficult to drive the programme forwards.
• Be clear about the measures of success - Clarifying why you are implementing a KAM programme is a vital starting point to achieving your goals. Just as important is to let the business know how you intend to measure success. Specificity is essential. A goal such as ‘increase customer-centricity' is much too vague. Be clear what your goal will achieve and the most relevant measures to monitor progress. In this case, it could include customer satisfaction ratings, customer retention, or an increase in customer revenue and profitability. The measures will vary based on the reasons for introducing KAM, just make sure they are specific, achievable, and communicated regularly to the business.

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