Unlocking Key Account Management and Collaboration: You need more than CRM

Take the simple act of sticking a nail into a board.

A brick works fine. Maybe even a flat bit of rock is good enough.

Yet, when we hang up a picture, we look for a hammer because “good enough” isn’t good enough. We need the right tool for the job.

CRM is like that. Good enough, until you have a specific requirement such as Key Account Management and then you need to look for better tools.

Every organisation has a different definition of a key account, but what they all agree on is that key accounts are responsible for majority of the organisation’s revenues.

A business decides which its key accounts are based on the present 'health' and its future revenue potential. A key account isn't necessarily large in terms of turnover or number of staff/locations, but one that is secure, (relatively) trouble-free and likely to grow.

This is where it gets complicated. For efficient key account management, it is critical to stay current on emerging trends, and scale your efforts according to the growth path of the account. It’s complex and finicky work, and unfortunately, a by-numbers-CRM-system that is used for day to day opportunity management is not the right tool for this job.

Challenges of Key Account Management:

The job of a Key Account Manager is complex and often difficult. Typically the nature of their work dictates that they spend as much time as possible with the customer – building rapport, understanding their business, or just creating trust. They also have to keep up with the flow of information from all other stakeholders who work the customer. Only then can they identify opportunities and convert them into more business and revenue.

However, in the modern business environment, data doesn’t come in buckets; it streams from the mouth of the fire hose like a flood. Moreover, some of the data is documented, while other data simply exists in the minds of various account and customer success managers. To extrapolate information from this data and use it to streamline customer operations, thereby enhancing revenue opportunities, is the biggest challenge to being a key account manager. It’s all about maintaining this balance of collecting, processing and sharing important client data, and it's a balance that some Key Account Managers find it hard to achieve.

CRM Is Not Enough

And here's why they sometimes fall short at managing the data and the stakeholders: Modern organisations are complicated beasts, spread across nations, functions and verticals. Sales teams are typically organised around these parameters, rather than individual customers. Thus, deep gaps in knowledge can exist between the customer-focussed key account manager and the vertically or geographically focused sales teams. Opportunities slip through these gaps, opportunities that could be converted if there was a system more intuitive and broad than a typical CRM system.

CRM acts as storehouses of data, but fails with regard to tracking or optimising that data so that it’s presented in a timely and intuitive manner to the account managers. It’s why many key account managers have to fall back on the humble spreadsheet to maintain their own databanks, suited to their unique needs. Whilst that can work, it also results in account managers spending time keeping up with the basics – time they could spend performing other, more mission-critical tasks.

Beyond CRM

It's no secret that CRM is not cutting it anymore. This is why leading organisations are migrating to single-vendor CX platforms that offer an all-in-one broad solution to the challenges posed by complex customers. Some laggard organisations are resulting to buying a plethora of CRM plugins and other third party tools to fill the gaps that their CRM system is leaving them with. But this is just putting a band-aid over the issue. Third-party solutions cannot be expected to offer the cohesive solution that single-vendor CX platforms can. CX suites, such as that offered by Oracle include the following key crucial elements:

1. Social Listening/Publishing

2. Marketing Automation

3. Lead and Opportunity Management

4. Whitespace Analysis

5. Sales Predictor

6. Bid Management

7. Pricing Management

8. Sales Performance Management

9. Configure, Price, Quote

10. Social Network

11. Management Information

12. Compensation Management

Key Account Managers have a delicate task, one they should be spending their time perfecting, instead of trying to track and make sense of enormous amounts of data by hacking their CRM system or buying third party apps on their credit card.

If a Key Account Manager is able to their job properly, then it unlocks profitable collaboration and better customer service. Leadership teams can achieve this by replacing the brick (CRM) in their toolbox with the diamond cut, precision hammer (CX Suite) that they really need, plugging the gaps and directing teams to the winning opportunities that would otherwise slip through the gaps.