...Daniele Leone; Francesco Schiavone; Michele Simoni Purpose The present study aims to contribute to the growing stream of literature about the network perspective of value co-creation via key account management (KAM) by exploring how firms, in complex industrial markets, use key account strategies...

...Giancarlo Pereira; Nektarios Tzempelikos; Luiz Reni Trento; Carlos Renato Trento; Miriam Borchardt; Claudia Viviane Viegas Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore top managers’ role in key account management. Design/methodology/approach The possible actions that could be performed...

...Arun Sharma; Heiner Evanschitzky Purpose – The use of key accounts has become a mature trend and most industrial firms use this concept in some form. Selling firms establish key account teams to attend to important customers and consolidate their selling activities. Yet, despite such increased...

...Nektarios Tzempelikos Purpose – The purpose of the study is to examine the role of top management in effective key account management (KAM) relationships, making a distinction between top management commitment and top management involvement. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses data...

... received little attention and often are ignored or remain “unspoken”. This paper addresses those important issues. Organisations Accounts management Key accounts An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue. Anecdotal evidence suggests...

...Thomas Brashear Alejandro; Jakob Rehme; Christian Kowalkowski; Daniel Nordigården Purpose The existing literature on key account management (KAM) has focused more on sales forces and management levels than on their evolution. The purpose of this paper is to explore how sales activities can...

...Hanna Salojärvi; Sami Saarenketo; Kaisu Puumalainen Purpose This study aims to identify the organizational antecedents of intra‐organizational customer knowledge dissemination in the context of key account management (KAM). Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from large...

...Lynette J. Ryals; Iain A. Davies Purpose – Over the past ten to 15 years, key account management (KAM) has established itself as an important and growing field of academic study and as a major issue for practitioners. Despite the use of strategic intent in conceptualizing KAM relationship types...

... to strategic account customers. However, the strategic account program is still relatively immature and the term “key account management” is also in use at Arab Telco; this term refers to many customers who are not of particular strategic significance to the company. Research limitations/implications...

...Dirk Zupancic Purpose The purpose of the paper is to identify the elements of professional key account management programs, to understand the success factors and to create an integrated framework. Design/methodology/approach The article is based on an analysis of the existing literature...

...Paul Matthyssens; Derrick Philippe Gosselin; Guy André Bauwen Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an innovative conceptual view on the management of strategic or important customers in business markets, so‐called (key) account management. Central to this new perspective is customer...

...Arun Sharma Purpose The paper seeks to present research that examines the success factors for key accounts within firms, i.e. what factors lead to successful versus unsuccessful key accounts. Design/methodology/approach Data from a consulting firm are analyzed to examine the success factors...

...Tony Millman; Kevin Wilson Addresses the question of how to make key account management processes in industrial and business‐to‐business markets more customer focused. Considers the processual issues emerging from recent empirical research and looks at a range of factors: cultural; organisational...

...Robert Spencer This case study is the result of in‐depth investigation into a major Swedish multinational company in the data processing and computer equipment field. Addresses the issue of key account management and questions some of the existing views in the literature. In particular...

... management teams. Implications for marketing management are provided and areas for future research are detailed. Business Key accounts Relationship marketing Marketing management USA The business‐to‐business sales environment of today is increasingly complex (e.g. Boles et al., 1997...

...Catherine Pardo Aims to analyze the process of key account management in the industrial sector by highlighting the most recurrent problems that arise linked to this process. The research is based on a period of six years, during which several major industrial groups in France either set up...

... to the company’s objectives now or in the future. We use the term account for selected customers for which account management is a special marketing approach. Within the set of accounts there may be accounts which are considered more important than others: sometimes referred to as “major” or “key” accounts. Apart...