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Strategic account management: customer value
creation through customer alignment
Derrick Philippe Gosselin
Department of Marketing, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium and Department of Economics and Management,
Royal Military Academy, Brussels, Belgium, and
Guy Andre
´Bauwen
Department of Management and Organization, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Abstract
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 value creation through external customer alignment. The
paper additionally proposes two propositions, based on quantitative empirical analysis and rooted in congruency, transaction cost economy and
economic rent generation theory.
Design/methodology/approach – The study is quantitative research based on questionnaire survey.
Findings – The paper’s proposition is that account management can create important competitive advantages for companies which can acquire and
develop the necessary organisational competences to implement an integrative process through alignment with strategic or important, well selected,
customers.
Originality/value – Traditionally, most companies view account management as a sales activity. Views that are more recent consider it as a marketing
activity with emphasis on relationship marketing. The paper’s approach, however, is to look at account management from an integrated business
process perspective, encompassing marketing and sales as development activities as well. Two elements are central in the proposal: customer selection
and alignment.
Keywords Accounts management, Key accounts, Sales management, Marketing management, Industrial marketing
Paper type Conceptual paper
An executive summary for managers and executive
readers can be found at the end of this issue.
Introduction
Companies, in business and industrial markets, face high
levels of competition in rapidly changing environments. This
is mainly due to the impact of globalisation, maturity of
business markets in most developed countries, the increased
buying power of customers, the impact of information and
communication technologies, and mass customisation
(Gosselin, 2002). In order to bring stability to their
operations, to respond quickly and flexibly to accelerating
changes in technology, competition and customer
preferences, companies have tried to create new forms of
organisations (Homburg et al., 2000). These new
organisational forms emphasise partnerships and strategic
alliances with both customers and suppliers, and focus on
relationship building through repetitive, rather than single,
sales transactions.
Account management, being the management of dedicated
sales and/or marketing processes (e.g. customer selection,
customer satisfaction, channel management, relationship
management, etc.) directed towards important customers in
business and industrial markets, can be seen as a practical
implementation of long-term buyer/seller relationships
(Gosselin and Heene, 2005). From this relationship
marketing perspective, account management is one type of
seller-initiated (often defensive) partnership or strategic
alliance, adapted to situations where structural change is
due to supply base rationalisation. However, account
management can also be seen as a proactive development
towards a customer-focused organisation. Account
management is then no longer the outcome of a defensive
move, driven by competition or imposed by customers, but
becomes part of the implementation of a customer-focused
strategy. As such, account management is much more
strategic. It contributes to the realisation of a unique selling
position; therefore, it creates a competitive advantage that
increases performance, which ultimately leads to shareholder
value creation.
Despite its practical importance, academic interest in
account management has been restricted to either describing
it as: a new phenomenon of an innovative sales channel
(1970s and 1980s); a practical application of relationship
marketing (mid 1990s); or an innovative type of organisation
capable of managing complex interactions with global
customers (2000s) (Gosselin and Heene, 2003, 2005;
Homburg et al., 2000; McDonald et al., 1997; Millman and
Wilson, 1995; Weilbaker and Weeks, 1997).
Overall, for the period from 1975 to 2000, it can be stated
that account management is an under-researched area. It is
characterised by anecdotal evidence presented in a literature
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0885-8624.htm
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
21/6 (2006) 376– 385
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0885-8624]
[DOI 10.1108/08858620610690137]
376
that is practice-oriented and applied in nature. The dominant
research method employed is the qualitative case study. This
is because of the idiosyncratic nature of business markets and
the complexity of the buying process. Theories that have been
used as focal points in the discussion of account management
are transaction cost economy (TCE) and, since the 1990s,
relationship marketing theory. Even today, the literature on
account management shows limited research from an
organisational or strategic perspective. Consequently,
definitions of fundamental concepts and theoretical
knowledge (beyond knowledge of current practical
implementation) are still poorly defined, missing or
insufficiently developed. Publications in top academic
journals, reflecting the interest in account management on
the part of prominent academic scholars, only occurred after
2000 (e.g. Birkinshaw et al., 2001; Homburg et al., 2002;
Wilson and Millman, 2003; Workman et al., 2003). Although
there is a recent increase in high quality academic research
interest, evidence indicates that the gap between practitioner
knowledge and academic understanding is still large and may
even have increased. Research, by McDonald and Woodburn
(1999) shows that relationship-marketing paradigms applied
to account management have not been fully understood by
many practitioners in industrial and business firms.
Consequently, many companies think in a rather confused
way about account management.
The importance of account management derives from
fundamental characteristics of business and industrial
markets. Empirical obser vations show that revenues in
business and industrial markets are Pareto distributed, i.e.
20 per cent of customers account for 80 per cent of revenues
(Sheth and Parvatiyar, 2002). This results in a few powerful
customers controlling an important portion of the suppliers’
revenues and (possibly) profit. Over time, this revenue
concentration, towards important customers, may even have
increased in developed and mature business and industrial
markets. Such changes have led to a further increase in the
importance of account management. Figure 1 presents a
schematic overview of driving forces, root causes and critical
success factors, contributing to the increased importance of
account management. Gosselin (2002, pp. 54-9), identified at
least five driving forces leading to the increased importance of
account management:
1 Characteristics of the revenue structure in business and
industrial markets (i.e. Pareto distribution).
2 Globalisation, leading to global customers and the need to
protect the customer base from competition.
3 Market maturity of most business and industrial markets,
resulting in a reduction of the number of suppliers in
global markets (i.e. mergers, acquisitions, strategic
alliances).
4 Customer power due to the increasingly centralised
organisation of purchasing by important customers in
global markets.
5 Technological developments leading to mass
customisation, acceleration in competition. Technological
developments, together with globalisation, eventually bring
about the phenomenon of industry consolidation.
The structure of our article develops three topics. First, we
propose a new classification of the account management
concepts based on buyer/seller strategic proneness interaction.
In practice, account management means different things to
different people, in different industries, in different types of
companies and in different types of functions. Academics,
consultants and managers all use different names for same
account management concepts and the same names for
different account management concepts. Therefore, account
management nomenclature has been and still is a source of
confusion (Gosselin and Heene, 2005). Second, we formulate a
new research proposition explaining how account management
could create competitive advantage based on the creation of
customer value. Central to our proposition is the customer
alignment perspective. Finally, we discuss the organisational
consequences of these new propositions from a practical point
of view. More specifically, we consider both personal and
organisational prerequisites necessary to create and develop a
competitive advantage based on account management.
Account management: sources of confusion
Based on an extensive review of both academic and practice-
oriented account management literature, we identified three
distinct sources of confusion. The first source of confusion
relates to the purpose: is account management a sales or a
marketing activity? This boils down to the question: “Is
account management responsible for relationship building
and coordination with important customers or mainly
responsible for (transactional) sales generation?” The second
source of confusion relates to geographical scope: “Does
account management show the same characteristics on a
local, regional or global level, or does change in geographical
scope imply corresponding changes in the organisational
concept of account management?” The third source of
confusion relates to a universal applicability question: “Is it
possible to design and implement a single best account
management organisation structure, applicable to most types
of companies and independent of the complexity of: products,
services or systems; customer organisation; supplier
organisation; or environment?
Understanding the different sources of confusion will
contribute to the enhancement of companies” capabilities to
create competitive advantages based on the creation of
customer value. Since different sources of confusion are
rooted in different levels of complexity, this will imply the
need to create and implement different ways to approach
customers from a sales or marketing perspective in order to be
able to create customer value. In addition understanding
those sources of confusion also implies specific structural
organisation, designs, processes and interactions with
customers. These considerations have implications for
relationships within companies as well as between them.
Those specific characteristics will lead to a new classification
of important customers (see Figure 2).
Confusion between sales and marketing
Academic research on account management has a long
tradition, going back to the mid-1970s (Gosselin and Heene,
2005; Weilbaker and Weeks, 1997). This academic research
was based on experiments of leading and innovative
companies in the USA who knew and used some account
management concepts from the mid-1960s onwards. Account
management originated as a response to pressure from
important industrial customers, called major accounts or
national accounts. Fuelled by economic growth, industrial
companies extended their geographic coverage, and used their
Strategic account management: customer value creation
Derrick Philippe Gosselin and Guy Andre
´Bauwen
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 21 · Number 6 · 2006 · 376 – 385
377
purchasing power to force suppliers to create coordinated and
client specific sales and service channel. (See Gosselin and
Heene (2005) for an overview of different nomenclatures used
in account management literature over the past 30 years.)
Those new sales channels led, in the early 1970s, to the
emergence of a new phenomenon in industrial sales
management, the so-called national account management
(NAM). The term “national” refers to the national coverage
within the USA coverage. Suppliers had to put structures in
place to service the most innovative and important customers
who developed their business on a national scale. Because in
the early 1970s neither relationship marketing, business
marketing nor sales management had an extended academic
body of knowledge, the literature on account management
was mainly application oriented. It was characterised by an
anecdotal and practical approach lacking basic theoretical
foundations. Consequently, account management was studied
as a new phenomenon from a practical, sales distribution
oriented, organisational and implementation perspective
(Gosselin and Heene, 2005). Account management
literature during this period did not differentiate between a
marketing or a sales approach. In practice however, account
management was mainly driven by a defensive sales approach,
imposed by important customers, in order to increase their
service levels through a single point of contact. Differences in
approach and maturity toward account management (e.g.
sales vs marketing driven) could be found between, and
within, different industries. Differences also existed between
early adopters of account management and their followers,
and between big and small companies (Gosselin, 2002;
Figure 1 Driving forces of increased importance of account management
Strategic account management: customer value creation
Derrick Philippe Gosselin and Guy Andre
´Bauwen
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 21 · Number 6 · 2006 · 376 – 385
378
Weilbaker and Weeks, 1997). Although this was the situation
in the 1970s, very little had changed by 2002. During the
1980s and 1990s, Millman and Wilson (1995) proposed a
relationship marketing-oriented approach towards account
management. Their approach was a practical application of
the basic buyer/seller relationship model developed by Dwyer
et al. (1987). Today, account management still remains within
the marketing literature as a practical application of either a
sales management or relationship marketing approach.
The general position described in the previous paragraph
was also found in Belgium in 2002, when we performed
research. We distributed questionnaires to account managers
from business and industrial companies. The main
characteristics of the research design were as follows:
.The research population was Belgian business and
industrial account managers from companies with
annual revenues in excess of e25 million and more than
200 employees.
.The population size was 513 account managers
(companies).
.The sample size was 115 account managers.
.The response rate was 22.4 per cent.
Companies in the sample are characterised by annual
revenues averaging e128 million (median), and 673
employees (median) (see Table I).
Table I, shows that the duration of ongoing customer
relationships were 15 years (median) and positioned in the
mature phase of relationship development. Sales with the
important customer were e8 million (median) and represent
6.25 per cent of the sample revenues. Account managers
were, on average, very experienced persons, with more than
20 years of experience, who simultaneously managed 8
customers (median). The characteristics shown in Table I are
in line with previous studies done in the UK and in the USA
(Conlon et al., 1997; McDonald and Woodburn, 1999).
Table II summarises the level of development of the
different subsystems of account management systems used by
the companies studied in the research (n¼115). We found
that account management systems were only “well to very
well” developed in fewer than half of the companies (44 per
cent). The most highly developed account management
subsystems were sales-tracking systems and evaluation
systems (44 per cent), while the least developed were
career-tracking systems (17 per cent). We also observed that
less than one-third of the companies invested in internal/
coordination forums or platforms (29 per cent). This may
indicate that account management is not considered to be of
strategic importance to suppliers. Our research data support
this assumption because only 36 per cent of the companies in
our sample appointed a member of the executive committee
as a mentor or as responsible for their account management
processes. Table II indicates that because of the focus on sales
and profit tracking systems and due to the number of
accounts an account manager must manage, that the
dominant concept behind account management was
probably sales management rather than relationship
management. We believe that, 20 years after the academic
discussions started on relationship marketing, and in spite of
the use of relationship marketing terminology by many
companies in their communications, a majority of companies
active in business markets, do probably not apply or do not
fully understand relationship-marketing concepts in general,
and specifically when dealing with account management.
Since the distinction between sales- or relationship-
marketing approaches in account management is not always
obvious (either in literature or in practice), it remains a source
of confusion. As indicated by our empirical findings, in
practice, the dominant implementation approach of account
management remains sales oriented in most business and
industrial companies.
Confusion between local and global account
management
The second source of confusion relates to the impact of
geography on organisational requirements. We believe account
management, whether implemented from a sales or
relationship-marketing perspective, will change dramatically
when customers geographic scope changes. Geographical
dimensions drive complexity within companies as well as
between them in the buyer/seller relationship. If both supplier
and customer organisations are complex, international or global
companies, then the role of account management becomes a
very complex coordination process between multiple legal
companies, with multiple products, services or system needs, in
Figure 2 Account classification and account management strategies
Strategic account management: customer value creation
Derrick Philippe Gosselin and Guy Andre
´Bauwen
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 21 · Number 6 · 2006 · 376 – 385
379
multiple geographic areas. It is clear that to deal with this
challenge account management organisations require an
idiosyncratic (global) mirror structure of the (global)
customer organisations so they can better interface
(coordinate) with them. Confusion about account
management organisations abounds when local/regional
suppliers, dealing with local/regional customers, talk about
account management with international/global suppliers,
dealing with international/global customers. The single point
of commonality is that both types of supplier (local/regional vs
international/global) talk about a dedicated sales or relationship
channel towards customers. Beyond that single commonality,
all other aspects are different and driven by the internal
structural complexity of the supplier organisation, which aims
to deliver customer performance. Reducing confusion requires
identifying levels of complexity in terms of (at least):
.geographical scope;
.number of legal entities served;
.range of products, services or systems offered;
.technology used; and
.possibility of adding (substantial) value into the
customer’s value chain.
Table I Characteristics of the sample (
n
¼115)
Response distribution
Characteristics Range (%) Median
Approximate annual sales revenues of the account in 2001 (emillion) 2-8
9-24
25-800
50
30
20
8
Geographical scope of account National
International
42
58
–
Age of relationship with the account (years) 1-5
6-14
.15
14
31
55
15
Phase in the relationship with the account Start-up
Expansion
Maturity
Decline
2
37
57
4
Mature
Type of products or services offered to the account Stand alone products
Projects
Turnkey solutions
System integration
38
21
16
15
–
The importance of the company as a supplier to the account Single source
Lead supplier
One of many suppliers
18
32
50
One of many suppliers
Approximate percentage of the account’s overall input provided by the
supplier company
,1
1-5
.5
23
29
48
5
Estimated time to win back the account in case the account is lost to
competition (years)
0-1
2-3
.4
34
45
21
3
Experience of the account manager with account management (years) 0-5
6-10
.11
25
36
39
7
Overall professional experience of the account manager (years) 0-10
11-20
.21
14
50
36
20
Number of accounts the account manager is responsible for 1-4
5-10
.11
41
36
23
8
People working full-time on the account 0
1-5
.6
32
45
23
2
People working part-time on the account 0
1-5
.6
17
57
26
3
Percentage of account manager’s time spent managing the account 5-15
20-50
60-100
65
15
20
10
Strategic account management: customer value creation
Derrick Philippe Gosselin and Guy Andre
´Bauwen
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 21 · Number 6 · 2006 · 376 – 385
380
Confusion between appropriate types of account
management organisation
The third source of confusion has its roots in the fact that
companies have a propensity to copy organisations of
competitors in order to (re)gain competitiveness. In doing
so, they tend to forget one of the fundamental strategy and
organisational theory axioms, formulated by the mid-1960s,
the congruency principle (Donaldson, 2001; Jauch and
Osborn, 1981; Miles and Snow, 1994). Jauch and Osborn
(1981) formulate this congruency principle in the following
terms:
The probability of organisational survival increases as the congruity of
environment, contextual, and structural complexity increases.
Porter (1996, p. 70) is even clearer when he states:
The importance of fit among functional policies is one of the oldest ideas in
strategy. Gradually, however, it has been supplanted on the management
agenda. Rather than seeing the company as a whole, managers have turned
to “core” competences, “critical” resources, and “key” success factors. In
fact, fit is far more central component of competitive advantage than most
realize.
The congruency principle also means that it is impossible to
design a universal and single best strategy, applicable to all
possible situations. Applied to account management, the
congruency principle means that companies must
comprehend the key value creation drivers to create or
enhance customer value, before deciding what type of account
management organisation they need.
Based on the TCE (Williamson, 1985) and the Theory of
Economic Rent (TER) generation, we can predict the extent
to which suppliers, and hence account management
organisations, will be more or less considered strategic (as
opposed to transactional) by customers. According to the
theory of economic rent, a supplier only captures rent (and
maintains this rent in the long term) if he possesses a
competitive advantage. We believe customer-supplier
interactions will move toward a strategic relationship for the
supplier when rent generation is high. In cases where rent
generation is low, two explanations are possible. First, there
may be high levels of competition due to limited
differentiation possibilities. Second, there may be high levels
of competition due to the structure of the industry. In both
cases, however, competition is high, rent generation is low,
and profit levels approach marginal cost. This logic will push
suppliers into a cost leadership strategy. As a consequence
(based on TCE), customers will start to behave
opportunistically and try to capture the maximum value out
of their interaction/exchange with the supplier who offers a
limited range of products, services, systems or solutions (see
commoditisation, commodity magnet (Rangan and Bowman,
1992)). Therefore relationships will move to more
transaction-oriented interactions. It is important that
suppliers realise what type of interaction they are involved
in with their customers (strategic vs transactional). If only low
customer value creation is possible, it will be very difficult to
maintain a more than transactional relationship with the
customer. It is better in such situations not to invest too much
in relationship marketing, and design an account
management organisation that is cost effective, sales driven,
technology based and reactive.
Account management classification
Based on our previous discussions we propose a classification
of account management based on two key variables:
relationship proneness (RP) and competence development
proneness (CDP). The choice of RP and CDP is theoretical
rooted in the congruence theory. RP and CDP are strategic
alignment variables between buyer and seller. They measure
the extent to which each side of the dyad is willing to commit
itself towards the other. Research done by Gosselin (2002)
shows that strategic congruence between a buyer and seller is
one of the dominant variables explaining account
management performance.
Both CDP and RP can take, independent from each other,
either a high or a low value. Therefore, we can acknowledge
four types of important customers or accounts. We name
them respectively (Figure 2): key account; strategic account;
transactional account; and captive account. It is important to
emphasise that all of these accounts or important customers
can exist simultaneous within a single buyer firm. This is
particularly relevant when dealing with global, international,
multinational or industrial holding companies. Often, those
types of companies organise themselves around multiple
business divisions, units and/or business lines. We believe
(based on our own experience) that account management
structures should be organised in line with the strategic
business units (SBU) of the customer’s organisation structure
and not according to the legal company structure (i.e. one
company does not imply one single type of account
classification). Dealing with global, multi-business,
industrial groups with multiple SBUs leads to coordination
issues if the supplier does not use a mirror organisation of his
customer. Mirror organisations are a form congruency of
strategic alignment between customer and supplier.
Table II Characteristics of account management systems in Belgium (
n
¼115)
Not or very poorly developed Average developed Well or very well developed
Management systems (%) (%) (%)
Sales-tracking systems 21 35 44
Profit-tracking systems 34 30 36
Excom mentorship 24 40 36
Internal forum/platform 25 46 29
Evaluation systems 33 23 44
Career-tracking systems 47 36 17
Remuneration systems 37 32 31
Methodology 33 37 30
Strategic account management: customer value creation
Derrick Philippe Gosselin and Guy Andre
´Bauwen
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 21 · Number 6 · 2006 · 376 – 385
381
Based on our account classification approach, we think only
two attractive and sustainable customer relationships are
possible. Relationships evolve either towards a partnership or
towards a strategic alliance (i.e. strategic account), or towards
transactional sales (i.e. transactional account). Key accounts
and captive accounts provide no stable, long-term relationship
positions. The reason is that both miss an essential element of
mutual proneness to create a stable long-term relationship. This
leads us to propose four possible account management strategies
(Figure 2): two dominant account management strategies for
each of the two unstable customer relationship positions.
CDP (H – high) and RP (L – low)
In this situation the supplier wants a relationship with the
customer (CDP high), but the customer is not prone (RP
low) to maintain a relationship with the supplier:
.Strategy A. Invest in the relationship if the customer is willing
to consider your offer from a strategic point of view.
.Strategy B. Reduce investment with the customer;
consider this customer no longer a potential strategic
account. Try to service the customer in a cost effective
way (e.g. through technology – telesales, web-based sales,
SAS sales automation systems, etc ...).
CDP (L – low) and RP (H – high)
In this situation the customer wants a relationship with the
supplier (or a relationship is imposed with the supplier) (RP
high), but the supplier is not prone (CDP low) to maintain a
relationship with the customer:
.Strategy C. Invest in specific solutions in order to increase
your competence level with or through this customer
relationship.
.Strategy D. Harvest profits as long as possible. This is a
particularly appropriate strategy when dealing with
structural captive accounts that have no alternative.
Strategic marketing approach: how to create
customer value?
This paper approaches account management from a conceptual,
economic and strategic point of view. Our analysis and research
(Gosselin, 2002) leads us to believe that in an increasingly
complex business environment (see Figure 1) (e.g. globalisation,
pace of technological change, deregulation), rent generation
through important customers in business markets will
increasingly depend on external rather than on internal
(organisational) congruence or alignment.
We define congruence according to the definition proposed
by Gosselin (2002, p. 122):
[...] a dynamic consistent relationship between two concepts or constructs.
We define rent, as the capability of a company to deliver value
above its marginal costs or above its break-even point, as long
as this situation does not create new competition. Rent is
synonymous with economic profit (EP). EP is accounting
profit (AP) (i.e. company profit reported in a profit and loss
statement) minus opportunity costs. The concept of EP
relates closely to the concept of net present value (NPV). It
can be shown that when an investment has a positive rent, it
will have a positive NPV (Besanko et al., 2000, pp. 22-4).
Rent generation also relates closely to competitive advantage,
because no rent can be generated in the absence of a
competitive advantage. This is a consequence of competition.
Indeed competition does two things to companies: it reduces
profits to marginal cost level, and it keeps profits at that level
over time. To be able to generate rents companies must
therefore have a competitive advantage; otherwise
competition will prevent them form earning much more
than marginal cost. Four types of rent generation are
described in the economic literature:
1 Ricardo rents (ownership of valuable assets);
2 Schumpeterian rents (entrepreneurial risk taking,
innovative advantage);
3 monopolistic rents (government protection, collusion or
cartel behaviour); and
4 Pareto rents or quasi-rent (idiosyncratic distribution of
company resources).
Profits generated by a competitive advantage called “market
driven customer value creation”, are due to Pareto-rents or
quasi-rents. Pareto-rents originate from the possibility of
creating a competitive advantage based on heterogeneous
distribution of idiosyncratic resources between companies in the
industry. This type of rent generation applied to account
management is rooted in the theoretical interactions as
presented in Figure 3. Customer selection based on external
customer alignment will develop relationships with the
customer, leading to an increase in customer loyalty. This
loyalty creates a competitive advantage based on entry barriers
(see replacement cost imposed on the competition if they want to
recruit a customer). Those entry barriers, through the
competitive advantage they create, are the basis for Pareto-rent
generation. This competitive advantage will translate into an
increase in “sales/customer” ratio and a decrease of “customer
acquisition cost” and “customer cost to serve”. It leads to
improvements in the contribution to margins, Free cash flow
(FCF), customer lifetime value (CLV) and finally to an increase
in shareholder value (SHV). We define customer lifetime value
according to Kotler (2003, p. 45) as:
The present value of the profit stream that the company would have realised
if the customer had not defected prematurely.
This must be compared to economic rent generation based on
internal process alignment and based on the product concept
(i.e. customers favour those products that offer the most
quality, performance or innovative features) or the production
concept (i.e. customers prefer products that are widely
available and inexpensive) business philosophy. Companies
with a production-oriented business approach favour high
production efficiency, low costs, mass-distribution, while
companies with a product-oriented approach favour high
product quality, performance and innovative features. In
those product or production business philosophies,
shareholder value creation is driven by the relationships
between: productivity increase, cost optimisation, sales
growth, assets utilisation, margin increase. This leads to
increases in FCF, CLV and SHV (Gosselin, 2002; Kotler,
2003; Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Reichheld, 2001).
We therefore formulate the propositions:
P1. In situations where complexity of buyer/seller dyad
interaction increases, alignment towards important
customers creates a competitive advantage through
increase of customer value creation based on customer
performance increase.
P2. This customer performance is rooted in systems
architecture, processes and reputation.
Strategic account management: customer value creation
Derrick Philippe Gosselin and Guy Andre
´Bauwen
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 21 · Number 6 · 2006 · 376 – 385
382
Our propositions are important for academics as well as for
practitioners. It is important for academics, because it allows
quantitative hypothesis testing research on account
management. Quantitative research on account management
is of major importance since the main body of knowledge of
account management consists of qualitative, case study
research-based findings. More extensive knowledge on
account management in business markets, will require more
quantitative research. It is important for practitioners,
because account management is one of the single most
important issues in (complex) business markets. This is
related to the characteristics of business markets that are
idiosyncratic, therefore calling for specific customer oriented
approaches. Understanding how to create and maintain
customer value with important customers is essential for
building a (sustainable) competitive advantage leading to rent
generation.
Practical consequences
First, our propositions stress the significance of important
customer account selection as a possible key success factor for
SHV creation based on external customer alignment. This
means that not every customer, in business and industrial
markets, can, must and/or should receive important resource
allocations from the supplier company. This normative
principle has been recognised in the literature on different
occasions (Bonoma, 1985; Capon, 2001; Cespedes, 1995).
Bonoma (1985) refers to the danger of global mediocrity if
companies are not selective in resource allocation towards
customers. Cespedes (1995) underlines the significance of
long-term commitments in serving important customers in
business markets. Capon (2001) stresses the importance of
major upfront investments in order to create unique offers
and trust build-up towards strategic important customers.
McDonald and Woodburn (1999, p. 112) report, based on
case study research, that: “Most companies’ selection
processes are rudimentary and do not even reflect their
behaviour towards relationships in many cases.”
Second, based on our proposed account classification and
propositions, we claim that proactive account management is
important and necessary. This is a consequence of our
discussion on the importance of account selection. Being
proactive will lead to commitment and focus and therefore
build core competences according to the resource-based view
theory (Barney, 2001).
Figure 3 Relationship between customer alignment and shareholder value
Strategic account management: customer value creation
Derrick Philippe Gosselin and Guy Andre
´Bauwen
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 21 · Number 6 · 2006 · 376 – 385
383
Third, we believe that excessively formal account
management organisations present some major
disadvantages. This is because internal alignment within the
supplier company seems not to contribute much in explaining
account management performance. This is in line with
research reported by Gosselin (2002) and by Workman et al.
(2003). Most practitioners see this statement as counter-
intuitive. It seems to be in opposition with some practical
account management literature that proposes the elaboration
of formal account plans, procedures and control. However,
plans will not solve fundamental issue related to commitment
and performance; neither will they solve fundamental
strategic alignments between suppliers and customers.
Conclusions
An extensive review of both academic and managerial account
management literature leads us to identify three distinct
sources of confusion. Understanding these different sources
of confusion will contribute to the enhancement of a
company’s capabilities to create sustainable competitive
advantages based on customer value creation. Since
different sources of confusion are rooted in different levels
of complexity, this implies the need to create and implement
different ways to approach important customers from a sales
or marketing perspective in order to be able to create
customer value. In addition, understanding those sources of
confusion implies specific structural organisation designs,
processes and interactions with customers.
Congruence or alignment between customer and supplier is
one of the key variables explaining account management
performance. We introduced an account classification
framework and believe only two sustainable customer
relationships are possible. Relationships evolve either
towards a partnership or strategic alliance (i.e. strategic
account), or towards transactional sales (i.e. transactional
account). Relationships with key accounts or captive accounts
do not represent stable long-term relationship positions. The
reason is that both miss an essential element for relationship
stability: mutual proneness. This is needed in order to create a
stable long-term relationship. Two dominant account
management strategies for each of those two unstable
customer relationship positions have been proposed.
Based on our proposed account classification and
propositions, we conclude that in order to create customer
value in business or industrial markets, management should
answer some basic questions. We consider three questions
fundamental and central:
1 Is top management sufficiently involved in the selection of
strategic accounts?
2 Are strategic accounts contributing to the development of
core competences?
3 To what extent do companies manage their strategic
important accounts proactively?
Fundamentally, companies must make a choice in how to
manage their priorities and their value creation processes. We
think two business philosophies are possible. In the first
philosophy, customers are used as a strategic cushion to
stabilise internal operations in order to increase efficiency. In
this case, internal resource conflicts are managed through
processes such as delaying customer promises, changing
scope, etc. In the second philosophy, companies that want to
create optimal customer value and customer satisfaction use
their internal operations as a cushion for managing resource
allocation conflicts between customers. Here companies
accept possible internal conflicts in order to fulfil customer
promises and committed performance. The difference
between the two philosophies is either external congruence/
alignment towards carefully selected important customers
(i.e. strategic accounts), or internal structural alignment in
order to increase efficiency.
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About the authors
Derrick Phillippe Gosselin is Executive Vice President of Suez
Energy International and member of the extended executive
committee of Suez Group. He is Professor of Business and
International Marketing at Ghent University and Associate
Professor at the Royal Military Academy of Belgium. He is
member of the Royal Belgian Academy Council of Applied
Sciences (CAWET) and advisor on foreign trade to the
Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade. He graduated from
Ghent University and Vlerick Leuven Gent Management
School with MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering, in
Control Engineering, and in Industrial Business
Administration. He holds an MPhil and PhD in Business
Economics at Ghent University and advanced business
degrees from INSEAD and London Business School. He
completed postgraduate courses at Harvard Business School
(Harvard University), Templeton College (University of
Oxford) and INSEAD. He is senior member of IEEE and
member of IEE. Derrick Philippe Gosselin is the
corresponding author and can be contacted at:
Derrick.Gosselin@UGent.be
Guy Andre
´Bauwen is Managing Director of BMG and
Research Fellow at Ghent University, Department of
Management and Organisation. His research relates
primarily to business marketing, new business development,
strategic innovation and corporate entrepreneurship. He is
Visiting Professor of Marketing at Erasmus University,
Rotterdam School of Economics (The Netherlands) and
advisor on foreign trade to the Minister of Economy and
Foreign Trade. He had international executive responsibilities
with Alcatel and General Electric. Guy holds a Master in
Industrial Sciences from Hogeschool Ghent and an MBA
from Ghent University (Vlerick Leuven Gent Management
School). He completed management and marketing courses
at INSEAD, Babson College, Stanford University and
Harvard Business School.
Strategic account management: customer value creation
Derrick Philippe Gosselin and Guy Andre
´Bauwen
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 21 · Number 6 · 2006 · 376 – 385
385
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