Who should be involved in Strategic Account Management?
• Senior general management, sales, and marketing managers need to lead strategic account management by example to make it successful. • All functional managers leading many or most employees involved in the entire sales process need to be involved, ranging from R&D through Credit, Production / Manufacturing, Shipping, Billing and more. • Getting closer to customers should be a priority in most companies. Increased alignment is a best practice that results in strengthening both client and employee engagement. • The most practical way for functional employees to become involved is through self-directed work teams. Ideally, the teams need to report to each senior executive charged with overall company responsibility for various strategic accounts. • Special recognition for individuals and teams is a best practice in strategic account management. • To ensure a strong focus on strategic account management, a major international chemical company made successfully executing strategic account
