Malcolm McDonald on Key Account Management

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Going global with key accounts

As part of the process of globalization, which began in the late 1980s, the big multinational enterprises started to demand support, and consistent pricing, across their global operations. Whilst these arrangements are often negotiated in a HQ environment, their implementation is often monstrously difficult for both the key account and the supplier organization. Aligning two multinational organizations at multiple levels (strategically, operationally and tactically) across multiple countries and continents is extraordinarily difficult, often financially challenging for the supplier and more often than not ends in failure. Those that do succeed in implementing global key account management (KAM) programmes successfully ...