Key Account Management in the Business to Business Field: The Key Account's Point of View

Abstract

A research program was set up three years ago at the “Institut de Recherche de l'entreprise” in Lyon. This program is aimed at improving the understanding of industrial key account management. This paper presents the outcomes of one of the studies carried out within this program. It focuses on the perceptions a key account may develop according to the treatment he receives from his supplier. The purpose of this research study is to shed new light on key account management from the key account's point of view. Until now, indeed, except for a few works (see for example the recent report from McDonald, Millman and Rogers [1996]) the literature on key account management has been focused on the supplier perspective. In other words, the aim of the great majority of the studies was to discuss the characteristics, the implications, the evolutions of a supplier from the moment he decided to implement a key account management program. Today, given the maturity that researchers are beginning to acquire on the subject, it is possible to go further into the analysis by observing and discussing perceptions that firms which are key accounts have of their supplier.This research is based on in-depth interviews with twenty customers. These customers are considered to be key accounts for either their energy supply company or for their supplier of telecommunications services. The objective was to clarify what perceptions these twenty key accounts have about the key account management programs of their suppliers. Then, factors which could explain differences or similarities between these perceptions are identified and discussed.