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WHITE PAPER …our thinking..

Getting to ‘Trusted Partner’

How organisations can significantly increase revenues by

enhanced account management of key clients

White Paper produced by Vista Business Development Consulting

(September 2007)

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Synopsis

Many organisations have an impressive client list

but could generate more business and better
margin business from their major accounts

The key to unlocking greater account value is to

elevate client relationships to a ‘Trusted Partner’
level through enhanced account management

Organisations can achieve this quickly and

inexpensive through a program of strategic
Account Planning and personal development of
the Account Management team

“As large customers get more demanding, B2B companies need not resign
themselves to taking a beating on price.

Collaborative selling can help companies create and capture more value - but
only if they improve their approach to customers, the organization, and
collaborative investments”

McKinsey & Co. (Better B2B Selling, June 2005)

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 INDEX

Synopsis 2

Purpose of this White Paper 4

Management Summary 4

THE BENEFITS 5
Positioning to Win 5
Realising wider and deeper business growth 6

GETTING TO TRUSTED PARTNER 8

Enhanced Account Planning 9
Development of Key Account Management 11

Case Study (Schlumberger Essential 200 Program) 15

About Vista Business Development Consulting 17

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Purpose
This White Paper describes how an enhanced Account Management programme would
quickly and inexpensively enable your organisation to significantly grow business with
existing key accounts.

This is intended as a briefing document for further discussion.

Management Summary
Your organisation is probably typical of a number of leading global organisations, who
enjoy an impressive, high calibre and loyal client base but are not fully exploiting this
hard-earned position to realise significant business growth potential. The large installed
client base of your organisation is probably the envy of many of your competitors and
can be the pre-requisite springboard for creating a higher-level of account-suppler
relationship – as ‘Trusted Partner’.

As a Trusted Partner you would be in a far stronger position to win more business and
improve the business mix within these key accounts. Moreover, cost of sale would
reduce, further improving margins and you would achieve an unassailable advantage
over competitors to sustain this business growth into the future.

This White Paper outlines the benefits of reaching Trusted Partner status and the
relatively straightforward and inexpensive road-map to achieve a revenue enhancing
Trusted Partner relationship.

Note about the Authors

Vista Business Development Consulting provide business solutions to large multinational
organisations. We specialise in the development of strategy and programmes to improve
business performance through enhanced Account Management and Sales practices.
Supporting this work we develop and deliver senior-level training for account and sales
professionals.
More information is included in the final section of this White Paper.

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THE BENEFITS
Being a Trusted Partner of a client is very different to being a supplier, major supplier or
business partner. It is difficult to achieve and requires a high degree of maintenance and
commitment. However, the benefits of becoming a Trusted Partner are significant in
terms of future revenue, margins and operating costs.
A majority of clients strongly welcome the opportunity of having a true Trusted Partner.
This applies in public and private sectors, from manufacturing to engineering and service
industries to outsourcers.

The Trusted Partner role is most commonly associated with consulting organisations
where leading firms, from McKinsey to Accenture, aim to reach Trusted Partner status
with their key client accounts. However, any supplier with customer focused values can
grow into a Trusted Partner and reap the enormous resulting benefits.

The wide ranging and long terms benefits of achieving this status are described in the
following two sections.

Positioning to Win – more often, more profitably and bigger deals

Being a Trusted Partner with your key accounts means being positioned earlier in their
buying cycle.

WHEN DO YOU ENGAGE YOUR CLIENT?

Client Buying Process

Strategy Initiate Evaluation of Procurement Implementation

Setting Project Options

Trusted Key Supplier

Partner
Fig 1.1

As Fig 1.1 shows, a Trusted Partner can be part of the client decision making process.
This would enable your organisation to lead the client (through ‘Thought Leadership’ and
strategically planned executive level relationships), to influence their strategic buying
activity and choices. This position would be enormously powerful in pushing the client
towards your products and solutions and away from those offered by competitors. This is
also a defensive position as clients have only the capacity for one real Trusted Partner
and if your organisation holds this mantle then your competitors cannot.

By engaging earlier with your key accounts you will improve bid success rates and
reduce bid costs (by better qualification of opportunities and ‘seeding’ of client business
decision making). You will achieve better business deals as price becomes less of an

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issue for your proposals. Moreover, the close and trusting relationship will ensure higher
levels of knowledge transfer and co-ordination to significantly reduce the incidence and
costs of problems in the implementation and operating phases.

Realising wider and deeper business growth

By developing a Trusted Partner relationship with your key accounts your organisation
unlocks the door to significant business growth within the account. The most obvious
area is in improving your business success by engaging much earlier in the buying cycle
(as outlined in the previous section). However, in addition there are other areas offering
exponential growth possibilities within your accounts.

WHERE IS THE CLIENT GROWTH?

New

ESTABLISH DIVERSIFY

Business
IMPROVE EXPAND
Existing

Existing New
Relationship Fig 1.2

Fig 1.2 demonstrates that in addition to simply Improving the business prospects within
the client a Trusted Partner can achieve growth through Establishment, Expansion or
Diversification strategies. A thorough Account Profiling of each client would identify
how many of these expansion strategies are attainable.

Establish Strategy refers to your organisation establishing a market for different

projects, products, services or spares not previously sold into this client. Working
within the existing buying centre and in those areas of the client with knowledge of
your company you will be able to leverage existing presence to promote a wider and
more profitable product range. A Trusted Partner will be in a position to evaluate the
potential and then execute a sales strategy for establishing the broader market
within this client.

Expand Strategy refers to your organisation building relationships in new areas of

this client’s business to grow the market for the existing projects and PSS offerings
currently supplied into this account. This expansion could be geographic (e.g. your
existing business with a client may only be in Europe yet they have similar

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 operations in AsiaPac) or functional (e.g. you sell into a client’s manufacturing
function but have no footprint in their R&D division).

As a Trusted Partner, in all scenarios, you would have the positioning within the
account to follow-through an expansionist strategy and open up enormous market
potential. Clearly, this is also a defensive measure to counter those competitors
looking to do the same from their points of strength.

Diversify Strategy refers to your organisation building relationships in new areas of

the client’s business (geographic or functional) to market new products and services
not currently supplied to this account. Many of your clients are probably unaware of
the full depth and scope of your product range and only view your company as a
provider in a particular solution area.

Clearly the diversification strategy is the most challenging of the four but offers the
greatest rewards for those accounts where it can be executed. Apart from the
increase in market potential within an existing client, the diversification strategy
reduces your exposure to changes in client purchasing or operating conditions (e.g.
your company would be less commercially vulnerable should a client close or sell
operations in one geography or functional area where you are a core supplier).

Account Expansion - Conclusions

The Account Expansion opportunities enabled by elevating your organisation to Trusted
Partner with your key clients will differ by account. Each client is unique and only through
rigorous account profiling and planning can you confidently identify which direction each
key account can be exploited and accordingly set the strategy. However, for your clients
(especially those with similarly large-scale and multinational operations) you should be
able to find prospects of major growth potential beyond the existing
relationships/business areas.

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GETTING to TRUSTED PARTNER
“A strategy to expand the service positioning of a company cannot be achieved without a
focused, complementary sales effort” (Gartner Dataquest, June 2003)

Your company already enjoys a good client base and healthy level of positioning with
key accounts. As a result, achieving Trusted Partner level with these clients can be
relatively straightforward and inexpensive.

POTENTIAL CLIENT ENGAGEMENT

Client Buying Process

Strategy Initiate Evaluation of Procurement Implementation

Setting Project Options

Fig 1.3

Based on our experience from working with large multi-national organisations a Trusted
Partner relationship can be attained with key clients. This is achievable through a
structured and executive-sponsored program incorporating activities such as enhanced
account profiling, planning and contact strategy, employing consultative selling
techniques, development of executive-level relationships, ‘consulting led’ engagement
and introducing rigorous qualification rationale for all opportunities.

Such a ‘Getting to Trusted Partner’ program would be structured around two core work-
streams;

1. Account Planning Process

2. Learning and development of account teams

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Program Stream 1 - Enhanced Account Planning Process
Achieving the business benefits resulting from a Trusted Partner relationship requires
rigorous business-level examination of the client and their perception (real and possible)
of your company. This is achieved by enhancing your existing Account Planning
process; forcing a strategic review of the current key accounts, bringing measurable
KPI’s to assess the business potential and develop the actions to enhance the
relationship.

Components of a Successful Account Plan

Vista Consulting has experience with Account Planning models applied by other
multinational organisations who have successfully achieved a Trusted Partner status
with many key clients. Based on this experience we recommend the following
components as a minimum to realise an effective Account Planning process;

The cornerstone of successful Account Planning is making plans SMART (Specific,

Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Based) with KPI’s (Key Performance
Indicators) that are reviewed and agreed by senior management. For your
organisation this would ensure Account Plans become the strategic vehicle to
develop accounts whilst keeping them aligned with corporate strategy.

Inputs to Account Plans must be based on concise, objective, independent and

factual data tested by management in structured reviews. In short – they will tell the
(hard) truth about the relationship and prospects for a client and enable setting of
realistic account strategy and objectives. Examples of quality data inputs are
account business profiles and spend, market trends, assessment of the true
competitive situation, real and ‘tested’ client perception of your company etc.

Effective Account Planning

….and the key phases which are missed

(1)
Quality/Factual
Input

(5) (2)
REVIEW THINK

(4) (3)
DO PLAN
Fig 2.1

Account Plans are often made without having quality data input or effective
reviews (see Fig 2.1). Reviews that tend to be omitted are typically from senior
management (a fundamental requirement to achieve ‘Trusted Partner’ status)

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 and from ‘functional peers’ such as delivery, research or production units who
have a crucial input in determining the achievability of account plans.

A consistent approach to account plans applied throughout the organisation,

providing a common internal communication tool. For your organisation this would
include co-ordination with the wider Invensys Group Account Planning processes.

Key Account Managers must have ownership and accountability for the Account
Plan, with responsibility for performance against KPI and control over account
engagement strategy

Commitment of your Senior Management with regular reviews and input into the
development of account objectives, challenging KPI’s and playing an active part in
the client engagement strategy

A degree of client engagement in the planning process. Thus, testing the

perception of your company through the eyes of your client and building kudos by
sharing the Account Planning strategy with them as ‘key partners’

An Account Plan must clearly link the engagement, action and development
strategies and plans with the ‘expansion’ strategy and targets.

By developing an Account Planning process which incorporates these components your

company would have a structure to ensure Account Plans are working business-plans
and avoid the failures often associated with Account Planning. To many organisations,
and many Account Managers, Account Plans are little more than a ‘box ticking’ exercise
with no research or analysis undertaken, no measurable targets and no challenging or
strategic input from senior management. In short these Account Plans become ‘inward
looking’ and cannot provide the basis for a strategy to realise business potential.

Making this enhanced Account Planning process work in practice will involve a degree of
mindset (even cultural) change amongst the Account and Sales teams. This is why we
believe implementation of an enhanced Account Planning process has to be in
conjunction with a program of learning and development for the Account Team.
(This is described in more detail in the following section).

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Program Stream 2 - Development of Key Account Management
Making an enhanced Account Planning process work in practice often involves a degree
of mindset (even cultural) change amongst the Account and Sales teams. As the most
important success factor in developing key accounts and delivering the enhanced level
of account planning is the Account Manager it is apparent a development program must
run parallel to implementation of a new process.

Profile of Key Account Managers

Figure 2.2 shows the profile of Key Account Managers capable of understanding and
delivering the objectives of a ‘Getting to Trusted Partner’ strategy.

KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER PROFILE

Business
Strategy Tactics
Key Account
Manager
Profile

Strategy Tactics

Product/Technology Fig 2.2

Account Managers require the right mix of business skills and product knowledge. In
order to achieve enhanced positioning within your key clients and realising the business
growth potential your account managers must be capable of :-

Thinking at a ‘Business-Level’
Having the ability to engage at CxO and strategic levels within accounts, to
understand business issues and promote solutions in the context of
business/commercial need

Understanding and applying your business strategy into account plans and strategy

Using the wider organisation more effectively. Co-ordinating with functional

areas/geographies to enhance the positioning of your company within the account

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 Developing strategies to grow the presence of your organisation in the client and
exploit your overall strengths

Planning, reporting and operating as a business manager with the responsibility to

deliver an account plan/strategy agreed with senior management and accountability
for results

Being sufficiently knowledgeable about the products and services of your company
to promote them in the context of business benefits appropriate to their account

Training and Development of Account Managers

It is often the case that existing key account managers require an element of learning
and development to help deliver the Trusted Partner strategy. Account Managers will
need coaching and development to equip them to implement a new account planning
approach and sell more pro-actively at senior levels in the account. A small investment
in targeted training and coaching of the account team can deliver significant
business benefits in a short time as more effective engagement, planning and
strategy grows the account.

Based on our significant experience in the learning & development of account mangers
we recommend the following training program framework. The training clearly must
involve tailored courses specific to your company and your (new) Account Planning
process. To maximise the effectiveness any such training we suggest the content is
based on existing clients and considers ‘live’ opportunities so the development of
enhanced account plans and strategies for their clients commences DURING the training
course.

Outlined overleaf is our suggested profile for Key Account Management training as part
of a ‘Getting to Trusted Partner’ strategy.

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 PROFILE - Key Account Management (KAM) Training

Target:
Senior/Middle Level Account Managers responsible for major clients (e.g. ‘business top
30’) targeted as ‘Trusted Partner’ relationship potential

Objectives:
Equip account managers to develop account strategy in line with your business
objectives through;

improved engagement with their accounts to be more business focused and employ
a ‘consultative’ approach to engage at senior levels

improved positioning and greater bidding success by understanding the Account

Management role and in particular the importance of producing and maintaining a
strong Account Plan

improved approach to bidding by better understanding effective qualification, what is

needed to win and how to leverage effective bid management tools

Delegates must leave the course with clear actions to execute NOW on
existing account activities and opportunities.

Content Overview:
Area 1 - Business Level engagement (Understanding the customer and their
thinking)
understanding a ‘consultative approach’ to selling
applying consultative selling techniques
selling at CxO Level
identification and accessing decision makers

Area 2 - Preparation and positioning (Account Planning and effective account

strategies)
roles and responsibilities of Account Managers
Account Planning – Process and how to develop Account Plans
Account expansion strategies (Expand, Establish, Diversity etc)
Thought leadership and applying a ‘consulting led’ approach

Area 3 - Winning (Strategies and tools for finding and winning the right business)
Positioning for successful opportunity bidding (‘getting in early’)
The customer business/buying process
Developing the opportunity plan (effective qualification and bid strategy)
Winning tools (including an appropriate selection from; competitive analysis, solution
planning, engagement planning, negotiation skills, contracting etc.)

Features:

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In order to enhance the impact of the Key Account Management training program we
recommend you implement a number of specific features;

On-going assessment of the training in the form of follow-up coaching and

continuous course development

Training supported by KPI’s set in advance to assess training effectiveness

Look for flexibility on the delivery ‘mix’. The proportion of ILT (Instructor Lead
Training), on the job and pre/post course assignment should be determined
according to location/region/account, possibly in consultation with local
management.

We strongly promote the input of senior management in course delivery – either as

part of the course (for example a timetabled ‘Round Table’ session or ‘Strategic
Briefing’) or engaged in a ‘CxO’ role play exercise or during a ‘mock’ review of
Account Plans. This reinforces the commitment of senior management in
supporting a new Account Planning process and the fundamental role of Account
Managers in achieving the ‘Trusted Partner’ expansion strategy.

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Case Study – Schlumberger ‘Essential 200 Account Strategy’
Background
In 2003 the technology and products division of Schlumberger (25,000 employees in
over 30 locations worldwide, turnover $4bn) established the ‘Essential 200’ business
growth strategy. This strategy focused on developing the largest 200 accounts through
more effective Account Management to forge trusted partner relationships

This strategy was the result of an extensive study by Gartner (technology consulting
group) which identified that Schlumberger’s untapped growth potential was within its
existing client base. The company was not exploiting its strengths, primarily because the
organisation operated in ‘silos’ – by function, product and geography. Each client only
saw a small part of Schlumberger.

In addition, Schlumberger was consistently losing bids to Accenture and Capgemini, IT

Service organisations with a particular focus on consultative selling and building ‘Trusted
partner’ relationships. The E200 strategy would therefore help the business replicate the
successful senior and business level engagement strategy of these competitors to
remove their advantage (or planned advantage) within key accounts.

How the program worked

The E200 program targeted Account Managers to significantly grow business within their
accounts (in particular Global Accounts where Schlumberger had only a
regional/national footprint). The program achieved this in three streams of activity;

(1) Implementing a uniform Account Planning Process to replace numerous ‘local’

processes or in some cases ‘no process’

(2) Implementing a uniform Bid Management Process (with strong focus on ‘go/no
go’ qualification, Account Manager accountability in decisions and more effective
client engagement during campaigns)

(3) Account Management Training Program to introduce senior-level selling

capability and coaching in building business relationships.

Results
Within 9 months of launching the E200 program Schlumberger had consistent and
realistic account plans for the majority of its key clients. Forecasts and pipeline estimates
changed significantly as a mix of realism and bullish (but challenged) expansion was
built into Account Plans. Some accounts were dropped from the ‘strategic focus’ whilst
others were given additional resources (particularly the introduction of domain
consultants to support enhanced ‘talk your business’ engagement) to exploit previously
unrecognised opportunities.

Within 12 months of launch Schlumberger had opened new business with key clients in
multiple sectors (primarily Energy, Transport and Telecom) delivering a program ROI
within 1 year of adoption.

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Andrew Young, owner and senior consultant at Vista Business Development Consulting,
was part of the Schlumberger Executive Team that built the strategy and delivery of the
E200 program. He was fully responsible for the Account Management training program
and the global implementation of a new Account Planning & Bid Management
processes.

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About Vista Business Development Consulting

Vista Business Development Consulting provides business solutions to large

multinational organisations. We specialise in the development of strategy and
programmes to improve business performance through enhanced Account Management
and Sales practices. Supporting this work we develop and deliver senior-level training for
account and sales professionals.

Company owner and senior consultant Andrew Young is a highly experienced Account
Management and Sales Professional. He launched Vista Business Development
Consulting in early 2007 after 15 years working for large multinational organisations
(Capgemini, Schlumberger, Atos Origin, Sema Group and BR Business Systems) in
Account Management, Business Development, Consulting and Sales Training roles.

Vista Business Development Consulting has a portfolio of 10 framework account

management and business development training courses. We offer a palette of course
content enabling clients to meet their own training needs whilst building-in tailored
content.

Additionally, we have developed models, tools and processes for Account Management,
Account Planning and Bid Management appropriate for large and multinational
organisations. We offer consulting services for either implementing these models or
working with clients to create tailored models.

Vista Business Development Consulting has bases in Europe and the Americas and we
operate on a global basis. We offer services in English and Spanish.

For more information please visit www.vistabusiness.org or contact Andrew Young via
email or telephone;

Americas / Asia Europe

Email – andrew.young@vistabusiness.org Email andrew.young@vistabusiness.org
Office - +593 4 238 6709 Office - +207 7193 0396
Cell - +593 971 38233

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