Ninety-five percent of chief sales officers (CSOs) expect a higher growth rate from their organisation’s key accounts relative to other accounts. However, 58% of B2B sales organisations report that they miss achieving quota for key accounts, according to Gartner.
A Gartner survey of CSOs in August and September 2021 showed that 85% are prioritising increased returns on key accounts in 2022. With this level of attention and investment, CSOs must first focus on defining, and setting strategy around, what key accounts mean to their organisation.
“Our research shows 46% of B2B sales organizations have rebuilt their key account programs twice or more in the past seven years due to underperformance,” says Brent Adamson, distinguished vice-president in the Gartner Sales practice. “This is a trend we’ve seen for nearly 15 years now. This ‘rinse and repeat’ approach to rebuilding key account programs has yet to generate any kind of systemic, predictable improvement.”
Robert Blaisdell, senior director analyst in the Gartner sales practice, adds: “Instead of a sales-centric view, sales organizations need to start focusing on what key accounts mean to their broader organisation and determine what they are willing to invest – with time, resources and finances – to maintain and grow those accounts.”
Gartner research reveals four key areas CSOs and their teams should focus on for key account program success:
* Define what a “key account” means to your organisation: CSOs and their teams should establish enterprise-driven key account criteria to identify customers with true growth potential. Focus on being able to articulate the organisation’s vision for managing key accounts – the value they bring to the organisation and the value the organisation brings to them – in a programmatic, enterprise-driven way. The largest accounts are not always the best candidates for key accounts. In fact, Gartner research shows that customers specifically elevated to “key account” status due to their large spend are 51% less likely to increase that spend over time.
* Secure organisational alignment on key account support: Sales leaders must pursue a formal, iterative approach with cross-silo stakeholders to deliver on “enterprise” key accounts. Leading sales organisations assemble early a cross-functional team to (re)define key account criteria, identify the resources available and make final selection of the key accounts. According to Gartner research, key account managers who report a high degree of cross functional collaboration in their organisation see, on average, three times the level of spend from their key customers.
* Formalise the boundaries of key account partnerships collaboratively with customers: Sales teams should focus on engaging in bilateral discussions with each key account customer to jointly calibrate partnership potential and organisational compatibility. One leading B2B sales organization did this by right-sizing their partnership investments based on proactive supplier-customer compatibility assessments.
* Avoid overinvesting in underperforming key accounts: Sales organisations must systemically monitor the health of key account relationships and proactively re-tier those accounts for mutual value. Implementing a performance-based key account re-tiering strategy helps the organisation stay ahead of issues that erode key account profitability and growth potential.