Classic key account management plans are extensive compilations of data which demand intensive work by sales professionals to be created and kept up to date. Unfortunately many sales professionals consider these documents to be of little practical value for their day to day job. ("so much effort - so little return")

Basing account planning on the framework of constraints management however results in highly effective work plans which result in sales achievements as required by management.

COMPARING "CLASSIC" WITH TOC (THEORY OF CONSTRAINTS) BASED ACCOUNT PLAN

The table below compares the two approaches to key account management planning:

Classic

Account Plan

Account Plan based on

Goldratts Theory of Constraints

Objective of Plan

A compilation

of any data

relating to the customer (account).

A compilation of the "vital few" commitments

required to

achieve the account sales goal.

Typical

Content

Customer
1. Customer organization
2. Customer goals and objectives
3. Profile of top managers
4. Customer problems
Account Plan
1. Value offered
2. Value map
3. Critical success factors
4. Active projects
5. Opportunities
6. Customer satisfaction
7. Market trends
8. Competitive situation
9. Product strategy
10. Pricing strategy
11. Contract situation
12. Customer marketing
13. Communications plan
14. Customer interactions
15. Contact plan
16. Own goals, strategies and actions
17. Resources required

Account sales goal
Necessary conditions for reaching the goal
Obstacles preventing to reach the necessary conditions
Commitments required to overcome these obstacles

Typical

Size

20 - 30 pages

1 page

Principle nature of the plan

Extensive compilation of data

requiring significant effort by sales professionals

for creation and updating.

Short, focused operational plan

only containing the vital few commitments

required to achieve the sales goal.

Questions answered by the plan

"What do we know about this account?"

Answer practically

irrelevant for achieving the sales goal.

"Who must commit to what to ensure that we reach our account sales goal?"

Answer essential for achieving the sales goal.

Content

of Plan

Frequently driven by company internal politics

("Marketing requires the following data to be recorded ...")

Driven exclusively by conditions

necessary to achieve the sales goal:

a) for leading the opportunity engine,

b) for leading products across the product abyss

(see our web page SALES - FACTORY OF ORDERS)

Practical value

Many of the data collected are used seldom or never in practical account sales work.

The effort to collect and keep them updated in such a "data graveyard" is therefore wasted to a large degree.

All elements of plan are constantly of value.

Result of planning work

Complete data collection

Achieving the sales goal

EXAMPLE OF A CONSTRAINTS BASED KEY ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT PLAN <TOP>

Key account management plans therefore are operational sales plans - like we have shown on our page OPERATIONAL PLANNING.

Here please find a principle example of such plans:

(Click to enlarge to full size)

NEW SEMINARS

SALES MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP "UNBLOCK THE POWER OF YOUR SALES FORCE!" <TOP>

This 1 day management workshop for sales managers offers a brief introduction to Goldratts Theory of Constraints. Then it shows how this innovative management methodology can be applied to lead sales organizations, product sales/marketing organizations and sales channels (for instance the key account channel) to exploit their full capacity.

Dates: Dec.11, 2007 and Jan.22, 2008. Location: Geneva, Switzerland. Language: English.

More information about this sales management workshop.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT WORKSHOP "CRITICAL CHAIN": EFFECTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT <TOP>

Rudi Burkhard and GIG-Europe offer a 2-day workshop on effective project management based on CRITICAL CHAIN. A MUST for managers with project responsibility of any kind. In this workshop participants learn how organizations achieve competitive advantage with:

Remarkable delivery reliability – meet due-date, budget and content targets.
Effective multi-project management – significantly improve project flow synchronization & much improved resource utilization.
Reduce multi-tasking.
Notably shorter project lead-times - place & size buffers or slack correctly.
Project control tools – early warning of problems, prioritization, focus on improvement and portfolio management.

Dates: Oct. 9/10, 2007 and Nov. 15/16, 2007. Location: Rolle near Geneva, Switzerland. Language: English.

More information about this project management workshop.

NEW TOOLS <TOP>

ONE PAGE SALES PLAN - HIGHLY FOCUSED POWERFUL MANAGEMENT TOOL <TOP>

How many pages should a focused, powerful sales plan consist of? By our opinion just of ONE PAGE. We believe such plans must adhere to Tilmans principle of planning.

The aspects of such operational sales plans, and example and template have been newly added to our website.

Tilman's Principle of Planning: "An expedition, which cannot organize itself on one page of normal letter paper suffers from over-organization… and will not succeed". H.W.Tilman, Led the 5th British expedition to Mt.Everest. In 1938 reached 8300m. EVEREST 1938, ISBN 2-700309573-5