Strategic account managers as business consultants: New learning implications.

摘要

Much like the change in sales focus in the 1970's from a product, to a solution-selling approach, many of today's Strategic Account Managers are being required to transition from "solution selling" to more of a "value selling" approach. Value selling requires the account manager to discover and deliver innovative business process improvements in the customer's environment that help them to drive value to their customers and profit to the provider's company. But some of the skills required for value selling are more akin to management or business consulting skills than they are like traditional product selling skills. Unfortunately, Strategic Account Managers in most non-consulting firms rarely receive the kind of training in skills required for traditional business consulting, such as performing a structured diagnosis and assessment of the current state of a business process, use of a problem solving methodology, providing decision support frameworks, project management and change management assistance.;In addition, not all Strategic Account Managers are being asked by their clients to make this transition to business consulting. It appears that there may be some company factors that make one buyer more likely to value consulting skills than another, such as whether the sale is business-to-business or business-to-consumer, the complexity of the sale, and whether it involves professional services or not. The "professional services" factor is of particular interest to the researcher, who hypothesizes that a very different set of sales skills may be required (one that is much more focused on implementation) for selling professional services vs. selling products.;In this study, the company factors that predispose a client to place a value on the business consulting, and the types of skills required for Strategic Account Managers to demonstrate business consulting-like skills were explored. The results of the study include recommended curriculum additions or extensions for selected groups of Strategic Account Managers for whom business consulting skills will drive the most significant impact in sales growth and customer satisfaction.