Putting "strategic" back in strategic account management

Strategic thinking for SAM Success: Putting "strategic" back in strategic account management

Strategic account management success requires being seen as a trusted advisor to customers, which usually involves engaging strategically with senior customer executives. This requires thinking more broadly, creatively, and deeply about business risks and their causes, about opportunities for expansion and innovation, and about the broad and complex business landscape in which your customers operate. This highly interactive workshop will provide practical frameworks and tools to enhance strategic account managers' abilities to think and operate strategically, build credibility with executives, and provide strategic insights to customers. 

Key topics covered:

• Using big-picture thinking to "connect the dots" and identify non-obvious risks and opportunities
• Employing extended value-chain analysis to uncover new opportunities for, and with, customers
• Improving ability to frame problems in ways that yield new insights about how to solve them
• Avoiding reactive problem-solving, especially in a highly kinetic environment
• Improving ability to consider all potential impacts of a course of action
• Enhancing ability to convert insight into action

For a sample of the topics we will explore in this session, see our May 2020 article for the Strategic Account Management Association in the Vantage Insights center.