
The New Successful Large account Management is the third book in the Miller Heiman series of strategic selling. The focus is on the large customers which constitute more than 50% of the total revenue.
One of the main messages is how important it is in the new competitive environment to climb as high as possible on the Buy-Sell hierarchy in order to maximize the relationship and value potential moving away from the commoditized product selling status.
The Buy-Sell hierarchy consists of 5 levels:
- Deliver commodity that meets specifications
- Deliver good products and services
- Provide good service and support
- Contribute to business issues
- Contribute to organizational issues
The whole book is centered on building an account plan that can deliver this promise and which contains the following elements:
- Field of Play
- Account team
- Buy-Sell hierarchy
- Strategic players
- Trends and Opportunities
- Strengths and vulnerabilities
- Charter statement and Goals
- Focus investments and Stop investments
- Revenue target
Large account management is a team effort that transcends the pure selling function: it increasingly becomes an entrepreneurial , external business unit driven style of activity.
As in the previous Miller Heiman books the same principles are advocated:
- importance to strive for win/win value creation
- importance to follow a process driven and constantly reviewed methodology