Brief Summary

Managing a Customer in Crisis....

Apart from a macro-level assessment of how the customer as a whole will be affected and respond to the crisis and any escalation of hostilities, the KAM has to make a judgement of how this will impact at local level....

How to Build a Thinking Context....

In order to optimise the use of trade news and data it can be useful to establish a set of ‘linked contexts’.

Playing Your Part in Portfolio-Contexting

Whilst the immediate pressures of day-to-day fire fighting may make the big picture impossibly large, it is essential that local KAMs contribute actively to the company’s attempts at formulating a global context for customer management.

Driving ROCE…how to identify and impact KPIs

If we accept that retailers’ published accounts can be a useful source of ‘negotiatable’ information, and that the share price is a major motivator at all levels within the customer’s organisation, then it is perhaps helpful to explore ways in which practical use can be made of the insights….

Coping with Factory Gate Pricing…

The seeming simplicity of factory gate pricing represents many practical problems for the KAM.

Managing Local Customers Within a Global Context…

Whilst the management of global customers can impose some restrictions on country level trade management, there are many benefits in using global learnings in the management and development of local national customers. 

CRM in Customer Development

Making this ‘buzz word’ work for you is simply (?) a matter of pulling together several key techniques and insights in helping the consumer and customer come back for more, with minimal inducement.

Simplifying Business Judgement…

Business judgements can be made more effective by applying a few high-speed and high-output thinking tools.

Basic management of the future options...

Whilst the company is hopefully using the current market environment to reassess its entire approach to the trade, it is important that KAMs make it work at account level by capitalising upon detailed knowledge of the customer and the customer’s view of the competition in the category.

Implementing the Basics…

As keeper of the supplier-customer interface, the KAM has to interpret the brand offer from the customer’s point of view, translate it into a simple appeal to retailer need and then negotiate the compromise between two mutually-exclusive opening positions to ensure a possible dialogue with the consumer in the aisle.

Reading the Customer’s Lips…

As the in-house customer expert, the KAM is in a unique position to contrast the customer CEO’s statement of company policy with its practical execution at multi-level and multi-functionally across both companies.

How to Optimise Business Via Independent Retail Customers…

Effective management of independent retailers requires that a comprehensive, systematic, subjective and periodic examination of the company’s trade environment, strategy, organisation, systems, productivity and functions be conducted.