Manufacturing companies need a specialized solution designed to address the unique challenges of strategic account management in the digital 4.0 world. The solution must be purpose-built, flexible and scalable enough to meet the needs of the increasingly complex customer landscape for large, matrixed, global accounts.
Flaws with Tactical Account Planning
Sales experts have discovered that tactical account planning is no longer enough in the changing manufacturing landscape. There are a number of issues with tactical account planning:
- One off/tactical account planning exercise neglects the critical role of execution and action
- Manual collection and management of scattered or siloed data results in a lack of “the big picture” view across complex data points, poor customer intelligence and no actionable insights
- Planning on Excel, PPT, Word and emails, with no tracking/governance mechanism eliminates accountability and makes collaboration impossible
- Fragmented view of customer and domain knowledge leads to limited strategic insights, and missed revenue opportunities
Colin Anderlohr, Senior Director of Sales Effectiveness at JDA Software, described these challenges for his team, noting that their “Account planning was done once a year on PowerPoint and stashed away in a virtual drawer… it was a one-and-done exercise for management as opposed to an enabling event.”
Strategic Account Planning AND Execution
To prevent these shortcomings, sales teams must adapt their model to a strategic account management framework. Strategic Account Management (SAM) is a company-wide initiative in complex, highly matrixed organizations which focuses on building strong and mutually beneficial relationships with a company’s most important customers and partners. The ideal program includes:
- An automated approach to identify gaps, correlations and opportunities not visible with CRM/ templates/ manual efforts
- A single source of truth to get all internal stakeholders including leadership on the same page
- A process for strengthening strategic partnerships with key accounts by aligning with client’s strategic goals and co-creating growth plans
Purpose Built Technology to Drive Joint Value Creation
It’s critical to use purpose-built technology to drive joint value creation in the manufacturing sales process. Due to today’s complex environment, a one-size-fits-all approach to technology is no longer adequate. Manual systems cannot handle or leverage the scale and complexity of strategic accounts. Many sales teams rely on CRM, but CRM was designed for transactional selling, not strategic account management. Furthermore, homegrown and hybrid systems are a high-risk CAPEX that make companies vulnerable to becoming technologically obsolete overnight.
The right technology for SAM is specifically designed to manage the scale and complexity of globally dispersed strategic accounts. It transforms core activities like account planning, relationship management, and opportunity creation into high-yield processes. Even better, it is easy to deploy, scale, integrate, and upgrade with available cloud-based SaaS models.
A Collaborative Account Planning Platform for Manufacturing Sales
Revegy is a comprehensive, purpose-built strategic account planning platform for enterprise-scale companies that is easy to deploy and quick to deliver ROI. According to Keith Hartley, Vice President of Oracle, Revegy has transformed their account and opportunity processes. He shares, “in 3 out of 4 account planning sessions we do, the customer is now present and involved, essentially helping us build the positioning to grow more…”
Revegy provides organizations with bigger deals, faster closures, better alignment and collaboration of stakeholders, watertight processes, and easy deployment.
Why Industry Leaders Choose Revegy to Drive Growth
- Methodology and CRM-agnostic platform with seamless integration to existing systems
- Transition from transactional selling to strategic partnerships with your most valuable accounts
- Consistent planning, reporting, and analytics for the right actionable insights at the right time
- Immediate and long-term forecast and revenue visibility
- Join the dots across complex data sets to spot immediate and strategic farming opportunities with white space analysis
- Anytime, anywhere access to strategic account intelligence for all stakeholders builds collaboration and delivers single window of value to clients
- Built-in visualization enables users to navigate the complex landscape of people, politics, opportunities and threats
To see how it works, schedule a demo of Revegy today.
Related Strategic Account Management Resources
Video: Account Planning and Management Product Tour
Infographic: Best Account Plan Ever
