Past Events

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3rd Annual Conference on all KAM topics

Wednesday 4th March, 2020, Berlin, @ Pfizer Head Office Berlin

85% of booked delegates attended in spite of coronavirus concerns and travel bans, and heard speakers on a challenging and valuable range of topics in KAM, from practitioners, academics and consultants sharing their multi-company experience. Speakers from Fujitsu, Namics, Brightbridge, Business Improvement & Growth, Yleracare and AKAM addressed key account team effectiveness, KAM programme failure, ABM, value creation and value propositions, case studies in telecomms and engineering, and bipolar KAM - what happens when companies haven't decided what KAM really means and how to execute it. Delegates challenged speakers, networked together and picked up new ideas and new resolve!

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AKAM Technical: Technology in KAM

Tuesday 3rd March 2020, Berlin @ Pfizer Head Office Berlin

This workshop explored key technologies and practices that help acquire, manage and develop top/key accounts. Dr Olivier Rivière illustrated the principles with real-life examples and offered guidelines and advice as take-aways. The workshop benefited both Key Account Directors with direct influence on selecting technology for KAM programmes, and Key Account Managers who wanted to know how to get the most out of what is already there, or lobby for technical support that would really make a difference.

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Account Based Marketing in KAM: How does it work?

Friday, 24th January 2020, Members Webinar

Mike Green and Kate Owen of Capita held a fascinating webinar on Friday 24th January 2020 for AKAM members, discussing whether ABM is just a cosmetic make-over of B2B marketing, how ABM works with KAM, what KAM need to know about ABM, and how KAM and ABM marketers should work together. Kate explained how KAM should be making use of ABM with their customers, and exploring the full picture to ensure all parties work together in synergy to create a hyper-personalised approach.

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Value in Key Account Management: What does it mean?

Wednesday, 6th November 2019, at Campo de las Naciones, Madrid

Dr Antonella La Rocca, Associate Professor at Rennes School of Business addressed Value Solutions and Key Account Management; while Carlos Ferrer, Sales Director, BT Global, introduced KAM matrix: Pills for creating value in Key Account Management before leading a group discussion. Dr Diana Woodburn, AKAM Chairman, described the vision for AKAM 2019/20 before Laura Gonzalez Pariente, Key Account Director, Johnson & Johnson Vision provided insight into Key Account Fundamentals.

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Creating Customer Value Through Design Thinking

Tuesday, 5th November 2019, at Campo de las Naciones, Madrid

The event focussed on practical issues encountered in developing key customer value, and how to introduce a method to identify and create real value which has measurable commercial benefits for both supplier and customer. Growth of between two and five times the growth rate of the rest of the business can be achieved by focusing strongly on identifying and delivering measurable customer value.

Richard Ilsley, AKAM Deputy Chairman and Managing Partner with the Key Account Management Group drew on practical case studies from a number of corporations who recently engaged in a long-term program to enhance their commercial performance through the identification and implementation of customer value with selected key customers.

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Key Customer Relationships

Thursday, 27th June 2019, at SDA Bocconi School of Management, Milan

How can these crucial relationships be kept positive and productive for both sides? Andrea Busnelli, Client Director, Automotive Industry, IBM addressed how to stay successful in long-term customer relationships; while Andrea Dori, Head of International Key Account Department, Illycaffe introduced the contentious idea of using social media in key account relationships. Michael Widing, Customer Experience and Insight Manager, Hiab AB, described a structured approach to managing customer experience to grow business with key customers.

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AKAM Technical workshop: Customer Experience Mapping

Wednesday, 26th June 2019, at SDA Bocconi School of Management, Milan

Not many companies have a key customer experience strategy, but they should, if they want to overcome complacency, match rising expectations, compete on unique relationships not products that can be copied, align cross-functional teams etc. Jerry Angrave, Customer Experience Association & Empathyce Managing Director, provided an invaluable customer experience strategy template and supporting tools, plus the chance to go away with a draft and stress-test it.

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Making KAM work: Influencing and Resolving Conflict

Tuesday, 5th March 2019, at The British Library, St Pancras, London

We had a dynamic and informative line-up for this event: the challenging and entertaining practitioner, Kristian Kaas Mortensen of Girteka Logistics, with a much requested case study; expert consultant with huge experience to offer, Dr Brit van Ooijen; and host professor Stephan Henneberg presented his research on stress factors in selling.

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AKAM Technical workshop: Negotiation in KAM

Monday, 4th March, 2019, at Regus Offices, 1 Northumberland Avenue, Trafalgar Square, London

Have you ever emerged from a negotiation wondering how and why did it all go wrong? It’s not just selling negotiations that can be brutal – securing enough resources internally or making the right decisions for your customer can be just as difficult. Even in close KAM relationships and great KAM programmes, negotiation plays a critical part. This intensive learning, small group ‘AKAM Technical’ workshop helped participants to understand how to achieve better outcomes for their key accounts.

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2nd Annual Conference on all KAM Topics

Thursday 18th October, IESEG, La Defense, Paris, France

The conference covered a fascinating range of topics in KAM, from both practitioner and academic speakers. We talked about establishing 'legitimacy', which applies across all businesses, not just massive long-term projects: how KAM is different in emerging markets: understanding how to dig deeper and be more creative with customers: how to make sure you've chosen the right key accounts: and how to establish a KAM programme (and how long it takes!).

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AKAM 'Technical' workshop: Metrics in KAM

Wednesday 17th October, IESEG, La Defense, Paris, France

Metrics are crucial in KAM, as in so many areas of business. They underpin diagnostics, strategic decisions, implementation tracking, operational delivery monitoring, risk assessment and individual performance measurement. In these four hours a whole workbook of KAM metrics was exposed and explained, together with instructions on how to collect and how to use  the information.

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Successful Key Account Managers

Thursday 17th May 2018, International School of Management, Vilnius, Lithuania
With Clara Carter, Accord-UK; Gintare Betaite, Amrop Executive Search; Kristina Maikštėnienė, ISM

There are many misconceptions about what it takes to be a successful key account manager, particularly among those companies who believe that it is really a sales role. This meeting made it clear that selling is far from the most important activity or competency required. We identified the desired multi-skilled profile, but accepted that different customers should be matched with appropriate key account managers, while recognising the common core of required competencies - high-level networking, for example.

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Global Account Management

Thursday 8th February 2018, with the Sales Management Association, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

With Professor George Yip, Imperial College; Alistair Taylor, Brightbridge; John Bailey, Hiab

While acknowledging that GAM is not an easy initiative, presenters showed the importance, in fact, the necessity of having a GAM programme for global businesses. Different models are possible, but each has its issues and, which ever is chosen, it takes time and mistakes made and managed to implement. In a very practical session, GAM programme directors and global account managers widened their options by sharing their approaches.

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AKAM's 1st Annual Conference

2nd November 2017, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland

With Rainer Schröder. Global Account Manager, ABB Semiconductor, Germany; Dr Jakob Rehme, Linkoping University, Sweden; Conor O'Malley, Salesforce, Ireland; Dr Diana Woodburn, AKAM Chairman, UK; Edel Redmond, Dublin Airport; Marco Reijntjens, Tenacity Europe, Netherlands.

Uncovering a wide range of KAM topics for KAM programme directors, key account managers and everyone else involved in the 'KAM sector': Key account teams; customer value; SAM at salesforce; KAM implementation frameworks; KAM as catalysts; key account retention in service businesses, and more.....  A great opportunity to learn, to discuss and to network!

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KAM in big and small businesses: learning from each other

6th June 2017, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland.

Professor Ivan Snehota, the well-known authority on supplier/customer relationships, shared his insights into the differences from his years of research together with practitioners from big and small companies. In fact, KAM in big companies can be really difficult, while SMEs can apply their agility to be very effective. However, Armelle Dupont pointed out some essential decisions that SMEs sometimes miss, with extra insights into SME KAM from Mattias Bernhard of Loccioni. Critical research on the value of added services was offered by Dr Nima Hierati.

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Influence of Senior Management in Key Account Management

30th March 2017, College of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland

Key issues from AKAM's Chairman: why is it so difficult to engage senior management? Is the reason resistance or lack of understanding? Doug Gordon of Davy Asset Management on senior managers' role in key account manager well-being; Dr Lesley Murphy demonstrating why they should not  step back after KAM set-up; and Dominykas Cibulskas of Walmart identifies 'the octopus in the office'.

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Procurement and KAM

22 September 2016, Norwegian Business School, Oslo

How/can you challenge your customer on new procurement processes? Norway's national oil company, Statoil, shared its experience of current Procurement. Can you still create value? Where is procurement going? Professor Per Ingvar Olsen's research on how deals and business networks facilitate collaborative innovation offered a productive approach, while Dr Kevin Wilson discussed the role of the key account manager.

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Value creation, key account teams and KAM in professional services

7th June 2016, Queen Mary University, London

Mike Green, RM Results explored the nature of value in KAM and how it is created. Strong research-based inputs came from  Professor Björn Ivens (University of Bamburg) and Sebastian Forkman (Queen Mary’s University) on the importance of networks for key account managers, particularly internal networks, and how they use them; and the effects of deprioritising customers and how subsequent performance is affected. With experience in law firms, Richard Hinwood of Withers Worldwide looked at crucial issues in professional service firms that impact on KAM success.

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Introducing the Association for Key Account Management

21st January 2016, KEDGE Business School, Paris

KAM professionals from every angle of KAM activity - key account managers, KAM programme directors; KAM academics and KAM specialists in consulting, training and development - discussed the reasoning behind the birth of AKAM, its hopes and ambitions. The workshop carefully considered the demand for key account managers’ competencies alongside AKAM’s proposals for professional diplomas offering the opportunity to gain a qualification in KAM.