ABSTRACT
In the interview “The strategic account manager as ecosystem captain: driving profits via pricing” Andreas Hinterhuber and Bernard Quancard explore in detail the changing role of the strategic account manager (SAM). In the future, Quancard suggests, the SAM will be ecosystem captains capable of managing complex relationships and teams, of organizing data and of telling stories with analytics. The role of the SAM with respect to pricing is a function of the customer relationship: Quancard suggests the following alternatives: a purely transactional relationship (no role for the SAM), a supplier shortlist (a very limited role for the SAM), standard solutions (a consultative role for the SAM) and trusted advisor relationships (SAMs drive pricing). In this view, SAMs should have value quantification capabilities, but not necessarily pricing capabilities which SAMs should be able to access – via, for example, a dedicated pricing function – but are not necessarily part of the capabilities that SAMs should master. Incentives do play a role with respect to strategy implementation: Hinterhuber and Quancard suggest that the compensation of a SAM should be based on five items: activities, competencies, intermediary results, sales/gross margins and the amount of quantified business value that the SAM has created. Finally, Quancard also points towards emerging capabilities of the SAM highlighting three capabilities: diagnostic skills, value innovation and transformation agent. In sum, this superb interview is a must read for all sales and account managers that are looking for ways to expand their impact in organizations.
