AUTHOR
Åström, John; Måttgård, David

DATE
2004-06-03

DEPARTMENT
Business Administration and Social Sciences / Industrial marketing and e-commerce

SUMMARY
Key Account Management has become more and more important because of the need to retain and develop relationships with large and global businesses. Key Account Management is about managing a journey that commences at the first contact with the client and then goes through a series of stages and then develops into a complex relationship based on trust and mutual interest. There are many factors influencing the journey along the way and the responsibility to coordinate the supplier’s activities and bring added value to the relationship is the function of the key account manager.

In this thesis we discuss the area of key account relationships from the selling company’s perspective. We have chosen to focus on how a company identify/select and characterize a key account, the development of a key account relationship and finally the work of a key account manager. In order to reach the purpose of the thesis we have conducted two interviews with a company that has employed Key Account Management for many years.

The study shows that sales volume is the single most important criterion when a company identifies/selects key accounts. Furthermore, the findings imply that trust building activities are essential from a relationship development perspective. Finally, the role of the key account manager is to coordinate the activities of the Key Account Management team.

ISSN 1404-5508 / ISRN LTU-SHU-EX--04/194--SE / NR 2004:194