Global Account Management

A global account is a multinational account that your company has decided to focus on in their entirety. An account earns this distinction based on your company specific criteria . Just because one company claims that a client is global, may or may not be of significance to you and your company's products and services.

Building Global Accounts

These strategic accounts are top of mind these days in many companies. There is a lot more focus on global clients with the globalization of economies. Here are some of the questions to ask when identifying accounts:

• What do global accounts look like as they relate to your company?
• How are you going to treat these accounts differently?
• What does it take to truly execute on a worldwide basis?

Putting together the team, structure, expertise, and processes necessary to deal with a company on a global basis does not happen easily or instantaneously. A lot of organizational change needs to take place in a company in preparation for going global. This includes everything from developing global priorities and messaging, to the sheer logistics of dealing in multiple regions of the world.

It is generally more effective to implement in an evolutionary way. With this approach, the changes can happen more easily and comfortably, and in a more realistic time frame. Companies that try to instantly establish all aspects of a global accounts program are usually setting themselves up for problems.

Global Account Management

The normal problems associated with account management , are amplified when dealing with coordinating global efforts. The language, currency, cultural, and business differences can add another layer of complexity to your account management. Communication, knowledge and awareness are critical with a global account team. You find that you often know more about the global nature of your customer than many of their own employees by developing a cohesive global account team that understands the customer, and communicates effectively.

This is another way you and your company can add value to the relationship and become an asset and a true trusted advisor to your customer.

There are a number of ways to handles these special account. Here are a few of options the manager can apply:

• Concentrate the decision-making and have all employees responsible for the account in every region of the world report directly to this person.
• Assume the role of coordinator of resources, developer of plans, and communicator of strategy and events, but not have the sales personnel reporting directly.
• Hold very little power over the world wide employees, and just consolidate and communicate information and corporate strategy to the involved personnel around the world.

Regardless of the structure, global account managers must assess the corporate structure of clients, develop relationships with company contacts in the local markets, and develop and implement their own model for servicing the business.

Corporate Concerns

The biggest concerns when looking at an accountant from a global basis is the ability to truly integrate global teams, remain cost-effective, and generate additional revenue. Creating a sense of unity and alignment is also a top priority on the corporate side.

The team account members need to have geographic responsibility, as well as local corporate responsibility. Their job is to be a conduit of information to the customer and back to corporate providing greater visibility about the business issues of the account.

Each account requires a global strategy and implementation plan with emphasis on local tactics. On a local level, you should implement the programs that meet the client's needs in that country. What is important is that your company provides global messaging, information, and access to support local engagement efforts, while allowing flexibility for regional variations.

Additional Skills Required

Account managers on these accounts need to manage the complex relationship between your company and a very spread out customer. Initially you should focus on managing the complexity of the customer to ensure ongoing sales and maintaining service standards. However, the challenges of managing the corporate complexities of your own company to deliver a seamless service to the customer can be an even more difficult.

Traditional sales and service skills remain important in members of the account teams but additional skills are required to operate in this more complex environment. These include:

• The ability to bridge corporate and functional cultural differences. These teams need to be flexible and sensitive to cultural differences between the organizations as well as national and functional differences with their own organizations and the customer's organization.
• The ability to mobilize virtual teams. These teams often need to mobilize resources that they do not directly control. They may have to put together bid teams or sales teams to solve a particular client problem. These virtual teams can include personnel from customers, suppliers, partners, and other third party sources.
• Dealing with complex organization structures. You often operate complex, matrixed organizations where competing priorities and unclear accountabilities can get in the way of efficient decision-making. This can introduce cost delay and damage relationships. Knowing how to navigate these complexities is important for global account team, and it can provide a competitive advantage.
• Building trust. People buy from people they trust, and global teams need to build trust across boundaries of distance, cultures, time zones and legal structures. In the absence of trust, it is hard to maintain relationships, and customers tend to begin to micromanage their suppliers. Once into this out of control spiral and distrust, it is difficult to rescue the account relationships and good will.
• Acting with speed and urgency. Global teams are measured on how fast they deliver, in addition to other value added. They must respond in a quick, accurate and cost effective manner.
• Managing global opportunities with limited travel. In tough times client travel needs to be prioritized and expenses monitored. Global account teams are required to manage a relationship when the opportunity to get face to face is expensive, time consuming and limited.

Conclusion

Putting together an effective and well functioning global account program is a task that requires dedication, focus, and commitment. Knowledge and experience in the client's industry is just as important on an international scale as it is for US-centric accounts, and it has to be evident across multiple regions around the world. In addition, the added complexity of managing your own multinational team, with their own agendas, culture, and business issues, makes dealing with a global account a daunting but potentially rewarding endeavor.

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