Managing Global Accounts

<p><i>Managing Global Accounts</i> will help you address the issues of dealing with global customers. As globalization takes hold several things happen: customers are more demanding and sophisticated, competition gets tougher, business is more complex and fast changing, and highly competent global account managers are in short supply. The managerial challenges of competing in a global world are more difficult in orders of magnitude than competing domestically. Life is especially tough when the corporation is not centrally focused on the global customer when corporate personnel across functions and around the world do not get it.</p> <p>"To get it" means understanding at a visceral level that success or failure with global customers maybe synonymous with success or failure of the entire enterprise. Unless all employees are focused in the firm's relationship with its global customers, competitors that do get it will surpass them. Indeed, competitive advantage based on building global supplier customer relationships may be longer-lasting than competitive advantage based on products or services. Companies cancel products but they less easily cancel people, especially those that have served them well. But the promise of long-run sustainable competitive advantage can be secured only if the firm truly focuses on serving the global customer. No matter where they are located, all firm employees must understand they are competing in a global world and that success with global customers is the Holy Grail. They must throw off the shackles of ethnocentrism and nationalism acquired in their youths, and embrace the global challenge. Not only should they defend their turf against global competitors but they must do what they can to make their global customers succeed. In pursuing this goal, they may develop a global account management system that in itself becomes a competitive advantage.</p>