1.3 Methodology

The inspiration and expertise that were the prerequisite for me to construct the foundation of this thesis was drawn from the Key Account Management seminar in October 2009, which was part of my degree education. During this seminar I got the enthusiasm and appreciation of the complexity of an integrated KAM concept. The next step was to enhance my knowledge by moving into the following actions;

• Several key account management books, which assisted me a great deal not only to obtain comprehensive knowledge of a KAM concept but also to incorporate valuable best-practice methods.
• Studies on seminar documentation during my degree education
• My own findings concerning MTPRO sales management as well as some additional literature about key account management.
• Data collection necessary for some analyses that are the precondition to build a KAM concept based on the current situation with our market organisations.

Methodology for data collection

Now I would like to elaborate on my methodology for the data collection process. Figure 1 below gives an overview of the structure of this process.

Figure 1: Methodology of data collection (Source: On the basis of Zupancic Dirk/Belz Christian/Bussmann Wolfgang F., Figure 16, page 41)