4.1 St. Galler Key Account Management Concept

The theoretical foundation for the development of the MTPRO-specific KAM concept is based on the St. Galler Key-Account Management concept (Belz Christian / Müllner Markus / Zupancic Dirk). Belz/ Müllner/ Zupancic divide the KAM concept into a functional and an organisational KAM level. The functional level is more related to the analysis and realisation that is the responsibility of the Key Account Manager. The organisational area is the responsibility of the corporate management in order to integrate the key account management concept into the existing sales management structure.

The market organisations for MTPRO typically have a lean and manageable size. It is the idea to involve the Key Account Manager in managerial decisions for the implementation of the KAM concept. Therefore the functional and organisational KAM levels are integrated into one KAM level. Moreover, the St. Galler concept consists of a key that is divided into five areas. Table 9 below specifies the relevant elements for MTPRO of the five “S” that consists of “Strategy”, “Solutions”, “Skills”, “Structure” and “Scorecard”.

Table 9: The five areas of the St. Galler KAM concept (Source: On the basis of Belz Christian / Müllner Markus / Zupancic Dirk, Figure 9)

Every outlined element of the five “S” structure is laid out in detail in chapter 5 to 7, the MTPRO key account management concept. Beforehand various elements that require some theoretical foundation are now highlighted in this chapter 4.