7.2.2 Team structure based on the view of MTPRO and the Key Account

The most demanding and time-consuming task for a Key Account Manager is the phase 2, the instrumentation consultation, of the analytical instrumentation concept. It requires deep knowledge of the best product-application fit in order to be able to offer the most attractive “aggregate profitability and ROI statement proposals”, as illustrated in chapter 6.2.1 (table 19). Hence the support and coordination with a PRO Product Manager is essential. Furthermore, it is our goal to foster business relationships with economical buying influences, which are mostly located at management level. Since executives are often most comfortable talking to their peers, the Business Area Manager PRO or, even preferably, the country’s MT General Manager might find it a lot easier to establish credibility with these economic buying influences than the Key Account Manager would. Economic buyers are seldom reluctant to exchange ideas with management peers (Miller Heiman, The new strategic selling, page 177-178). Therefore an occasional involvement of the Key Account Manager’s superiors would be a big asset to improving the position of MTPRO with the key accounts. The Service Engineers are a useful source to deliver continuous feedback on the satisfaction of the users of MTPRO instrumentation.

The considerations mentioned above make it beneficial to assemble a crossfunctional team with the following players:

• Key Account Manager
• Product Manager
• Business Unit Manager MTPRO
• General Manager MT
• Service Engineers

The Key Account Manager has the most frequent contact to the key accounts. Depending on the required support during the instrumentation consultation phase the Product Manager’s involvement might become quite intense. The Business Area Manager PRO should devote a substantial amount of time with key accounts in order to coach the Key Account Manager and to exert his/her influence with the KA’s most important buying influences. The deployment of the country’s MT General Manager needs to be planned and allocated very carefully due to the very limited time resources.

In general, the resource allocation of the Product Manager is heavily dependent upon the country’s organisation. For instance, there are three Product Manager’s working for the PRO division in Germany whereas in Russia there is only one Product Managers handling the PRO division. It is the responsibility of the Business Area Manager PRO to allocate the appropriate working hours of the Product Manager to the key account management.