Key Account Management: Global Best Practice

How to manage big, powerful customers profitably

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Managing your most important business customers is a key area that suppliers need to master. These customers can have a strong impact on the performance of the supplier and need to be managed in a special Key Account Management (KAM) programme

Getting this KAM blueprint right is vital for both suppliers and customers. Yet many suppliers still make fundamental mistakes damaging their ability to unlock the profits in these relationships.

In this course, Professor Malcolm McDonald, author of many leading books on KAM and founder of the KAM Best Practice Club at Cranfield University - which has been running for over 20 years - has condensed his one day workshop on KAM into 10 bite-size modules covering what KAM is, why it is so important, and how to apply it successfully.

The course consists of 10 Modules:

  • Module 1: Positioning KAM and the Challenge of Customer Power
  • Module 2: Key Account Definition, Selection and Categorization
  • Module 3: How to Categorize Your Key Accounts
  • Module 4: Analyzing Key Accounts and Developing Quantified Value Propositions
  • Module 5: Key Account Planning
  • Module 6: Skill Requirements for Key Account Management
  • Module 7: KAM Organizational Issues
  • Module 8: KAM Profotability
  • Module 9: KAM and Shareholder Value Added
  • Module 10: Summary and Actions


Your Instructor


Professor Malcolm McDonald
Professor Malcolm McDonald
Professor Malcolm McDonald MA(Oxon) MSc PhD DLitt DSc, until recently was Professor of Marketing and Deputy Director, Cranfield University School of Management, with special responsibility for e-business, and is now an Emeritus Professor at the University as well as being an Honorary Professor at Warwick Business School.

Malcolm is a graduate in English Language and Literature from Oxford University, in Business Studies from Bradford University Management Centre, and has a PhD from Cranfield University. He has written over 40 books, including the best seller ‘Marketing Plans: How to prepare them, how to use them’, and more than one hundred articles and papers.

Coming from a background in business which included a number of years as Marketing Director of Canada Dry, Malcolm has successfully maintained a close link between academic rigour and commercial application. He has consulted to many major companies from the UK, Europe, USA, Far East, South-East Asia, Australasia and Africa, in the areas of strategic marketing and marketing planning, market segmentation, key account management, international marketing and marketing accountability.

Malcolm is Chairman of Market2Win Ltd and Malcolm McDonald Consulting Ltd, and works with the operating boards of a number of the world’s leading multi-nationals.


Course Curriculum


  Key Account Management: Curriculum
Available in days
days after you enroll

Frequently Asked Questions


When does the course start and finish?
The course starts now and never ends! It is a completely self-paced online course - you decide when you start and when you finish.
How long do I have access to the course?
How does lifetime access sound? After enrolling, you have unlimited access to this course for as long as you like - across any and all devices you own.
What if I am unhappy with the course?
We would never want you to be unhappy! If you are unsatisfied with your purchase, contact us in the first 30 days and we will give you a full refund.

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