📘 Where Value Lives Companion Resources
Reading progress: Chapter 9 of 25
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Next: Chapter 10 → From Supplier to Partner
Welcome to the companion page for Chapter 9 of Where Value Lives.
This chapter asks a deceptively simple question:
can we evidence or prove our value?
Many organisations answer this question too quickly.
They assume a strategic account is simply a large account. Or a famous account. Or an account with senior relationships. Or an account the sales director keeps asking about. Or an account that appears on a slide with a gold star next to it, which is apparently how some organisations do strategy.
Size matters.
Revenue matters.
Visibility matters.
But none of those things is enough on its own.
An account is strategic when deeper attention can create greater mutual value, and when the customer recognises enough relevance to engage with us strategically.
The customer gets a vote.
In fact, the customer gets the casting vote.
On this page, you’ll find resources to help you assess whether an account genuinely deserves strategic status.
Use this page to reflect on:
The question is not:
“Do we want this account to be strategic?”
The better question is:
“Can deeper mutual value be created here, and is the customer willing to engage at that level?”
In the Chapter 9 summary video, Fred explains why strategic account selection must be more disciplined than simply ranking customers by revenue.
The video explores the difference between an account that is commercially important and an account that is genuinely strategic.
It also explains why strategic status must change behaviour.
If an account is labelled strategic but receives no different thinking, no different attention, no different governance and no different customer value, the label is doing very little work.
And labels that do no work are just business confetti.
The Chapter 9 Companion Toolkit is designed to help you test whether an account is truly strategic.
Suggested tools and exercises for this chapter are available from the link below:
Not every big account is strategic.
Not all customers value the same things.
Those sentences can cause trouble.
Especially if the big account in question has a long history, a senior sponsor, a demanding procurement team and a habit of appearing in board papers.
But they are still true.
Large accounts can be important. They can be profitable. They can be worth protecting. They can be commercially significant. They may deserve excellent account management and careful service.
Customers may, especially if we segment them properly, value many similar things, but we can never assume there is a universal value which applies to everyone..
But strategic is a higher test.
A strategic account should be capable of creating meaningful future value for both sides. It should justify deeper organisational attention. It should offer opportunities for growth, innovation, learning, influence, resilience or partnership that go beyond the current transaction.
And, crucially, the customer must be willing to engage. They will not do that unless they fully believe we are delivering what all customers in any field what, real and enduring value.
That last point is often missed.
Suppliers sometimes declare accounts strategic from their own side of the table. They create plans, allocate titles, appoint sponsors, schedule reviews and talk earnestly about partnership.
Meanwhile, the customer sees them as a useful supplier.
Possibly a good supplier.
Possibly even a very good supplier.
But not a strategic one.
That gap matters.
Because strategic status is not awarded by the supplier. It is earned in the customer’s mind.
That does not mean the supplier waits passively for the customer to grant permission. The supplier can create conditions for strategic engagement. It can bring insight, reliability, trust, useful challenge, innovation, senior attention and a clear understanding of the customer’s world.
But the customer still decides whether that relevance is real.
So, what makes an account strategic?
It is a combination of factors.
Current value matters.
Future potential matters.
Strategic fit matters.
Profitability matters.
Influence matters.
Learning matters.
Relationship potential matters.
Customer willingness matters.
And the possibility of mutual value matters most of all.
If an account cannot create greater mutual value through deeper attention, then it may be important, but it may not be strategic.
This distinction protects the organisation.
It prevents strategic attention being diluted across too many accounts. It prevents account managers carrying impossible portfolios. It prevents executive sponsors being assigned to customers where they cannot create real value. It prevents the word strategic from becoming a polite synonym for large, noisy or politically awkward.
Strategic status should have consequences.
It should change how the account is reviewed, supported, governed, resourced and developed.
If nothing changes, then the label is probably decorative.
And decorative strategy is best left to PowerPoint, where it can do the least damage.
An account is strategic when deeper attention can create greater mutual value — and the customer recognises enough relevance to engage.
Choose one account currently described as strategic.
Ask:
Then complete this sentence:
This account is strategic only if…
Make the answer specific.
A vague answer usually means the label needs more work.
This chapter comes from seeing organisations overuse the word strategic.
Once too many accounts are labelled strategic, the label stops meaning anything useful. Everyone wants the attention. Everyone wants the sponsor. Everyone wants the customised plan. But the organisation cannot invest deeply everywhere.
The thinking in this chapter connects to:
Useful themes to explore further include:
The central lesson is this:
Strategic status must be earned, evidenced and acted upon.
Thank you for reading Chapter 9 of Where Value Lives.
This chapter matters because Strategic Account Management begins with selection.
If the wrong accounts are chosen, everything else becomes harder.
Attention is diluted. Sponsors are wasted. Account managers become stretched. Customers are over-managed or under-managed. The organisation confuses importance, size, noise and history with strategic potential.
But when strategic accounts are chosen well, attention has somewhere useful to go.
The organisation can invest more deliberately.
The customer can experience more relevant value.
And the relationship has a better chance of becoming genuinely strategic.
If you would like access to the wider Where Value Lives resource library, including practical tools, worksheets, prompts, updates and future companion material, you can join the reader community here.
You do not need to sign up again on every chapter page.
Once you are part of the community, you will be able to access the growing collection of book resources as they are released.
Because not every account is strategic.
And that is exactly why strategic attention matters.
If you would like access to the wider Where Value Lives resource library, including practical tools, worksheets, prompts, updates and future companion material, you can join the reader community below.