Chapter 15 — Resources
Choosing Where to Invest
Strategic Account Management becomes real when the organisation has to choose where its scarce attention will actually go. The question is not which customer would benefit from more attention. Almost every customer would. The strategic question is which relationships justify that attention more than the alternatives.
Welcome to the Chapter 15 Companion Page
By this point in Where Value Lives, we have examined customer context, value, organisational attention, governance, sponsorship and measurement.
Now comes the uncomfortable part.
We have to choose.
Executive time is finite.
Innovation capacity is finite.
Cross-functional goodwill is finite.
Operational flexibility is finite.
And senior patience is particularly finite after the third steering committee of the morning.
So Strategic Account Management cannot simply be a process for giving important customers more of everything.
It has to become a disciplined process for deciding where scarce organisational attention can create the greatest mutual future value.
That requires evidence, judgement and the willingness to say no.
Fred’s Comments
Everybody Can Make a Case for More Resources
There is a curious phenomenon that occurs whenever organisations discuss strategic accounts.
Every account manager suddenly discovers that their customer is uniquely important.
Their customer has enormous potential.
Their customer needs executive sponsorship.
Their customer requires additional technical support.
Their customer needs special pricing, customised processes, innovation resources and perhaps the occasional suspension of the laws of economics.
And sometimes they are right.
The problem is that they cannot all be right at the same time.
This is why I increasingly think one of the most important words in Strategic Account Management is not yes.
It is instead.
If we put another senior executive into this account, what will they do instead?
If our technical specialists spend another twenty days supporting this customer, what will they not be doing instead?
If we build another bespoke process for this relationship, what else will be delayed instead?
That is where investment choices become real.
Without the word instead, every strategic-account discussion eventually becomes a shopping list.
There is another side to this which suppliers are sometimes reluctant to say aloud.
Customers have a role in earning strategic investment too.
A customer cannot demand a strategic partnership while refusing access, withholding context, commoditising every conversation and treating the supplier as a vending machine with a relationship manager attached.
Partnership is participative.
That does not mean customers need to make life easy for us. Strategic customers are often extremely demanding.
But there is a difference between demanding value and preventing value.
Some customers therefore deserve deeper investment.
Some deserve growth investment.
Some need repairing before anybody mentions growth again.
Some should be maintained efficiently.
Some should be simplified.
Some may be worth incubating because they are not yet ready.
And occasionally we need to admit that an account has retained the word “strategic” long after it stopped behaving strategically.
The discipline is not choosing customers we like.
It is choosing where attention can create the greatest mutual value relative to the alternatives.
That final phrase is what makes it strategy.
— Fred
The Investment Question
The investment question sounds simple:
Where will our scarce attention create the greatest mutual value?
Not the greatest revenue.
Not the loudest demand.
Not the most politically convenient answer.
Not the account most likely to cause trouble if we say no.
The greatest mutual value.
Those words matter.
Greatest, because we are choosing between alternatives.
Mutual, because the relationship must work for both organisations.
Value, because the investment must connect to something the customer recognises and something the supplier can sustainably create.
Seven Possible Investment Postures
1. Deepen
The relationship already demonstrates strong mutual value and there is sufficient access, commitment and strategic relevance to justify a broader relationship.
Investment may include greater executive attention, cross-functional involvement, joint priorities and innovation.
2. Grow
The relationship is healthy and there is credible expansion potential connected to genuine customer value.
The objective is not simply to sell more. It is to grow because additional value can legitimately be created and recognised.
3. Repair
The account remains attractive but the relationship is damaged.
There may have been service failures, broken trust, poor stakeholder perception, commercial tension or a history of overpromising.
The first investment is therefore not aggressive growth.
It is trust recovery.
That may require service stabilisation, honest conversations, executive involvement, clearer commitments and better governance.
You cannot repair trust with a slide deck.
Trust is repaired through repeated evidence that the customer’s experience has actually changed.
4. Maintain
The relationship is worthwhile but does not justify disproportionate strategic attention.
The priority is reliable service, efficient relationship management and sound economics.
5. Simplify
The relationship consumes too much organisational attention relative to the mutual value it creates.
The answer may be greater standardisation, automation, fewer exceptions and less unnecessary bespoke support.
6. Incubate
There appears to be strategic potential, but either the opportunity or the customer is not yet ready.
Selective attention can test whether that potential becomes real without committing large amounts of organisational attention prematurely.
7. De-strategise or Exit
Some accounts no longer justify strategic status.
That does not necessarily mean abandoning the customer. It may simply mean managing the relationship appropriately rather than continuing to consume scarce strategic resources because of historical habit.
Key Takeaways
- Strategic investment is fundamentally an allocation decision because organisational attention is finite.
- The correct question is not whether an account could benefit from more attention, but whether it justifies more attention than the alternatives.
- Revenue alone is not a sufficient basis for strategic investment.
- Investment should be based on mutual future value: value that matters to the customer and value that the supplier can sustainably receive.
- Customers also influence whether deeper strategic investment is possible. Access, openness, participation and willingness to engage beyond price matter.
- A demanding customer is not necessarily a poor strategic customer. There is an important difference between demanding value and preventing value.
- Repair should be treated as a distinct investment posture. Broken trust and delivery problems should be repaired before ambitious growth is layered on top.
- Strategic investment is not only about deciding what to do more of. It requires deciding what to reduce, standardise, automate, simplify, delay or stop.
- Opportunity cost should be explicit. Every hour of executive, specialist or cross-functional attention allocated to one account is unavailable elsewhere.
- Some customers may be strategically attractive but not yet ready. Selective incubation can test potential without romantic over-investment.
- An account should not retain strategic status simply because it has always had it.
- The account plan that follows should be the practical expression of the investment decision, not a document produced merely to satisfy management.
Chapter 15 Download
Strategic Account Investment Case
Use this practical workbook to decide whether an account genuinely justifies additional strategic attention.
It takes you through the investment question, mutual future value, customer readiness, alternative investment postures, opportunity cost, the resources required, the things that must stop or reduce, and the evidence needed to justify continued investment.
Download the Strategic Account Investment CasePDF companion resource • Supporting Chapter 15 of Where Value Lives
Questions to Take Back to Your Account Team
- Why does this account deserve strategic attention more than the alternatives?
- What future value could we realistically create for the customer?
- What future value could the relationship create for us?
- What evidence supports those claims?
- Are we confusing current revenue with future strategic value?
- Does the customer provide sufficient access and context for strategic collaboration?
- Does the customer engage beyond price?
- Does the customer participate meaningfully in governance?
- Does the customer recognise value when it is created?
- Is this account genuinely ready for deeper investment, or merely potentially attractive?
- Does the relationship need repair before we attempt further growth?
- What executive, technical, operational and cross-functional resources would additional investment consume?
- What opportunities elsewhere would those resources displace?
- What could we reduce, standardise, automate, simplify, delay or stop to free the required attention?
- What evidence would demonstrate within 90 days that the investment decision was correct?
- What evidence would cause us to reverse the decision?
Try This With AI
AI can be useful as a deliberately sceptical investment reviewer. Its role is not to justify the account manager’s preferred answer, but to challenge whether the evidence genuinely supports additional investment.
Chapter 15 Recap Video
Use the recap video to revisit the central investment-choice argument, then apply the Strategic Account Investment Case to one real account.
Keep Exploring Where Value Lives
Once the organisation has decided where strategic attention should be invested, the next question becomes practical.
How do we turn that investment choice into an account strategy that stays connected to the customer’s changing world?
That requires something very different from the traditional account plan that is completed once a year, presented to management and quietly forgotten.
The account plan needs to become a living strategic instrument.
It should connect customer context, value, stakeholders, organisational attention, actions, evidence and decisions.
That is where Chapter 16 takes us next.
A strategic account plan is the practical expression of an investment choice.
Continue to Chapter 16: The Living Account Plan.
Get More from Where Value Lives
Join the Where Value Lives reader community for additional ideas, practical tools, new resources and occasional commentary from Fred that goes beyond the material in the book.
No daily bombardment. Just useful material designed to help you put the ideas into practice.
You can unsubscribe at any time.