Key Account Management in the Business to Business Field: The Key Account's Point of View

A research program was set up three years ago at the “Institut de Recherche de l'entreprise” in Lyon. This program is aimed at improving the understanding of industrial key account management. This paper presents the outcomes of one of the studies carried out within this program. It focuses on the perceptions a key account may develop according to the treatment he receives from his supplier. The purpose of this research study is to shed new light on key account management from the key account's point of view. Until now, indeed, except for a few works (see for example the recent report from McDonald, Millman and Rogers [1996]) the literature on key account management has been focused on the supplier perspective. In other words, the aim of the great majority of the studies was to discuss the characteristics, the implications, the evolutions of a supplier from the moment he decided to implement a key account management program. Today, given the maturity that researchers are beginning to acquire on the subjec...