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PurposeThe paper aims at generating a better understanding of the design elements and related management practices of strategic account management programs, in order to assist firms wishing to design such programs.Design/methodology/approachThe research process is based on systematic combining of literature, empirical data from interviews with nine multi‐national firms, interaction with the firms during the research, and the knowledge resource base of the Strategic Account Management Association.FindingsA strategic account management program (SAMP) is defined as a relational capability, involving task‐dedicated actors, who allocate resources of the firm and its strategically most important customers, through management practices that aim at inter‐ and intra‐organizational alignment, in order to improve account performance (and ultimately shareholder value creation). The research identified four inter‐organizational alignment design elements: account portfolio definition, account business planning, account‐specific value proposition, account management process; and four intra‐organizational design elements: organizational integration, support capabilities, account performance management, account team profile and skills. The management practices pertinent to each element are discussed.Practical implicationsFirms need to ensure that a SAMP is configured so that there is fit between the design elements discussed. Focus should be put on identifying framing elements that set the foundation for configuring effective programs, as they determine the prerequisites for other elements.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the literature on strategic account management by summarizing extant research and developing an organizing framework, informed by an empirical study.

Decouple Market Shaping and Business Redefinition3 Shape Your Market; Stora Enso: Many-Layered Market Shaping; Exchange: What Is Sold, How It Is Priced, and How Buyers and Sellers Find Each Other; Sales Item: What Is Being Exchanged, Exactly?; Pricing: How Much Is It Worth?; Matching Methods: How Do Sellers and Buyers Find Each Other?; Network: Right Partners, Right Know-How, Right Infrastructure; Actors: Do We Have the Right Actors in Our Network?; Roles and Know-How: Is Work Division Optimal; Does Everyone Know What They Need to Know?

Success in solution business starts by accepting that solution business is a separate business model, not simply another product category or an extension of the existing product business. This book identifies the business model areas that firms need to focus on when transforming into solution business. It further organizes these areas into three sets of capabilities and practices: commercialization, industrialization, and solution platforms. Commercialization refers to a firm's ability to understand customers' value-creating processes and to create solutions that enable improved value creation for customers. It also refers to a firm's ability to sell the solutions and to receive compensation based on customers' value-in-use. Industrialization refers to a firm's ability to standardize the solution in order to create repeatability and scalability. To support repeatability, firms need to develop common processes so that the solutions can be efficiently replicated across regions and time. A solution platform creates the necessary support for an effective solution-business process. The platform consists of subsets of capabilities related to strategic management, management systems, infrastructure support, and human resources. Solution Business:Building a Platform for Organic Growth is the first book to take a comprehensive view of success in solution business, and its relevance therefore extends to all functions of firms wanting to become solution providers. It offers advice for strategy planning, business development, research and development, marketing, sales, supply chain management, operations, finance, planning and control, legal matters, and human resources management. The book is also relevant on many managerial levels. For top management, it provides the agenda for transformation. For functional heads, it illustrates the capabilities that each function needs to develop. For business-unit heads, it shows the areas prone to conflict during the transition towards solution business. And for middle management, it offers a language with which to discuss solution business across functions and regions. The book will also help you self-assess how ready your organization is for success in solution business.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how, taking customer relationships as the unit of analysis, the heterogeneity of customer relationship performance influences the heterogeneity of firm performance, and how firms can balance the heterogeneity of customers, customer relationships, and customer portfolios by differentiated business models.Design/methodology/approachThe approach to the topic is one of theoretical analysis and conceptual development.FindingsValue capture is defined as the discounted present value of all future economic profit from the relationship. Three sources of value capture heterogeneity are identified: the customer, the relationship with the customer, and the interdependence between customers in a customer base. Relationship performance can be improved by investing in business model differentiation, in order to facilitate controlled adaptation to specific customer relationships and/or customer portfolios. Firms have to manage parallel business models and a central capability is the ability to create internal fit between the elements of a specific business model.Research limitations/implicationsThe research presented relates to business‐to‐business customer relationships. Some of the conceptual thinking will not be applicable in consumer relationships.Practical implicationsA firm should have an optimum mix of customer relationships in its customer base, in relation to firm goals and strategy. Management needs to recognize the heterogeneity of customer relationship performance, and manage customer portfolios accordingly. In order to deal with the heterogeneity, it may be necessary to manage parallel business models. This will necessitate new capabilities, such as customer insight generation, account management, modularized production platforms, and relationship performance control.Originality/valueFor a scholarly audience the paper contributes to the discussion on how marketing improves firm performance by assuming responsibility for increasing firms' market value. For a practitioner audience it offers ideas for genuinely customer‐centric management.

PurposeFirms transforming from a product supplier into a solution provider need to develop entirely new organizational capabilities or re-configure existing ones. This paper aims to conceptualize solution business fitness (SBF) as a construct that captures comprehensively the capabilities necessary for a firm to operate successfully in solution business and investigates how the construct can be measured.Design/methodology/approachBased on a conceptualization of solution-specific capabilities and SBF, the development of the SBF measurement model followed a three-step procedure: domain specification and conceptual development, qualitative pre-study and quantitative pre-study. The SBF measurement model and its relevance were studied in a large scale longitudinal study using survey data from firm representatives, as well as archival data about the turnover and profitability development of the respective solution providers.FindingsThe study empirically validates solution-business-specific capabilities as antecedents of firm performance and shows how different business logics applied by firms give capabilities different importance and impact.Practical implicationsManagerially, firms can use the developed measurement tool to assess their current SBF and define the desired target status. When improving the SBF, managers should pay special attention to the business logic of their firm, as the required capabilities are context-dependent.Originality/valueThe study is the first to conceptualize and measure SBF and to empirically investigate the moderating role of business logic on the importance of the concept and its elements.