Key account management: Indian IT industry perspective

Abstract

In this report, we aim to study the Practices for Key Account Management in the context of IT Industry. Indian IT industry has undergone a tremendous growth in last two decades and has gone through various economic cycles during the period. The flat world did brought tremendous opportunities with the technological advancement in terms of borderless economies, but this also brought the challenge of survival in a cut throat market environment. For any business survival or growth in this environment, long term customer relationships are highly important. Managing the key customer accounts to leverage and enhance the relationship is the challenging part for any organization and especially in IT industry which is a service dominated, price sensitive, and knowledge based industry. So in this project, we aim to study the following topic Key Account Management: Indian IT industry perspective . As part of project, we undertook a literature study with focus on following aspects; What is key account management? What are the different models for key account management? What are the relationship variables? What sort of relationship process exists? What is the importance of concept of customer value management concept? And what is the role of an account manager. To confirm our theoretical findings, we conducted a series of interviews with Account Executives in Capgemini. We also rolled out a survey to IT professionals working in the capacity of managing account relationships. In this report, we have explored on the relevant literature available for KAM practices and mapped the finding of empirical study with Capgemini Consulting for some of its major accounts. Later, we have summarized a detailed analysis from the survey we conducted with the IT professionals engaged with account management. To conclude with report, we have summarized the conclusion section along with some recommendations for Capgemini around the KAM practices.