Topic

Relationship And Network Marketing

Instructions

What is the value of KAM for the seller? And what for the buyer? What influences the success of KAM?
How does the marriage metaphor help understanding business relationships? What are its limitations?
What is a ‘portfolio approach’ to business relationships? How do companies manage a relational portfolio dynamically?
What are the criteria for an ‘ethical business relationship’?
Why are Network Pictures important for managerial practice and how could they be used to understand how a company could better ‘network’?

Answer preview

The concept of Key Account Management (KAM) presents a source of value to sellers (Henneberg, 2017). KAM is understood as a fundamentally different selling and buying process adopted by business –to-business suppliers in the management of important relationships with buyers, and generate measurable value to the business (Chen and Choi, 2005). The relevance of KAM can be explained from the perspective of social exchange theory, explaining how the theory influences seller-buyer relationship. The basis of this theory is that exchange process minimizes the costs and maximizes the benefits. As such, costs versus benefits of seller-buyer social exchange process underlie the value. According to Lambe, Wittmann and Spekman (2001), costs entail things that appear negative expending time, money and efforts in a business relationship

Word count: 3647