can selling be globalized
CMR212
10/01/01
Can Selling Be Globalized?
THE PITFALLS OF GLOBAL
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
David Arnold, JulianBirkinshaw, and Omar Toulan
California Management Review Reprint Series
©2001 by The Regents of the University of California
CMR, Volume 44, Number 1, Fall 2001
This document is authorized for use only in T-GEMBA/GMAN - 02212013 by Andrew Wilson and Saroja
Subrahmanyan at St. Mary's College of California from February 2013 to August 2013.
Arnold CMR fa01 final
1/24/02
8:31 AM
Page 8
Can Selling
Be Globalized?
THE PITFALLS OF GLOBAL
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
David Arnold
Julian Birkinshaw
Omar Toulan
o international companies, there is something both inevitable and desirable about the trend towards globalization of the sales function, usually referred to as global account management. It is inevitable because major business customers are generally well down the road to globalization in supply chain management, and from their major suppliers worldwide they increasingly demand contracts with standardized terms in areas such as product specification, price, and service standards. It is desirable because the institution of global customer management is in line with trends like customer relationship management and building customer-centric organizations, ideas which currently hold much sway with top executives in many multinational corporations.
T
However, vendor companies should think carefully before jumping on the global customer bandwagon. Such relationships can turn out to be quite different from expectations. In many cases, vendors find that the unanticipated costs outweigh the benefits. Over the last two years, we have conducted field research into global account management from the vendor’s perspective in Europe and
North America. In over half the corporations, we found management struggling to figure out how to make this system work. In many cases, the major change that resulted from classifying a customer as
10/01/01
Can Selling Be Globalized?
THE PITFALLS OF GLOBAL
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
David Arnold, JulianBirkinshaw, and Omar Toulan
California Management Review Reprint Series
©2001 by The Regents of the University of California
CMR, Volume 44, Number 1, Fall 2001
This document is authorized for use only in T-GEMBA/GMAN - 02212013 by Andrew Wilson and Saroja
Subrahmanyan at St. Mary's College of California from February 2013 to August 2013.
Arnold CMR fa01 final
1/24/02
8:31 AM
Page 8
Can Selling
Be Globalized?
THE PITFALLS OF GLOBAL
ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
David Arnold
Julian Birkinshaw
Omar Toulan
o international companies, there is something both inevitable and desirable about the trend towards globalization of the sales function, usually referred to as global account management. It is inevitable because major business customers are generally well down the road to globalization in supply chain management, and from their major suppliers worldwide they increasingly demand contracts with standardized terms in areas such as product specification, price, and service standards. It is desirable because the institution of global customer management is in line with trends like customer relationship management and building customer-centric organizations, ideas which currently hold much sway with top executives in many multinational corporations.
T
However, vendor companies should think carefully before jumping on the global customer bandwagon. Such relationships can turn out to be quite different from expectations. In many cases, vendors find that the unanticipated costs outweigh the benefits. Over the last two years, we have conducted field research into global account management from the vendor’s perspective in Europe and
North America. In over half the corporations, we found management struggling to figure out how to make this system work. In many cases, the major change that resulted from classifying a customer as