Beds

6,748 words excluding references and tables Managing key business-to-business relationships: what marketing can learn from supply chain management Key Account Management (KAM) is a rapidly-growing area of interest in business-to-business marketing. However, unnoticed by marketing, a quiet revolution has taken place in Supply Chain Management (SCM), where the traditional focus on least-cost transactions has given way to a focus on long-term relationships with a few key suppliers. It is thus apparent that the two disciplines are converging. This paper uses a cross-disciplinary approach to explore whether these developments from the field of SCM provide insights into key business-to-business relationships. A detailed case study of a long-term relationship between a business-to-business services provider and a key customer in the construction industry suggests that there is a definable overlap. The supply chain model illuminates five important elements of the KAM relationship and offers a promising method for the evaluation of such relationships. As a result of the research, both supplier and customer companie