Milind Katti is the cofounder and COO of DemandFarm, a company that builds digital tools for strategic account management.
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Account managers these days are often juggling between different applications and digital tools. This leads to data and intelligence being stored in silos. When it comes to account planning, a lot of information is tacit, and thus, account managers frequently prioritize short-term gains over long-term, sustainable, strategic wins.
Is there scope for a better way to prioritize when it comes to account planning? Is there a way to strike some balance between short-term and long-term revenue? In this article, I will outline some ways in which I believe artificial intelligence (AI) could have a huge impact on account planning.
The first stage of any digital transformation journey of any business function has to be focused on workflow automation and reporting to reduce manual work. Having on-demand data and institutionalizing best practices and processes is the foundation of any development in technology.
AI-based progress comes after that. At this stage, once there is sufficient data on key accounts, AI can potentially make digital account planning more impactful.
AI-driven insights have the potential to identify missed opportunities and early signs of risks and then suggest mitigation strategies for ensuring your accounts are in top shape. AI can also assist in better identifying key stakeholders and then mapping them for strengthening long-term relationships.
An account planning system based on this intelligence could better enable companies to prioritize high-impact areas for digital Key Account Management that could enable cross-pollination of the best learnings and practices across teams and accounts.
Applications Of AI-Assisted Account Planning
The applications of AI-assisted Account Planning could include leveraging account planning data, review data, third-party sales and marketing intelligence as well as analyzing the historical performance across the portfolio of key accounts.
An account plan based on AI has the potential not only to make the digital account planning process more seamless but also to ensure that data-driven account planning is further backed by insightful, contextual intelligence that can benefit both in the short-term and long-term.
Leaders seeking to implement AI-based Digital Account Planning should seek out solutions which can:
1. Better facilitate real-time governance.
2. Ensure that there is a proactive intervention to address revenue at risk whenever needed.
3. Identify growth opportunities better which can directly encourage deeper enterprise-level relationships.
4. Ensure more mature communication with key accounts.
5. Identify patterns of success more accurately.
6. Help institutionalize best practices more efficiently.
7. Share best practices across sales teams to solidify repeatable sales excellence across the board.
In these ways, AI-assisted Account Planning could expand the scope of productivity, strategic gains and ease that is brought about by digital account planning approaches to key account management.
The Potential Impact Of AI On Digital Account Planning ore and more companies have started to adopt digital tools post-pandemic to analyze, plan and review their key accounts. With the advent of several AI-based tools in the B2B space that have already had a deep impact on their industries, Digital Account Planning will also start seeing an increased presence of AI in recognizing trends and making predictions about key accounts.
One of the potential spaces where there may be a direct impact of AI when it comes to account managers and sales leaders is in determining the "next best action" for a key account. That's because AI has the potential to get smarter by recommending whitespaces for growth as a next step. Once AI technology further develops, it could provide insights on how to convert those whitespaces into opportunities.
For new accounts, leaders could leverage AI to benefit opportunity management by analyzing past win/loss to predict risks much more accurately. This could better ensure that major pitfalls are avoided. In the case of existing customers, an AI-based connected app ecosystem could come in handy in its abiilty to mitigate churn. AI-assisted account planning could also better identify opportunities for cross-selling and upselling as well as improve the accuracy of sales forecasting.
Furthermore, AI-assisted account planning has the potential to recommend the best tactics for closure based on collected data and recommend products or solutions based on the persona or industry.
Leaders should remember, however, that all of this is dependent on the information that is fed into the AI system.
AI can only tell you what it has learned based on the data it has been provided. So it is crucial that leaders ensure the right kind of information is being fed into an AI-based account planning solution to process reasons and suggest the next best actions for key accounts.
The Bottom Line
AI-powered insights have been gaining more traction than ever before in the sales industry, and companies looking to stay ahead of the competition are seeking best strategies to leverage this powerful tool. While traditional sales methodologies have sufficed in the past, AI could radically transform companies with a new level of insight and analysis that was previously not possible. Faster and real-time data analysis can better allow businesses to respond quickly to changes in the market and adjust sales strategies.
The decision-making and cognitive abilities as well as the skills needed to understand industries globally and align offerings to key accounts still rest primarily with human beings. But the addition of AI into digital account management can make account managers and sales leaders far more productive, allowing time for focusing on strategic activities and making sales methodologies actionable.
Ultimately, if AI technology keeps improving and innovating in the way it has been this past decade, the sky’s the limit for its implications in digital Key Account Management. I hope this article provides some valuable takeaways for leaders seeking strategies to best implement AI solutions as they shape the future of sales and digital Key Account Management.
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