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2023 Report on SAM Compensation
The 2023 Edition of SAMA’s Report on Strategic Account Management Compensation Practices. This study is the most comprehensive survey of Strategic Account Management compensation practices available today and is designed to establish benchmarks and track market trends.
2023 Report on SAM Compensation
2023 Report on Strategic Account Management Compensation Practices
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Welcome to the 2023 Edition of SAMA’s Report on Strategic Account Management Compensation Practices. This study is the most comprehensive survey of Strategic Account Management compensation practices available today and is designed to establish benchmarks and track market trends related to:
- Profile, responsibilities and job scope
- SAM program practices
- Market compensation levels and incentive mix
- Pay plan type, structure, components and metrics
- Performance measurement
- Frequency of performance measurement and payouts
Invitations to participate in the study were sent out in March 2023. Participants completed the 69 question survey online. Survey respondents had the following profile:
- 72 Account Managers, 34 Program Managers and 50 VP/Directors completed the survey
- 74 companies were represented in the survey
- 71% of participants reside in North America, 16% in Western Europe
- 9 industries are represented in the survey; the industries with highest participation are Healthcare and Industrials
- More than 60% of the respondents worked for companies with revenues greater than $1B
- Account Manager participants had a median of 6 years in strategic account management and 17 years in sales
- SAM Program Director participants had a median of 10 years in strategic account management and 25 years in sales
- Program Manager participants had a median of 8 years in strategic account management and 10 years in sales
To provide maximum insight, the responses have been broken out (where meaningful) across the following dimensions:
- Job role
- Account responsibility
- Tenure
- Industry
- Negotiation Authority
- Pricing Authority
Survey participants each receive a free copy of the report. Corporate member companies of SAMA that participated in the survey also receive free access, upon request. Contact SAMAresearch@strategicaccounts.org if you’re unsure whether your company participated.
State of KAM in Life Sciences
The U.S. healthcare system is evolving faster than ever, forcing SAMs and KAMs in Life Sciences to evolve in step. This report offers a comprehensive view into the state of SAM/KAM in Life Sciences, including insights into the objectives, organizational models, support functions, current effectiveness, barriers, metrics and investment priorities for Life Sciences companies.
State of KAM in Life Sciences
State of KAM in Life Sciences
The age-old standard of selling products to clinicians is no longer a pathway to success. The continued rise of large, complex and sophisticated organized customers in the U.S. healthcare system is creating new imperatives and opportunities for Life Sciences organizations.
The “State of KAM in Life Sciences” research report(s) consists of two separate bodies of research, one covering medtech and the other covering pharmaceuticals. Conducted jointly with SAMA and ZS, they provide comprehensive and granular insight into the objectives, organizational models, support functions, current effectiveness, barriers, metrics and investment priorities for the medtech and pharma fields. Participants included 27 leaders of SAM/KAM functions, representing enterprise or business unit SAM/KAM organizations at 15 top pharma and medtech companies.
One key takeaway: The vast majority of these companies need to make significant advancement in their KAM strategies and capabilities if they’re to maximize impact and success with their large, organized customers. The deep-dive analysis provides quantitative results as well as qualitative feedback from respondents.
The report reveals:
- The SAM/KAM goals and objectives for many of the largest global Life Sciences companies
- The specific challenges and opportunities they face
- Metrics they use to measure success
- Where and how companies plan to invest
You may also be interested in:
Video: State of KAM in Life Sciences
Article: Key Account Management Is a Priority for Medtech Leaders
Article: Why Pharma Must Invest in Key Account Management CapabilitiesReport purchase entitles you to a 90-minute readout session with a ZS Life Sciences expert.
Access to the reports is limited. To learn more about purchasing your copy of the full report, contact SAMAresearch@strategicaccounts.org.
2021 Report on SAM Compensation Practices
SAMA’s 2021 “Report on Strategic Account Management Compensation Practices” is the most comprehensive survey of SAM/KAM compensation practices available anywhere.
2021 Report on SAM Compensation Practices
2021 Report on Strategic Account Management Compensation Practices
SAMA’s 2021 “Report on Strategic Account Management Compensation Practices” is the most comprehensive survey of SAM/KAM compensation practices available anywhere. Conducted in partnership with ZS, the report establishes benchmarks and tracks market trends related to:
- SAM/KAM job profile, responsibilities and scope
- Compensation levels, incentive mix and trends for SAMs, SAM program managers and VP/directors
- Pay plan types, structures, components and metrics
- Frequency of performance measurements and payouts
- SAM program common and best practices
Survey respondents included 125 account managers, 7 program managers and VP/directors from 102 companies headquartered in Europe and North America.
You may also be interested in:
Choosing the Right KPIs to Measure SAM Program Success
Roughly half of the companies we surveyed are making a giant mistake in how they measure strategic account performance. Is yours? Learn what it is and find out how leading companies use KPIs to drive performance with their most important customers.
Choosing the Right KPIs to Measure SAM Program Success
Relevance and Effectiveness of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to the Strategic Account Management Process
How do supplier organizations – and, more specifically, SAMs – develop, manage and grow their most important customers? And just as importantly, what milestones and metrics do leading companies employ to track their progress?
We surveyed more than 200 strategic accounts professionals to learn:
- Which KPIs companies use to drive strategic account performance, including the mix of internal vs. external measures and leading vs. lagging indicators
- How closely leading organizations align their KPIs with their strategic selling processes
- How closely these companies’ strategic selling processes align with the principles of strategic account management (as opposed to traditional sales)
Key findings:
- Barely half of respondents believe their firm’s KPIs are designed to drive both internal AND customer metrics.
- Companies are still weighting their KPIs toward lagging (rather than leading) indicators.
Digital Transformation and Strategic Account Managment
The emergence of new digital technologies has radically transformed how suppliers engage with their strategic customers. Learn how digitalization is changing the logic and practice of SAM across all industries and if your company is adapting fast enough to keep pace.
Digital Transformation and Strategic Account Managment
The Digitalization Drive: Elevating Strategic Account Management
The increased connectivity provided by digital technologies has created new forms of collaboration opportunities in industrial ecosystems, new ways to monitor and manage the installed asset base and new channel configurations with new tools to connect and influence decision making and product usage. To put it bluntly: Digitalization has shaken the foundations upon which strategic account management is built.
This report, based on a review of current literature, content analysis and on-one-interviews with digital experts and SAMA corporate members, sets out to understand how digitalization is changing the logic and practice of strategic account management. The outcome is seven recommendations for companies that aspire to become digital leaders.
“Fundamental to understanding how SAM and SAM programs should adapt is the realization that changes in SAM practices are driven not only by the emergence of new digital technologies but, even more importantly, by the modifications in strategy and business models that digitalization drives. Consequently, SAM programs need to be elevated into an even more strategic role driving the digitally enabled strategic transformation of both firms and customers. To take on this role, SAM needs to be transformed from strategic account management to strategic ecosystem leadership.”
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Choosing the Right Metrics To Help Calibrate the Right Investments for a Strategic Accounts Organization
Strategic accounts organizations use a variety of metrics when making investment decisions, but which ACTUALLY matter? Gain insight into the most important investment areas for SAM organizations, broken out by business area and company revenue size.
Choosing the Right Metrics To Help Calibrate the Right Investments for a Strategic Accounts Organization
Metrics To Help Calibrate the Right Investments for a Strategic Accounts Organization
As companies develop, formalize and fine-tune their strategic account management programs, they must at some point wrestle with the question of how to measure the performance of both indvidual strategic customer relationships and the overall strategic accounts initiative. The problem is often legacy measurement systems that are focused on measuring performance of products, services and geographies and are not built to effectively capture and aggregate business and performance data by customer, across the entire company.
We surveyed more than 200 strategic accounts professionals to learn:
- How do companies use metrics to make the business case for strategic accounts investments? For the strategic accounts approach in general?
- Which metrics are most effective for different types of investments (e.g., customer-specific, innovation, talent, SAM program central office/Center of Excellence, functional area improvements)?
- And finally, how are investment decisions made?
You may also be interested in:
Infographic: Investing in the strategic accounts organization
Individual SAM Characteristics Influencing Customer-Supplier Value Realization
Companies have invested heavily in value co-creation capabilities, but how much of the co-created value do they actually capture? Our research shows that two critical facets of value management have been woefully neglected.
Individual SAM Characteristics Influencing Customer-Supplier Value Realization
Individual SAM Characteristics Influencing Customer-Supplier Value Realization
While value co-creation has rightfully become an area of primary focus for SAM programs, less attention has been paid to two later steps in the value management process: pricing realization and value capture. With this in mind, we partnered with Value Innoruption Advisors to survey more than 400 SAM professionals to learn:
- What are the critical components of a holistic value management program, and how do they impact firm performance?
- What personality traits impact SAM acceptance and adoption of value management programs?
It turns out that the greatest drivers of value management success sit in the back end of the value management process: namely, in the pricing realization and value capture steps. But what makes a SAM great at executing these steps? And how do leading companies integrate value management capabilities into their strategic selling process?
Customer Types in Real-World Account Management
SAMA partnered with the University of Mannheim to survey roughly 375 SAM practitioners to test a customer segmentation framework designed to apply across all industries. Four account management models emerged from this study, against which every company should test their current go-to-market model.
Customer Types in Real-World Account Management
Customer Types in Real-World Account Management
SAM programs exist to manage a company’s most important customers, but this broad category of customer relationships can include a diverse array of relationship types. While more companies recognize that business management models will vary by type of relationship, as far as we know no one has yet created an empirical foundation for a structured segmentation approach for all strategic/important accounts – until now.
The real-world account management model assumes that all customer relationships can be placed into one of four categories: (1) both companies consider the relationship transactional, (2) the supplier considers the relationship transactional, while the customer considers it strategic, (3) the supplier considers the relationship strategic, while the customer considers it transactional, or (4) both companies consider the relationship strategic.
What did we learn? Number one: A management case can be made for catagorizing important customers based on the combined views of the supplier on the customer and on the supplier’s perception of the customer’s view of the supplier. The survey found ample justification for this segmentation approach for both internal and external strategy and alignment, and for dynamically monitoring and tracking account changes as business relationships and a company’s account management program matures.
Covid-19’s Impact on B2B Relationships
The “new normal” brought on by COVID-19 changed everything about how SAMs serve their strategic customers. SAMA and Boston Consulting Group teamed up to assess the impact of the crisis and best practices for navigating what lies ahead.
Covid-19’s Impact on B2B Relationships
Executive Mindset: An Outside-in Assessment on Customer Discovery, Solution Development and Communication Relevant to Executives
The “new normal” brought on by COVID -19 changed everything about how SAMs serve their strategic customers. SAMA and Boston Consulting Group teamed up to assess the impact of the crisis on SAMs and SAM programs.
The research, conducted in April and May of 2020, surveyed roughly 100 SAMs and SAM program directors, and it offers unprecedented insight into:
- Sales leaders’ overall business outlook
- Changes in client expectations
- Key challenges and opportunities moving forward
- Best practices for navigating changing dynamics
You may also be interested in:
Webinar: Commercial Excellence in COVID Times – Lessons from recent SAMA/BCG benchmark survey
Executive Mindset
An Outside-in Assessment on Customer Discovery, Solution Development and Communication Relevant to Executives
SAMA wants to enable you to benchmark the success of your strategies and understand what top-performing companies are doing differently to set themselves apart.
Executive Mindset
Executive Mindset: An Outside-in Assessment on Customer Discovery, Solution Development and Communication Relevant to Executives
We’ve partnered with FinListics to study their existing model that helps Sales and Strategic Accounts organizations be more relevant to executive buyers. Through this study we want to enable you to benchmark the success of your strategies by:
- Defining how companies are executing Discovery, Solutions, and Communication in terms of:
- How often and where to look.
- Effectiveness of solution-impact areas and communication-strategy areas.
- What customer insights to use in the account planning process.
- Understanding what top-performing companies are doing differently to set themselves apart.
All participants that fully complete the survey will receive a free copy of the study’s results report, access to the results webinar, AND one free Executive Summary Customer Insights Report on one of your customers. This report from FinListics helps you have a more business-focused discussion with your customers’ executive buyers by providing insights into their financial performance, opportunities for improvement, and cash-flow benefits for improvement in operational KPIs.
Authors: Stephen Timme, President, FinListics; Joel Schaafsma, General Manager, Research, SAMA
Intended Audience: SAM/KAM/GAM, Program Leaders, Central Office Program Mangers, Sales Leaders, Sales Management, Sales Enablement, Customer Management
Access: This survey should take 5-7 minutes.
Report Access: Results report publication date is scheduled for November 2022
Price*: Non-Member – $500 | Individual-Member – $300 | Corporate-Member – $200
*Free to participating companies. Inquire about participation status by emailing SAMAresearch@strategicaccounts.org.
Interested in partnering with SAMA on one of our research projects?
Contact Christine Army at army@strategicaccounts.org to learn how you can get involved.