SAMA Excellence Awards >> Submission Questions
You are welcome to submit up to two Excellence Award categories. If you wish to apply for more than one award, simply complete and submit an application for each category. We have included the option to submit a file with supporting material if needed, but it is not required. Each question still must be answered in the submission form. In addition, we ask that if you are a previous Excellence Award winner in the categories of Young or Mature Program of the Year, you wait two years from when you won to submit in the same category again. This rule does not pertain to any of the other Excellence Awards categories.
If you have any questions or challenges, please contact Libby Souder at souder@strategicaccounts.org
To help you prepare your submission, we offer this document which lists the questions that you will need to answer for each category.
Award Categories
Category 1: Systematic Enablement of the SAM Program: Learning & Development
Recognizing the imperative and challenges to attract, develop, and retain SAM talent, Learning & Development (training) plays an increasingly important role in building SAM capabilities to effectively collaborate, create value, and grow with their company’s most important customers. Additionally, in our hybrid world, organizations need to innovate in how they develop SAM talent, enable cross-function account teamwork, equip leaders to sponsor and coach, and embed and sustain organization-wide change.
The winning submission will demonstrate:
- Innovative, integrated learning strategies
- Approach (learning roadmaps/training programs)
- Design and deployment that accelerate, deepen, and sustain enterprise-wide strategic account management mindset and capabilities
- Measurable improvement of SAMs’ competencies
- Company capabilities and customer-centric culture
- Customer value/impact
Within this submission, you will answer the questions outlined below:
- Please describe the role Learning & Development plays in supporting personal development and expanding the capabilities of the SAMs and SAM teams.
- Please describe how Learning & Development disseminates SAM knowledge and best practices across the organization.
- Please describe how Learning & Development helps drive organizational alignment, efficiency, and standardization across BUs, regions, etc.
- Please describe how Learning & Development contributes to your company’s ability to co-create value and provide a great customer experience for your strategic accounts.
- Please provide any business results that help quantify the improvement of SAM competencies, company capabilities, and customer-centric culture, as well as customer value/impact.
Category 2: Innovative Value Co-creation
One role of the SAM is to leverage resources within his or her organization to co-create value with a strategic customer. At SAMA we’ve seen some extraordinary examples of this innovation through value co-creation — and we are looking for more. The winning entry will demonstrate, through one or more examples, how SAMs think outside the box to solve complex problems by engaging their company’s entire ecosystem (suppliers, competitors, start-ups), solving not only customer problems but customers’ customers’ problems, or through other novel, innovative mechanisms. Bonus points will be given for new, innovative ways to assemble diverse stakeholders to co-create solutions that address complex customer problems. A specific customer example is required!
Within this submission, you will answer the questions outlined below:
- What specific customer problem (or problems) did you set out to address?
- What past attempts had you and/or your customer made to solve said problem(s)?
- How did the SAM discover the opportunity for joint value-creation?
- What challenges (technical, organizational, etc.) had to be overcome to develop and execute your solution?
- Who were the key stakeholders on your side? On the customer side? What specific actions did the SAM take to influence key stakeholders needed to move the project forward?
- What specific actions did the SAM take to create internal alignment around the project?
- How are you measuring the success of this project, and how have you decided how the “pie” (i.e., the new, innovative value) gets divided up between customer and supplier?
- What was different/innovative/envelope-pushing about this project?
- What have the business results been so far?
Category 3: Best Use of AI & Digital Innovation in SAM
This new award recognizes organizations that are pioneering the effective use of AI, advanced analytics, and digital platforms to transform how they manage strategic customers. Examples include predictive insights, co-innovation with customers using AI, automation that frees SAMs to focus on value, or digital collaboration ecosystems that accelerate trust and outcomes.
Within this submission, you will answer the questions outlined below:
- Provide a brief summary of your organization and the AI or digital innovation being submitted.
- Describe the specific challenge your organization faced in strategic account management that this innovation addresses. What problem were you trying to solve?
- How did this AI or digital innovation fundamentally change or improve your strategic account management processes.
- Describe specific examples of where the innovation automated repetitive tasks for SAMs. What was the tangible business impact of this automation (e.g., freeing up time for high-value activities)?
- Explain how the solution generates predictive insights or other SAM-related information to drive value.
- What was the plan to scale the technology and the timeline to implement across your SAM teams?
- How does this technology integrate with your existing CRM, account planning tools, or other technologies?
- Has it helped with co-innovation? Describe a project where your team and a strategic customer collaborated using AI or a digital platform, or an opportunity was discovered as a result of AI usage. What was the outcome for the customer?
- How has the digital collaboration ecosystem improved communication, trust, and outcomes with your strategic customers? Describe the platform or process and provide a customer testimonial or data that demonstrates this improvement.
- What business results demonstrate the success of your innovation? Include specific metrics and verifiable outcomes that you can tie specifically to this initiative. Examples might include:
- Increased revenue growth within strategic accounts
- Improved customer satisfaction or retention scores
- Measurable increase in SAM productivity or time spent on value-added activities
Category 4: Outstanding Young Program of the Year (< 5 years)
The winning entry will demonstrate, through examples, the specific foundational elements and enablers that are transforming their business and their relationships with strategic customers to produce new levels of growth and profitability.
Within this submission, you will answer the questions outlined below:
- What was the challenge your company was facing that led to the creation of a strategic accounts program?
- Who was involved from your organization in establishing your program?
- What are the key components of your SAM program?
- What internal KPIs do you use to measure the program’s success?
- What external (customer or third-party) validation do you have that the program has contributed positively to your strategic accounts?
- What have the business results been so far? Note that these numbers may be expressed in relative, rather than absolute, terms (e.g., year-over-year).
- What have you learned from this experience?
- What can others learn from your experience?
Category 5: Outstanding Mature Program of the Year (5+ years)
Mature SAM organizations face many challenges, including maintaining and evolving strong executive leadership and governance, becoming more agile through changing economic and digital disruptions, continuous learning to elevate SAM processes and tools, and accelerating the drive for innovative co-creation with strategic customers. The winning entry will demonstrate, through examples, the strength, resilience, and productivity of their SAM organization.
Please note: Previous winners of this award must wait two years before submitting for “Outstanding Mature Program of the Year,” but are encouraged to submit in other award categories.
Within this submission, you will answer the questions outlined below:
- What goals did you set out to achieve, advance, sustain, and/or alter the course of your existing SAM program?
- What specific steps did you undertake to achieve these goals?
- Who from your organization was involved?
- What internal KPIs do you use to measure the program’s success?
- How have these KPIs evolved over time?
- What external (customer or third-party) validation do you have that demonstrates the program has contributed positively to your strategic accounts?
- What have the business results been so far? Note that these numbers may be expressed in relative, rather than absolute, terms (e.g., year-over-year).
- What have you learned from this experience?
- What can others learn from your experience?