Factfile 19
Why channel strategy is important
As competition for corporate customers intensifies on all fronts, targeting of resources is becoming ever more important.
To ensure that the top accounts, which generate the majority of major business revenues, receive the degree of attention they need, it is important to deliver better quality advice to enhance the client relationship.
Using the full range of channels to market can help you maximise your direct selling efficiencies and create incremental revenues for your accounts through collaborative working. Which, in today ?s competitive cost-driven environment is an option you can no longer afford to ignore.
The diagram below illustrates the myriad channels now available to purchase, for example a holiday package.
Figure 8: Channels to market
Source: © Etc Ltd., 2002.
From the stance as a supplier, in market places where the main revenue streams are increasingly becoming commoditized and prices falling, it is no longer sustainable to offer face-to-face account management to all but key clients.
In order to move into value based marketing and selling you need to provide more choice to the consumer and free up more time for account managers to develop new contacts and new business.
In order to address this there are already a number of channels to market that can supplement account management: business centres, desk based account management, telemarketing, 3rd parties, consultants ? and increasingly ? e-channel.
Leading technology companies, for example BT, are already well down the road of developing an integrated multi channel programme (IMCP), which is believed to be emerging best practice.