Portfolio classification
Key Local, Key Regional, Key Global, Key Strategic. The segment sets how high the skills bar sits; the account's situation sets which skills lead.
Not every key account needs the same key account manager. Portfolio classification sorts accounts into Key Local, Key Regional, Key Global and Key Strategic, and the segment sets the height of the required profile: Foundational to Established for a local account, Established for regional, Established to Advanced for global, Advanced to Master for the handful that are strategic.
The account’s situation sets the shape. A new account to win, or one under threat or going to tender, leans on the Strategist and the Business Developer. A steady, established account leans on the Operator. Grow-and-develop sits between. Combine height and shape and you have a required profile for all twelve sub-skills in the Tri-Stack, and from it a job description and recruitment guidance. One more thing the tool screens for before any of that: the inherent qualities that cannot be trained, integrity, political awareness, stamina and the will to compete.
Set out in full in: Creating Customer Value Propositions with AI (Kogan Page, 2027), chapter 11.
Related terms
The KAM Skills Tri-Stack
Strategist, Business Developer, Operator: three skill domains, four sub-skills each, mapped to the three stages of the cycle. Almost nobody is trained for all three.
Key account management
The continuous delivery of value through the intersection of sales, strategy and innovation.
The four rungs
Foundational, Established, Advanced, Master. Every sub-skill in the Tri-Stack is scored on the same ladder, and a rung is always backed by evidence.
See the method run on one real account in three days: the One Page Proposition.