Market Intelligence for Key Account Management

“Information is power, and negotiating is all about the art of knowing how to use this information.“

Background on Rettig
Rettig ICC brings together Europe's leading brands for radiators, underfloor heating, valves and controls. The Company runs international businesses with customers located in over 50 countries around the globe. The largest direct customers are sanitary and heating wholesalers based in Northern, Western, Central and Eastern Europe but increasingly also in North America and Asia.

Rettig ICC has used been a loyal user of Intelligence Desk^TM from Global Intelligence Alliance since 2001, which it uses to keep a close watch on its business environment. Market Intelligence gathered is delivered directly to 130 Rettig staff every day.

Interviewed for this case is Julian Stocks, the Key Account Manager for Europe who is responsible for the coordination of large European customer account activity comprising a significant double digit share of the company’s sales revenues.

How is Market Intelligence Used in Account Management?
According to Stocks, Market Intelligence can be very beneficial in managing key accounts when used to:

• Monitor developments in customer markets, particularly complex ones eg. different business cycles, many stakeholders, government involvement in legislation and subsidies
• Provide a good overview of regional or country-based sales trends, particularly when customers are spread out geographically
• Predict changes in the customer markets which will impact Rettig sales so they can be addressed in advance
  
• Gather industry and raw material insights which will help in customer negotiations.
• Keep track of personnel movements across the industry
• Finetune the intelligence process with customer intelligence gathered

A handful of Rettig’s customers are publicly listed companies that release a lot of information. The benefit of using a tool such as the Intelligence Desk is that information which is not readily available in the public domain, such as industry reports, can also be included so that more comprehensive views on customer markets can be formed.

At Rettig, information gathered is reviewed on a daily basis and is used in different formats across various presentations. It can be shared throughout the company and with customers, either electronically or by phone.

Are there any anecdotes to share?
When used correctly, the Desk can be a powerful market scanning mechanism. The fact that Rettig has been able to perform better than its peers during tough economic times can be partly attributed to how the company has systematically and strategic used Market Intelligence.

For this and the full case study, please click here to download the study in PDF format.

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