Determinants of key account management effectiveness in chemicals industry Malaysia

Abstract

Key Account Management (KAM) has been described as a relationship oriented marketing approach to deal with major customers in business-to-business (B2) markets. Increasing emphasis on KAM is one of the most fundamental changes in marketing organizations, yet is under-researched and not fully understood. The objectives of this study is to explore the relationships between top management involvement, use of teams, esprit de corps, access to sales and marketing resources and KAM effectiveness. This research was conducted in chemicals companies located in Johore, Malaysia. 150 questionnaires were distributed to the companies as published in the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) & Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE)’s directory and 60 returned usable questionnaires were analyzed. Using measurement scale adopted from the previous studies, principle component analysis and cronbach’s alpha were employed to test the validity and reliability of the measurement scale. In addition, normality was examined and pearson correlation was employed to test the relationships between variables. Two multiple regression analyses were employed to test research hypotheses. First regression model was found not significant and predictors have no influences in the organizational performance. Second regression model found that 85.9% of the variance had been significantly explained by the predictors. This study further concludes with conclusion and recommendations for forward research.