With the paramount importance of key account management in business-to-business relationship, today companies are using this approach as a strategic weapon in their selling efforts targeted at the most important customers to solve their complex requirements with special treatment that eventually ensures both parties’ financial and nonfinancial objectives. The aim of this paper is to investigate the level of key account management performance among the export-oriented readymade garments companies in Bangladesh with regards to company’s experience in business, size of the company and key account serving capacity of the company. Using a questionnaire, data from 112 readymade garments companies in Bangladesh were collected and analyzed using descriptive analysis and ANOVA to test the level of key account management performance. Results show that the level of key account management performance by the garments companies did not vary by the company’s experience in business and size of the company respectively. In contrast, the level of key account management performance was found to be different concerning high, medium, and low customer service capacity. Apparently, companies with big number of customers show better performance than companies with small number of customer. Implications for this study are discussed along with suggestions for future research avenues.

The aim of this paper is to propose an integrative definition of key account management (KAM) at the organizational level through a content analysis of the existing definitions of KAM available in the business literatures. A representative pool of definitions of key account management was generated through literature review from twenty three journals that covers the divergence of name variety like global account management, strategic account management, national account management, international key account management, key client management, major account management, key customers management and key account management. Relating to the definition of key account management various attributes are identified through content analysis and according to the relevance, profile for each attributes are developed. On the basis of these attributes a diagrammatic and textual definition is proposed that covers the different standpoints and aspects of key account management approach and captures its essence as well. Eventually, several strategic implications are derived that create the field for further empirical investigation.