In 1996, the author started a research club in Cranfield University School of Management because it was obvious even then that the power had been transferred from suppliers to customers. Customers were exercising their new found power by dropping suppliers who didn't live up to their expectations and by forcing down prices from other suppliers.

The problem back in 1996 was that no business schools anywhere in the world had bothered to do any research into the transfer of power from supplier to customer, so the author decided to establish a research club based in Cranfield with the sole purpose of researching global best practice in the domain of key account management. This research club has been going for 10 years and has systematically researched best practice, not just on the supply side, but also on the customer side. This dyadic research approach was essential because, even back in 1996, it was obvious that supplier decisions about customer relationships were rife.

The authors have, as recently as 2005, heard a director of a major telecommunications company claim that they had 1,000 key accounts! The chief executive of a healthcare company claimed that they had 200 key accounts. Such numbers are, of course, totaly ridiculous. A moment's thought will reveal that any supplying company has limited capacity to commit cross-functional resources to selected customers. Each of us has hundreds of friends, but we only have capacity to devote real quality time and love to a handful - maybe four or five. The same principle applies to companies, who must decide extremely carefully which major customers they are prepared to allocate their scarce resources to. For best practice companies on research show that this is rarely more than 20.

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