In early 2004, Xerox Global Services was looking to extend its success as an equipment provider to the area of consulting and outsourcing services—in the eyes of its customers as well as its management. Sales teams were confident about how to sell Xerox equipment, but hadn’t found an effective way to talk about and sell the company’s consulting expertise. Marketing was not involved in the account planning process, and any relationship between the account management community and the marketing team was tactical, consisting of sporadic requests for assistance on bids or the generation of tactical sales tools.

To address these issues, Xerox partnered with ITSMA to conduct benchmarking research to better understand the key success factors in marketing an outsourcing business. Based on the research findings and on its desire to strengthen and deepen relationships in its largest accounts, Xerox Global Services made Account-Based Marketing (ABM)—an approach that emphasizes relationship development by treating an individual account as a market in its own right—one of its five strategic marketing imperatives.

Using ITSMA’s model for ABM, Xerox launched ABM in three global pilot accounts in 2005: two in financial services and one in manufacturing. In 2006, Xerox fleshed out an organization-wide strategy for ABM and expanded its pilot programs. It has created in-depth tools that allow it to make informed, fact-based decisions about its sales targets. In addition, it has forged a new, strategic partnership between its sales and marketing organizations.

Today, Xerox is successfully leveraging ABM to build strategic relationships in its largest accounts that lead to increased opportunities, revenue, and profitability. But the greatest achievement of the ABM program at Xerox may not be its contribution to the balance sheet, but rather the way ABM has reshaped the role of marketing strategy in developing and delivering services to the company’s customers.