Relationship keyness: The underlying concept for different forms of key relationship management

For companies, relationships with external actors may constitute intangible assets. Many firms have put in place key account management programs in order to pay sufficient attention to strategically important customers and the marketing literature has studied such programs. However, a company's relationship portfolio also comprises relationships with other types of actors. The objective of this paper is to show that – across the different types of external relationships a company may develop – some relationships have more importance than others and, hence, are key. The authors argue that, as a consequence, the keyness of certain relationships has led to the emergence of approaches which can be referred to as key relationship management. For this purpose, the authors first present empirical material on the management of relationships between companies and their partners in strategic alliances from the French IT sector. They then discuss the concept of keyness as well as the common characteristics of different forms of key relationship management such as key account management, key supplier management and strategic alliance management.