Farewell to the pricing manager: new ecosystem captains drive profits via pricing

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss the changing role of the strategic account manager (SAM). Design/methodology/approach: This paper takes the form of an interview. Findings: SAMs, in the future, will be ecosystem captains capable of managing complex relationships and teams, of organizing data and of telling stories with analytics. SAMs in the future will be assessed along with a set of metrics that it is similar to metrics of how top management consultants are evaluated: activities, competencies, intermediary results, sales/margins and quantified business value. Originality/value: This interview discusses the current and future best practices of strategic account management.