While most businesses realise the necessity of working with an account manager when dealing with service providers, the role of the technical account manager, or TAM, is less widely understood. Forward thinking organisations, however, see the value in TAMs, as above all a TAM is able to save them time and, most importantly, money.
The main difference between a TAM and an account manager is that, first and foremost, the latter has a wider focus that includes technology but also incorporates managing a range of stakeholders, while for the former, the clue is all in the title. A technical account manager has highly specialised knowledge and skills in the technical realm. As a trusted adviser and subject matter expert (SME), a TAM has a deep understanding of the various technologies a company may be using or considering implementing and will offer advice on how they should be optimised and a roadmap to get there.
Well versed in such areas as rightsizing, a TAM works with the technical leaders in a customer’s organisation – such as the chief technical officer or chief operating officer – while also working closely with the other key customer focused teams in their own company, including the pre-sales consultants, solution architects, project managers, service delivery managers and operational support staff.
When engaged, a TAM will take a deep dive into the customer’s environment and drill down into the details, to learn as much as possible and understand how it serves their existing requirements. This comprehensive understanding means they can then not only provide advice on how to configure the system using best practice, but ensure that they and the service provider are fully aligned with the customer’s focus as a business. They will identify how the system is being used and ascertain whether it is being underutilised or overutilised. Once this review has been made and the existing environment is clearly understood, they will recommend options for optimisation.
This could entail small tweaks for improvement or more substantial changes. Perhaps certain procedures haven’t been implemented previously as they weren’t part of the BAU (business as usual) tasks, but with a dedicated technical person able to look outside of such tasks, question them and challenge existing protocols, the customer now can be offered advice that will help them potentially cut costs, maximise value and/or enhance their environment.
A good example would be the discovery that multiple systems are performing the same task. This may never have been uncovered as part of BAU activities performed by the internal team, but a TAM is dedicated to looking for these oversights or opportunities. A TAM would likely recommend reducing the size of the environment or consolidating the various systems into one single type, saving budget and improving performance.
Teamwork
One other great advantage of using the services of a TAM is that, while they will most likely have their own field of specialisation – such as VMware, Microsoft and AWS products, for example – they are also part of an SME network and can immediately identify the most appropriate expert for other areas of specialisation, such as networking for instance. With this holistic approach the service provider can help to drive business critical outcomes for the customer.
Their role is also that of customer advocate, providing the focal point for a service provider to coordinate with any and all other teams involved in configuring the most fit for purpose environment for the customer. They do this by conducting regular meetings with the customer, perhaps monthly or more frequently. These meetings will help to ascertain and identify any issues or challenges that have been experienced and that can be solved with optimisation. Following further consultation with their colleagues in the service provider teams, the TAM will then sit down with the customer and explain in detail the best solution to adopt, the benefits it provides and the problems it will solve.
Case Study
Chad Bethell, Technical Account Manager Private Cloud at AC3, explains how he was able to conduct a review of a financial company’s server and desktop applications paired to the number of users within the organisation. The analysis led to multiple recommendations including recovering licences from inactive and disabled users, which saved money on not only the licensing but also the hosting, storage, backup and management charges. This led to “a significant decrease in costs to the business,” says Bethell.