【正文】 tional plexity inherent in KAM requires a balance between responsiveness and integration. Secondly, the adoption of Key Account Management requires adaptation of strategic approaches and management structures. Generic product management strategies have limited relevance within the context of account management and an over emphasis on petition may also be counterproductive. The development of strategies within businesstobusiness markets is concerned with the management of portfolios of customers rather than products。 observing them for what they are doing, not what they‘re saying。berg faces the daunting challenge of a rapidly polarizing appliance market. Lowcost Asian players, such as Haier, are applying pressure at the low end of the market, while premium petitors like Bosch, SubZero, and Viking are continuing to grow at the expense of middleoftheroad brands. Other industries have experienced similar developments. We know that when the shift es, it es quite fast. In the vacuum cleaner sector, where the market polarized earlier, the whole process—starting with the rapid growth of premium players like Dyson—took five to seven years. Electrolux did not experience a crisis but rather a slow erosion in performance, with margins dropping steadily from 9 percent in 20xx to around 8 percent in 20xx. The pany‘s response has extended far beyond cost cutting. To be sure, Str229。M‘s to give the celebrating couple a sugar overdose. Chocolate lovers clamoured for smaller portions. And in 20xx, Masterfoods responded, tweaking its manufacturing to produce 227 grams and kg customized bags and selling them online. Although these cost nearly three times the price of regular Mamp。s thrifty households tuck away a quarter of their aftertax ine—one of the highest saving rates in the world. Our research suggests that while the emerging middle class will continue to save heavily, they will also spend increasing amounts of money. Given the challenges of such a rapidly changing market, some panies have already had to think creatively about lowering product costs, reconfiguring business systems, and shifting to local sourcing strategies. Even a successful formula for current market conditions can soon bee obsolete, however. Companies that target current urban working consumers—say, by reducing prices and repositioning products for lowerend segments—may find that these customers will abandon the brands as soon as their pocketbooks allow. To avoid this trap, several panies have adopted multitiered branding strategies, enabling them to follow their customers up the ine ladder. Pamp。s past into one with distinct ine classes. This evolution is already creating a widening gap between rich and poor, and tackling the resulting social and economic tension has bee a focus of government policy. Our projections indicate, however, that China will avoid the barbell economy that plagues much of the developing world: large numbers of poor, a small group of the very wealthy, and only a few in the middle. Two features of China39。s middle class: The rising economy in China will lift hundreds of millions of households out of poverty. Today 77 percent of urban Chinese households live on less than 25,000 renminbi a year。s economic growth, barring unforeseen shocks, improves the livelihood of hundreds of millions of its citizens. Over the next 20 years more people will migrate to China39。 by 2025, the upper middle class will be 520 million strong, with staggering disposable wealth. For many multinationals, this is the market of the future. 6 The value of China39。 the advance of technology, resulting in better informed and therefore more demanding consumer, and the proliferation challenge: recent advances in technology, information, munications, and distribution have created an explosion of new customer segments, sales and service channels, media, products and brands. New marketing techniques In order to cope with these challenges, a number of new marketing techniques have been developed recently, like Customer Relationship Management, Key Account Management and application areas like the service sector and emarketing have received serious attention in marketing literature. On the other hand, information technology is providing us with a level of information our colleagues of 20 years ago could only dream of: The Information Gold Mine1 The incredible munications and puting power of the Inter is handing panies an unprecedented opportunity to collect and analyze information. By tracking everything from which advertisements prompt that first mouse click all the way through the actual sale, they‘re scrambling to unlock patterns of customer behavior hidden since the dawn of merce. Computers are working away, mining the hidden veins of gold in mountains of data in an effort to prompt customers to buy more, stick around, and pay extra for tailored products and services that will result. Along the way, the goal is to save money by targeting only the most profitable customers and avoiding the manufacture of costly products nobody really wants. Ultimately, merchants want to tailor unique products and services to each and every customer – socalled mass customization, the unrealized dream of every marketer. Information gathered over the Net can provide the kind of insight into customers that 20 years ago we could scarcely imagine. It‘s as if we can train cameras on every square inch of a store, with teams in back rooms monitoring how often shoppers touch a rack of sweats or turn up their nose at a pair of slacks – and still more legions to make new products on the spot and rush them out to those fussy buyers. The Inter is turbo charging the ability to understand customers. This ultrapersonal targeting help Emerce finally deliver on its promise to revolutionize the business world. Now that