Strategy for key account management of duong minh phuc company

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Vo Hoang Dai Duong

STRATEGY FOR KEY ACCOUNT
MANAGEMENT OF
DUONG MINH PHUC COMPANY

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------

Vo Hoang Dai Duong

STRATEGY FOR KEY ACCOUNT
MANAGEMENT OF
DUONG MINH PHUC COMPANY
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: Prof. Tran Ha Minh Quan
Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018


SUPERVISOR’S REPORT ON THE THESIS PROPOSAL SUBMITTED

FOR DEGREE OF MASTER of BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

The thesis proposal title: STRATEGY FOR KEY ACCOUNT
MANAGEMENT OF DUONG MINH PHUC COMPANY
Student name: Vo Hoang Dai Duong
Supervisor: Dr. Tran Ha Minh Quan
1. General comments:
• Remarks on the student’s attitude:
...........................................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................................
• Remarks on the assignment’s academic quality:
...........................................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................................
2. Overall assessment:
 Meet requirement for submitting
 Not meet requirement for submitting
3. Other remarks:
- Did the student follow the report schedule?
󠇒 Yes

󠇒 No

- The turning plagiarism percentage:
Supervisor’s signature

󠇒 Other: …………………


Table of Contents
Executive Summary

1.

INTRODUCTION

2.

PROBLEM CONTEXT

3.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

4.

CAUSE VALIDATION

5.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

6.

ACTION PLANS

7.

SUPORTING DATA

APPENDIX 1
REFERENCE LIST

Executive Summary

Duong Minh Phuc Co.td (DMP) is a young company established two years,
specializing in LPG . In recent months, sales have been declining and losing customers
based on the number of sales of the company since early 2017. With that situation, we
have conducted several interviews to evaluate the internal as well as interviews with
existing clients and former DMP clients to identify shortcomings in the company's
business processes.
Recognizing the current weak point is weak management and no policy to support
industrial customers make the situation does not increase the company's new
customers. The data and interviews will be combined with the theory of problem
management in the enterprise that can describe the direction in addressing this
problem.
Finally, recognizing the core issue, we have outlined some of the solutions that can
help DMP escape these problems


1. INTRODUCTION
1.1.

Sector background

The economy of our country is in the first phase of market economy with the state
management. The transition of the economy from central planning to the functioning
of the market economy has opened up a new era of development opportunities as well
as great challenges for economic sectors, enterprises in Vietnam. Various industrial
and service sectors are formed and developed through each stage. Keeping up with the
current trend of globalization, our country has some opening policies for more

multinational companies easily penetrate, which has created a fierce competitive
environment for the domestic market. The gas market is also one of the most
competitive markets, especially in big cities. Therefore, gas has played a significant
role as domestic equipment has a huge impact on the daily life of Vietnamese
residents. LPG stands for Liquefied Petroleum Gas referred to as simply propane or
butane, are flammable mixtures of hydrocarbon gases used as fuel in heating
appliances, cooking equipment, and vehicles… In civil use, LPG is widely used in
daily life: used for gas stove, oven.. There are also many LPG applications in
residential lighting systems, lighting, laundry...
For commercial applications, the use of LPG in commercial is similar to that of civil
use but at a much larger scale. Consumers use LPG in restaurants for industrial stoves,
ovens, hot water boilers ... Manufacturers from big companies are also potential
customers when they use large volumes of LPG for public ovens with great capacity.
Additionally, gas companies can exploit customers in the food processing industry
such as roasting meat, smoked meat, processing potatoes ... In industry, LPG is widely
used in many industries: metal processing, welding and cutting of steel, glass
processing and processing, silicate furnace, canning disinfection, incinerator, paint
coating, battery, fiber fabric...
Recognizing the importance of gas in individuals’ daily lives and in production, the
number of gas companies in the market increased over the past decade, resulting in the
difference of supply and demand is likely to be large. Customers have more choices
when there are many types of companies producing cylinders of gas with different


quality and price. Therefore, LGP companies must constantly change and develop
their products and services in order to gain market share in the market.
According to consumption purposes, LPG customers are divided into two groups,
which are industrial customers – business purposes, and household customers –
cooking purpose. This thesis concentrates on the group of industrial customers to
analyze since the company’s main segment is industrial customers.

Institutional

clients have large scale gas consumption for their production, especially is owner the
restaurant or factory operations and processing operations while household customers
are relatively small in consumption and are concentrated in each area.
1.2.

Company background

Duong Minh Phuc Company limited (hereafter referred to as “DMP”) established
in March 2015 specializing in distributing high-quality LPG for household &
industrial customers. DMP headquarter based in HCMC, so DMP focuses Ho Chi
Minh City market. DMP is still at an experimental stage of tweaking its products and
services to response its customers’ reaction and well-adapt the market.
DMP’s mainly customers is small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) such as new
restaurant, school… with company organization is about 10 employees. Due to new
established company, DMP’s organization structure is simple to help it operate more
flexible and efficient, operational cost is low. The organization chart described as
below:

Director: 1 person


Sales and Marketing: 2 persons (1 person in charge for Industrial, and 1 person in
charge for House Holds)
Accounting: 1 person
Logistics: 2 persons
Engineer: 2 pensions in part-time
Mission:

•

Committing to deliver the high-quality products to customers.

•

Enhancing consumers’ perception of safety in using LP Gas to avoid the risks

The category of customers:
•

Geography: Industrial Zone, Industrial Park…

•

Type of using purpose: cooking, fuel consumption for machine, forklifting…

•

Income: high

Products and services:
•

Products: LPG & related equipment (LPG regulators, valves…).

•

Services: Consulting, Designing, Constructing, Installing, Maintaining,
Repairing, Fixing…. LPG system for factories, restaurants, schools, hotels…

2. PROBLEM CONTEXT

Similar to small and mid-size companies, DMP also has issues related to sales management as
well as sales revenue.
Based on financial reports of DMP Company in the last 6 months of 2017 company financial
statement has showed the sharply reducing in Sales Volume. The number of customer
dropped 20%, 30% and 50% in comparison in early June 2016 and has no way to redeveloped
the profit margin.


LPG Consumption 2017 (kg)
10.000
9.000
8.000
7.000
6.000
5.000
4.000
3.000
2.000
1.000
-

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Napoli Pizza

-

-

687

1.560

1.231

1.350

1.430

Katsuyoshi

-

-

93

87

100

95

97

Ebisu

-

-

-

712

1.423

1.276

1.354

Yeeboo

-

-

1.787

3.667

4.584

4.633

4.732

Baby Spoon

-

252

287

300

277

250

-

Bali

248

248

233

-

-

-

-

Azumaya Dining

-

-

442

393

422

421

417

Achaya

-

-

500

483

507

479

-

Ateya

-

50

50

71

67

-

-

AVE

-

100

97

88

78

-

-

Akari

150

185

167

138

-

-

-

Aoi

714

853

817

-

-

-

-

Aoi

Akari

AVE

Ateya

Achaya

Azumaya Dining

Bali

Baby Spoon

Yeeboo

Ebisu

Katsuyoshi

Napoli Pizza

Figure 2.1 Monthly LPG amount of consumption (2017)
According to sales volume, it showed that from June and to October, the sales
increased steadily. However, the number of customer increased from June to August,
and it decreased from September to December, but the sales trend still increased from
September to October, and then decreased from November due to company get new


high volume customer. Even sales volume increased but the number of customer
decreased.

Month
(2017)

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

3

6

11

10

9

7

5

A number
of
customer

Figure 2.2 Number of customers from June to December (2017)

In August, we had 11 customers, but in September, we only had 10 customers
remaining. Even we got 1 new customer (Ebisu), however we lost 2 customers (Bali
and Aoi). The next month (October), we lost 1 more customer (Akari), and the
December, we only had 5 customers. We gain some “high sales volume but low profit
margin” customers, but we lost “low sales volume but high profit margin” customers.
The loss of customers also makes DMP a certain financial difficulty in terms of
revenue


300.000.000

12

250.000.000

10

200.000.000

8

150.000.000

6

100.000.000

4

50.000.000

2

-

Jun

Jul

Sales revenue

34.237.947

49.395.709

140.559.205 198.884.698 234.697.013 242.396.619 226.894.105

COGS

25.026.672

35.157.375

101.872.353 148.067.755 178.795.520 187.731.770 177.269.479

3

6

Number of cust.

Aug

Sep

11

10

Oct

9

Nov

7

Dec

-

5

Month
Sales revenue

COGS

Number of cust.

Figure 2.2 Cost of goods sales and Sales Revenue from June 2016 to June 2017

The presented figure gives data on cost of goods sales and sales revenue at
DMP from June 2017 to December 2017. It shows that both Sales revenue and Cost of
goods sold (COGS) increased and decreased with same margin, which is profit margin.
However, the number of customer graph shows different trends with sales revenue and
COGS. The trend of Sales Revenue and COGS increased from June to November, but
the trend of number of customer only increased from June to August then decreased
from August to December. In August, the company got high consumption customers,
but when we focused to big customers, we lost small customers with high profit
margin. However, we have not checked the number of customer at that time, we only
focused the sales revenue and we saw that Sales revenue still increased. New

Number of Cust.

(VND)

Sales Volume & COGS 2017


customers cannot change total amount of consumption to new supplier immediately, so
the first month they change, they change a part of total amount, and then they change
all consumption amount to us so our sales revenue increased. The new amount is
bigger than total amount of small customers. So that we did not recognize that, we
were losing customers when we only checked sales revenue and profit. At the end of
December, we figured out that revenue trend started decreasing; we checked all
company data and found that there were problems with customers’ relationship. We
started investigating to find problems.

In brief, the above figures show convincing evidences that DMP’s strategy of
building relationship with customers is a main issue for the company’s development.
It is definitely important to seek solutions for this issue and improve the situation. In
order to find out feasible solutions, DMP’s board of directors need to understand the
causes of losing customers.

3. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
Based on the symptoms of reducing sales for couple of months in DMP, company
organized a mind map to figure out the problems. All information-based theories and
models apply to small and medium enterprises. We held meeting and interviewing
with random 5 customers (currently and past) to check what happened with DMP’s
products and services. They informed that there were two main problems is (1) the
high competitors in this market and they create the price war in LPG price (2) DMP
lack of the services aftersales
First problem is we came into the tough time of market, with so many competitors
tried to expand their market share. They sold product with low quality, illegal filling
into cylinder… in order to reducing cost of goods sold, then they could sell LPG
cylinder with the cheap price. According to initial interviews, develop new customers
but cannot keep current customers, not expand new market and reducing on number of
existing customer leads to reducing sales and profit in the end of 2017. Specifically,
when a large number of small businesses join the distribution system traders will lead
to price phenomenon in the market turbulence, virtual fever. Especially, when the


price of LPG on the world market tends to decrease continuously or the situation is not
enough reserves, these companies will stop trading to cut losses, causing LPG supply
to the region is not good and lack of supply.
Second problem is our after sales services was not good enough in service
aftersales, we do not have enough work force to provide extra services for customers
such as oven repairing, oven cleaning… Customers have to wait in the care of

equipment as committed since the contract is signed once a month. They often find
employees' delays and attitudes, unacceptable behaivior for the customer’s concerns
over their use. The main problem in weak Sale strategy and sale staff management and
training occurs.
Customers also feedback to us that we do not have promotion for them, comparing
with other LPG shop within area. The discount or commission programmed for loyalty
costumer is non available of DMP’s policy
In order to develop sustainable DMP’s business, it is crucial to figure out the
reasons for its inability to maintain the key clients and its consequences.

Low customer
satisfaction and trust

Price competition

Ineffective
B2B Sales
Management

Low commitment
for loyalty
customer

Lack of quality staff


3.1.

Price competition

The price is controlled by government and some import companies which are
allowed by government. Facing unfair competition of illegal LPG filling, DMP hardly
provides its customers with low prices as some of competitors do. Price competition is
especially beneficial for consumers as it contributes to price formation in line with
supply costs, as this implies that markets operate effectively in resource allocation and
push. Inefficient, high-cost suppliers leave the market.
In the other hand, another government department also controls this LPG market,
for example, Market police department, firefighting department… this factor caused
intangible cost for suppliers in this field. If the price for the current field should be
specified to take a field of the volume to be want to sale fast to return the capital, the
low price will be affect the profit of the income, make the doubt in the user. Quality
competition
Companies importing products or services from abroad guarantee a high-quality
range of products, which cause fierce competition to DMP. In Vietnam market, we
have two sources of LPG.
One source is from Dung Quat oil refinery which is domestic cargo with low
quality, their price is lower than the other source, but the products are not clean, they
contain olefin about 30% in LPG mixture, this may cause lots of soot to kitchen oven,
for long time using, this may consume more LPG fuel for cooking and using. It
reduces the lifetime of equipment.
LPG market in Vietnam in general, in HCM city in particular is very competitive,
competitors try to reduce cost price, in order to reduce sales price. They ordered from
illegal filling station, the illegal filling station takes domestic cargo with the cost price
is cheaper 30% than import cargo (1).
There are 18 LPG trading companies in Vietnam. This market is considered as
potential but extremely limited for 18 companies in the same business. Total estimated
consumption of 2001 is 288,000 tons, this market is very cramped for companies in the
industry. In 18 companies, Shell gas, totalgar Mobil unique ... have enormous potential

they have long experience in the petrochemical business, strong financial strength, and
now they are applying the main Business books, sales very flexible through which we
see competition is extremely fierce, companies want to stand firm in the market must
have long-term policy plans, the current appropriate.
In addition, DMP also encountered a number of difficulties with some of the
competitors unfair business practices that affect the price, affecting the correct
recognition of customers for the product (LPG).
According to the Association of Gas in Vietnam Oil and Gas Report (24), up to now,
this agency has in hand a list of a series of companies that commit wrongdoing in the
process of fighting, prevention of illegal gas production and trading. Specifically, in
the North, the number of primary traders not qualified under Decree 107 / ND-CP
reached nearly 30 establishments. Particularly, there are four localities such as Thanh
Hoa have four violations of the brand into the "focus" of the Association. Most of the
status, behavior, common violations are still not enough bottles of enterprise-owned.

3.2.

Low customer satisfaction and untrusted

According to Philip Kotler (2), customer satisfaction is the level of a person's sense of
place that results from comparing the results obtained from the consumption of the
product / service with those of the consumer. his expectations. Expectations here are
considered human wishes or expectations, which stem from personal needs, past
experiences, and external information such as adverts, word of mouth
communications, and friends.
Preliminary studies of customer satisfaction for years by experts such as Churchill and
Surprenant, 1982; Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Johnson et al., 1996; Syzmanksi and
Henard, 2001; Swan and Combs, 1976; Taylor and Baker, 1994; Westbrook, 1981;
Zeithaml et al. , 1988 have considered it to be driven by three main factors. They are
service quality served by employees, product quality, and value-for-money. Meeting

customers’ expectations on these elements, the company will gain satisfaction of
customers (3)


At present, the most challenges seen at DMP are few customer services brought
to its key accounts. As a result, one of its potential customers, Coffee Lounge, has not
felt fulfilled and switched to another supplier.
Mr. Bui Tien, who is purchasing manager of Akari Restaurant, said that:
Sometimes we forgot the last time when we ordered to exchange new cylinders.
Hence, we had to interrupt our business to wait for DMP’s personnel to change
cylinders. This extremely frustrated us and DMP needs to improve if they wish
to serve their customer better. They can remind us about the expired date when
we should call for filling more gas.
Furthermore, Mr. Nguyen Trong Q., who is General Director of Yeeboo
Restaurant, stated that:
One of reasons his business stopped using DMP’s products is that DMP did not
check out his LPG system periodically, offer free cleaning services as their
competitors did, etc. In short, DMP has not maintained good communication to
understand our needs next to monthly orders of providing LPG.
Moreover, DMP has not built up its appropriate strategy for its key accounts
such as promotion programs, discounts, or other advertisement.
Mr. Tran Thanh T, who is the director of Factory XYZ, shared that:
DMP offers transparent discounts to the factory for long-term cooperation.
However, there are few promotion programs.

DMP’s person in charge

explained because of promotion policy issued by DMP’s suppliers.
In order to survive and develop, organizations and enterprises must strive to constantly
improve the quality of products and services for customers, because customer

satisfaction is the first factor leading to public. The importance of customer
satisfaction is one of the important tasks that any business need to do and follow
strictly
Trust is a crucial element in B2B relationships. Many definitions of trust given by
marketing researchers such as Anderson; Weitz, 1992, Anderson, et al., 1994, Doney;


Cannon, 1997; Moorman, et al., 1993 can be briefly understood that a firm will be
reliable to its partner if it performs actions, which benefits both parties (6). The point
here is that building trust is not a day or two, or it can be done with gimmicks.
Companies that have lost the trust of consumers know this very well. When these
companies try to fix their image, they realize that pouring money into advertising can
not block negative thinking in the minds of consumers.
The trust of the customers is not natural but that is the result of a process of
building credibility, building the brand promise not only with the customer but with
the stakeholders. Clearly, trust in the credibility of the business is now seen as a
valuable asset to be preserved, representing the competitive strength of the business,
which is almost impossible to imitate. It is very difficult to rebuild.
DMP’s key accounts mainly come from relatives, colleagues, and other business
acquaintances, which have put, to certain extent, great trust in DMP’s products and
services. In spite of maintaining strong relationships with these key ones, it is still a
considerable challenge for DMP to start and sustain new accounts because DMP
appears to be a relatively young startup, lately penetrating into the market.
Engineers’ professional practices and skills of also impact customers’ trust. For
instance, ABC’s cook truly showed his opinion:
Observing the method of running, repairing, or replacing spare parts
performed by DMP’s skillful engineers, we have no any concerns or doubt
about LPG systems. That is the feeling of “safety” they bring us.

3.3.

Low commitment of loyalty customer

As defined by Kumar, et al., 1994 (4), a relationship is developed and maintained
because the company finds hard to change its current business partner or achieve its
goals or use same resources outside its present cooperation. When it comes to targeting
a business, commitment is often seen as a prerequisite for success. For example, when
a business invites a partner to consult on its organizational restructuring, the consultant


immediately mentions a requirement that the business leader commit to cooperate
closely. Follow up with them to make the project successful. The commitment is not
shaped, not color, but is very important role. A strong relationship between firms is
more likely established on commitment to each other and viewed as a strategic
cooperation in future.
Commitment can be a source of sustainable competitive advantage to a firm because it
offers cost reduction, enhanced profits, positive word-of-mouth and the prospect of
sales at a premium price (Hur et al. , 2010). As a result of the nature of
telecommunication services, customers are more susceptible to exhibit commitment
behavior towards firms that come closest to meeting their expectations (5)
Mr. Tran Minh T. gave his opinion:
We have a great diversity of suppliers with the same quality and price in the
field. We have not truly satisfied with DMP’s products and services that makes
us desire to have long-lasting relationship with them. Specifically, there is a
supplier now propose for an attractive payment discount policy. Accordingly,
we can flexibly arrange our financial resources.

We are considering this

proposal seriously and may switch to this supplier after reviewing pros and

cons.
According to Hau LN, Thuy PN, 2012 (7) about Loyal customers are the people who
bring long-term and sustainable income to the business because of the high value of
life cycle (Customer Lifetime Value). For example, a customer using your product /
service a month on average with 4 million per month, the life cycle (or average
revenue of this person) will be 4 million. Still 4 million VND per month, but if this
customer uses in 12 months, the value of their life cycle will be 48 million. The loyalty
strategy will ensure that your existing customers continue to trust and use the product /
service for many years to come. In terms of cost, attracting a new customer costs 5-6
times more than maintaining an old customer. Not to mention, if you have attracted
this new customer then, if you continue to keep them with flexible strategies, you will
lose a significant advantage because the value of their life cycle is not high.


The currently DMP’s strategy is just focus on attracting new customers as a way to
increase their revenue streams, but the fact that the most predictable source of revenue
comes from existing customers. The average spend of an existing customer can be up
to 67% more than a new customer. Attracting new customers is really expensive. In
fact, the cost to acquire a new customer can be 5-10 times the cost of keeping an
existing one.
According to research of James P (2002) (12), 20% of existing customers of the
company can generate 80% of a company's profits. If the truth is only 50% of those
studies, we still have to acknowledge that the key to any successful and successful
business is not just based on attracting new customers but It is more important to build
a sustainable revenue stream with existing customers. Explaining why the fake gas
business "healthy living," Mr. Thanh said: making gas is super-profitable, only after
the drug traffickers, so the object regardless of all tricks. Cutting the ear, grinding the
shell, converting the bottle to create a brand new bottle for yourself is also aimed at
extracting illegally produced gas, lacking in quantity and quality. These behaviors
contribute to lowering the cost of products, in order to knock consumers away by

cheap gas.

3.4.

Lack of quality staffs

At DMP, with the small business model, the Director has just joined the company and
plays the role of Sales and Marketing, leading to the management of the business has
not been effective, not focused on the research. development strategy as well as not
enough time to look at the problem comprehensively.
Both of engineers of company is just the part time job, so they do not really care about
customer services attitude. First of all, based on the studies of Browell (1998) (8)
because of the need to do a new job in a new environment, the time is not long enough
to make it hard for the workers to grasp the whole process, which may result in poor
productivity. wait. Work related to the technical system of production can also cause


problems in occupational safety and generally, seasonal workers are not entitled to full
benefits and benefits as long-term employees.
The low sale target of DMP could base by the lack of sale person. Salespeople are a
unique job position. It is difficult to determine the criteria that determine success (9).
The position of "sales staff" is difficult to attract many candidates to choose.
Businesses often have to spend a small budget to advertise recruitment. Or actively
seek information online candidates. It is never easy for a small business to have a
consistent employee. It is never easy for a small business to have a consistent
employee.
"Sales staff" according to Simintiras AC (10) is a very large and frequent recruiting
position. It accounts for 40% of the demand of businesses. But supplies only meet a
very small part. One of the main reasons is the low level of stability in the job.
Candidates are often reluctant to apply. The nature of work such as moving a lot,

dealing with many types of people not everyone can adapt. The current status of the
sales team is losing the "color of the shirt", especially in small and medium
enterprises, the sales team has not been invested and trained properly, leading to
ineffective. Especially in the conditional business like LPG market, sales staff are
more difficult than ever because they have to challenge the trust of customers in a
more competitive environment. price and quality of LPG products.
Besides the saleperson factors, the problem is all about the weak sale strategy of
Direction. First of all, small businesses usually do not have investment planning
departments. Sales and sales of these businesses usually focus only on their primary
job of selling and developing their business networks, but they rarely come up with
annual plans for the enterprise, from development market, product, finance to human
resources (11). Business owners are too busy with their day-to-day management and
business, and there is no time to focus on developing a business strategy and target.
Therefore, business planning, if done, is often not feasible.
One important reason is that small businesses often lack information, do not have
enough staff to monitor the competition in the market, do not apply information
technology, especially the Internet, to synthesize, analyze Information on domestic and


international markets. They also do not pay much attention to the support of many
organizations supporting small businesses in Vietnam and take advantage of the
resources and management methods they provide.
Because small businesses often do not have the financial resources to buy market
information from market research firms, small businesses often follow large
corporations to develop their business and product ideas. The most fundamental reason
is that many businesses do not have the ability to plan their business, which does not
mean that they are bad, but vice versa. But if there is no specific business strategy and
business plan, small businesses are still struggling to make ends meet, especially when
faced with new investment opportunities. Important decisions about personnel,
finance, organization ... Business owners will be embarrassed because they do not

know if their decision is correct, can bring profit or not.


4.

CAUSE VALIDATION

Based on the above research, the potential cause of the symptom is weak sale
management.


High
Competition

Low
Satisfaction
Setting
KPI

Poor communication
Low quality
Poor promotion
Low Price

Poor
customer services
Ineffective
B2B Sales
Management

Switch to competitors

Low
Commitment

Uncertainty about
the quality

Lack of quality
staffs

Weak Sale
Management

Adding more
value of
products and
service after
sale

Selecting and
recruiting
qualified staff

Maintaining
the customer
info


DMP’s strength is its effort in providing the best services and the highest-quality

products to customers, which helps to retain certain loyal customers since its
establishment in 2015. However, there are still intense constraints in keeping
relationships with its key customers.
Based on the cause and effect tree, theories informed, and in-depth interview 3
respondents categorized into 3 main groups: customer’s key accounts, customer’s
purchasing officers, and a former customer, it can be seen that the main causes leading
to losing key accounts or no new accounts established are customer satisfaction and
trust. In order to enhance the services and maintain the business for further growth,
DMP has to improve their weaknesses by taking actions urgently. The main problem is
here is DMP had the infective B2B Managemt and it caused from the weakness of sale
management.
The weakness of sale management.
Sales management reflect the results of the production, marketing and sales of the
business (13). More than that, high sales demonstrate that the product or service of the
business suits the taste of the consumer. With small businesses, sales are also a driving
force for capital mobility, enabling financial growth for small businesses.
Concerning fierce price competition, Vietnam’s state performs the price management
under the market mechanism that producers and traders in the field have a consistent
and common framework of price with a very small difference. Moreover, cost of good
prices in a trade enterprise like DMP depends on suppliers. Specifically, Petrolimex
has been dominating entirely fuel market in Vietnam, which supply capability takes
more than 95% of demand. It is impossible for DMP to offer significantly competitive
to its customer. Thus, the challenge in price competition is unavoidable.
The transparent effects of customers’ satisfaction, commitment, and trust are thus
demonstrated clearly.

Of which, customers’ satisfaction plays a pivotal role

controlling the rest of two due to the following explanations.
Firstly, most purchasing managers state that they take great pleasures to buy products

and services from sellers who seriously pay their attention to customers, keep in touch