Why cash is making a comeback

Despite increasing reassurances by the banks (!) as to their safety and reliability, the rise of contactless payments and chip-and-pin has gone into reverse. New figures reveal that more of us prefer to use hard currency – whether because our accounts are empty or because we prefer the security of coins and notes.

According to a new report from the Payments Council and Link, which runs the UK's cash machines, the volume of cash payments rose by 200m in 2012, reversing the year-on-year decline over the past decade, with more than half of all our payments in cash, reflecting its easy use and its wide acceptance.

Whilst many prefer the anonymity of cash payment, remembering also to take the batteries out of their phones, or leave them at home, don't drive a car, or avoid walking past their daily allocation of 300 security cameras, and obviously ignoring the potential advantages of a 24/7 alibi, a key advantage of paying in cash means that we are continually confronted with the state of our personal finances. This helps to sharpen our savvy-consumer skills when paying with our ‘real money’…

NAM application
In the same way, NAMs who quantify and convert all concessions into cost and value, capturing the resulting impact on their company P&L, can  more easily demonstrate the value to the retailer in terms of both bottom-line result and incremental sales. This has to represent a major advantage over those who continually add cash & ‘non-cash’ concessions to their offering with little attempt to match and trade their way to a fair-share result.

Like the cash-paying savvy consumer, negotiating with real money automatically builds in the need for KPI achievement and compliance in order to provide all stakeholders with demonstrable value-for-money, besides being a constant reminder of our ability to make a profit or loss, via the use or abuse of 'our money'…  

Beth Davis on courage in the NAM role?

KamBlog is meant to be a thought-provoker for National and Key Account Managers, treating them like CEOs, Managing Directors of business units, applying all the skills of a business leader, striving against the odds for growth in flat-line markets, with the added restraint of responsibility without authority...in practice, NAMs that make a difference know that real authority comes from a proven track-record in developing and implementing a profitable customer strategy, especially in crazy times…..

It could be said that profitability and ROCE are issues for others higher up the company hierarchy, that in unprecedented times, NAMs need to focus on keeping the fires down, and leave the bigger picture to the bigger artists...

We happen to believe that without a big-picture context, continuous fire-fighting limits, rather than stimulates, personal growth. Use of numbers shortens the odds, whilst taking a chance without running the numbers smacks of recklessness…

But the real issue is courage…with the bar raised higher with every high street casualty…

However, in the buyer-seller day-job, fighting for time and even risking humour in the face of ever shortening attention-spans, working from the bigger picture can be scary in that, by encouraging the use of numbers and their impact on the retailer’s P&L, our ideas and recommendations can be quantified.

This means that, in unprecedented times, where history is of little help, a buyer following the advice will sometimes hold the NAM accountable for good results, and always in the case of a bad outcome.

It takes courage to persist until signs of success begin to emerge, increasingly conscious of the fact that a better than average promotion becomes a higher hurdle for the next initiative, especially when we apply the numbers and risk an ROI analysis…

Eventually, however, this continuous drip-feed of quantified initiatives begins to make an impact on joint-profitability, while others focus on nasal cleanliness and await the emergence of new guidelines when markets eventually settle down..

Meanwhile, the proactive NAM has the courage to focus on output rather than input, in a continuous stream of creativity that over time, results in the growing satisfaction of perhaps a few good ideas in retrospect…

Beth Davis, was old actress who often quipped about the difficulties of growing older…

Had she lived a little longer, she might even have said:                                                                      ‘National Account Management ain’t for sissies…’