Account Plan vs Vendor Evaluation

Account Plan

By Mohit Agarwal (PM Skills)

Build a strategic plan to grow and protect your most important customer accounts.

Vendor Evaluation

By Mohit Agarwal (PM Skills)

Compare suppliers with weighted scorecards and get a recommendation on who to buy from.

Account Plan

• Creates a relationship map showing who you know, who influences decisions, and where you have gaps
• Identifies expansion opportunities with estimated value and next steps
• Flags renewal risks and assigns mitigation actions to specific owners
• Builds a 90-day action plan with concrete tasks and deadlines
• Sets measurable success criteria for the planning period

Vendor Evaluation

• Creates a weighted scorecard with criteria like functional fit, pricing, implementation difficulty, and vendor stability
• Generates specific questions to ask each vendor about their product, pricing, support, and security
• Scores each vendor against your criteria and calculates a total weighted score
• Delivers a recommendation with the winner, runner-up, key risks, and contract terms to negotiate
• Includes reference check questions to ask existing customers of each vendor

Reach for Account Plan when…

• You're preparing for a quarterly business review with a major customer
• You need to show leadership how you'll grow or protect a key account
• You're taking over an account and need to understand the landscape fast
• You're building a territory plan and need consistent account documentation

Reach for Vendor Evaluation when…

• You're comparing software tools or service providers and need a systematic way to decide
• You're running an RFP process and need to score multiple vendors fairly
• You need to justify a vendor choice to your team or leadership with data
• You're evaluating suppliers and want to avoid missing important criteria or risks