You are Élise Renard, six weeks into the job as Commercial Director of Liant Composants, a fastener and adhesives maker near Lyon. Your largest customer has just sent you an ultimatum, and before you move a single hour of your team's time you must decide how much of a 180-account book to cost first.
The situation
On 11 June 2026 Aérospatiale Garonne, an aerospace manufacturer that buys €13 million a year — 18% of Liant's €72 million revenue — asked for a 9% price cut and a dedicated engineer on its site. Otherwise it will move 40% of its volume, about €5.2 million a year, to a German competitor before the quarter closes. You have promised its buyer a formal answer within eight weeks.
Liant knows what each account buys, not what it costs to serve. Every customer, from the €13 million manufacturer to a workshop spending €25,000 a year, gets the same service package. Your six account managers spend 55% of their time on Aérospatiale and the two accounts after it, 25% on 22 mid-tier accounts worth €9.5 million together, 15% on the rest of the book and 5% on the 40 smallest accounts. The ten largest accounts bring in 62% of revenue. A rough figure from finance, never checked, says those 40 small accounts might cost about €1.1 million a year more than they return.
Costing an account means rebuilding its order history, delivery runs, technical calls and visits. Your sales-operations analyst and a finance controller can give it about 70 hours a week between them. The commercial budget is fixed at €1.5 million, there is no new headcount, and your bonus is paid on gross margin, which stands at 28%.