Strategic Category Management

Category Management used to be about effective execution at point of purchase. Clearly this is still important, but leading edge companies use category thinking to drive all their sales and marketing activity.  This is because retailers will not back marketing plans that don't deliver incremental growth at a category level. Brands must understand where the opportunities are to create true growth rather than share steal and build their agenda around this.

Typical Outcomes

• Use of research to understand the best opportunities for category growth
• A clear set of strategies that will deliver growth on a 3 yr plus time frame
• Brand strategies that are driven by this agenda, as well as the brands' unique propositions
• NPD plans that prioritise category building ideas
• Point of purchase plans that select initiatives that meet the category agenda
• Joint business plan scorecards are created and tracked
  

Our approach

• We work with cross functional teams drawn from sales and marketing (and supply chain where appropriate)
• We build new thinking about growth opportunities from existing data or insights developed from new research
• We coach and support teams in synthesizing learnings and converting these into compelling strategies
• We help secure internal and external agreement into the resulting strategies
•  These category strategies are then worked into all aspects of the sales and marketing plan
• Category scorecards are created and the systems to track them set up
  

Return on Investment

• Initiatives creating category growth, winning greater customer support and hence sales for the same dollars; alignment of marketing and sales thinking increases efficiency