Define and execute your category management strategy to maximize growth opportunities with your key retail partners.
No matter where you are on your category management journey, clear strategy and process are essential for success. It can be overwhelming to know where to get started in category management in small to mid-market organizations, and in more mature organizations, category management teams can mushroom in size and scale. It is easy for organizations to get bogged down in manual, inefficient, and ineffective processes that prevent teams from maximizing their value and optimizing their work. Utilizing a myriad of tools, technologies, and data sources, category management teams are central to identifying, developing, and executing growth strategies, and they play critical roles, both internally and externally, for the organization.
Category Management Consulting Solutions
Category management is a crucial mindset and process in modern consumer products organizations to partner with retailers and drive sustainable growth for both parties. Our team is prepared to help you to assess where you are along the path to maturity and optimization, develop a roadmap for your journey towards a more modern and efficient category management function, and help you to execute against that plan.
Category Management Assessment
- Review the current state of the category management organization including consumer expectations, shopping habits, and how categories are defined
- Understand the goals of the category management organization internally and alignment to the category-first mindset
- Identify time consuming activities and key pain points
- Identify opportunities for efficiency and optimization
- Identify the future vision for the category management organization utilizing best practices
Space Planning Processes and Optimization
- Assessment of Planogram processes and workflowsÂ
- Considerations for a Space Planning Center of Excellence Â
- Process and optimization for the most common Planogram development Â
- Managing Planogram versionsÂ
- Planogram automation assessment and roadmapÂ
Organizational Structure
- Define the roles and responsibilities of the category management team within the organizationÂ
- Assessment of current structure and opportunities for optimizationÂ
- Maximizing use of on-shore and off-shore resources Â
- Define roles and responsibilities across internal teams including brand/marketing, sales, RGM, product development and supply chain Â
- Training and development of modernized team including up-skillingÂ
- Resource allocation based on customer prioritization
Maximizing and Managing Customer Relationships
- Customer segmentation and prioritization
- Resourcing plans
- Defining and managing against your role in the category at key retail partners
- Review of competitive landscape including price, promotion, assortment and space considerations
- Data and technology resources for specific customer specifications
Portfolio Planning and Assortment
- Identifying white spaces and innovation opportunities
- Maximizing category management in the internal organization
- Customer specific assortment planning
Data and Technology Landscape Assessment
- Data integrations and ingestions
- Standardized, routine reporting assessment and optimization
- Developing and enabling advanced analytics capabilities
- Automation opportunities and execution
- Assessment of current data sets and recommendations for future opportunities/optimization
Are you a CPG organization looking to develop, optimize, or streamline your Category Management Team?
Category management should be a central hub for your consumer products organization, both bringing insights to the organization and communicating key information back to critical retail partners. Space planning, assortment and portfolio optimization, order management, routine reporting, and advanced analytics are all part of the day-to-day activities. Clarkston brings expertise from working in category management roles in industry as well as deep understanding of business process assessment, improvement, and implementation. Contact one of our experts to find out how our category management consulting solutions can guide your organization towards realizing your future vision for category management.
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Contact Us to Learn More About Our Category Management Consulting Services
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Phone: (919) 484-4400
Email: info@clarkstonconsulting.com