Category Leadership Transformation: Developing a National Category Story and a Dashboard
In this category leadership transformation case study, read about how Clarkston’s category management experts recently supported a leading global CP client with the development of a National Category Story and Dashboard. Read a synopsis of the project below or download the full case study.
Download the Category Leadership Transformation Case Study Here
A leading global consumer products company with brands across most sections of the store was seeking to develop a national category story and dashboard that could be leveraged across a new proposed Center of Excellence (COE) as part of the overall Category Leadership transformation. In collaboration with Clarkston Consulting, a Pilot team was created with team members from both the client and Clarkston to do this important work.
With so many categories and no single source of truth for building cohesive, brand-agnostic presentations, there was disparate data, different templates, and varied language being used with external retail partners as well as internally. The goal of the Pilot project was to pull all of the key stakeholders together to build a brand-agnostic category story that focused on macro shopper and channel trends that could be used at scale for all of the categories in which this client competes.
There were two deliverables needed to be successful: the national category story presentation and the creation of a dashboard that would feed most of the story to streamline the process and standardize metrics and stories. The national category story provided five macro trends that span all categories across the store. These trends then drove shopper behavior conversations as well as trends occurring in the store and aisles and across channels. These standard slides were created to be used across all customer presentations. By standardizing these at the national level, teams could use them to speak to national trends and relate them to their region/account.
Clarkston’s work over the six-week window allowed the client to see the vision of the COE come to life with two categories developed and successfully built. The feedback from the organization was that this work provided true category management, with a brand-agnostic view of the categories and recommendations to help retailers increase household penetration and buy rate, while bringing to bear the brands that will help generate sales and excitement at shelf. This was all done with the existing strength of the client’s team and data resources, which allowed the Clarkston team to set the framework for the client’s long-term success.
