The CMA|SIMA Annual Conference 2025 in San Antonio, Texas, brought together leaders in consumer products focused on retail category management and shopper insights. The conference covered the latest trends, impacts, and technological advances for the industry. Clarkston Consulting’s Amy Levine and Kathy Petruzzelli attended and gathered their key takeaways. Below, see their top insights from the CMA SIMA Annual Conference 2025 on the topics of technology, data, omnichannel, shopper expectations, and change management.

Key Insights from CMA|SIMA Conference 2025 

As a foundational pillar in most consumer products companies, Category Leadership drives the understanding of the shopper, the role of the category, and the relationship with retailers. At its core, Category Management leverages shopper, point of sale, and retailer data to drive category understanding, assortment optimization, and space management. These critical teams are uniquely positioned to take advantage of technology enhancements while prioritizing the human side of category development by understanding the needs and desires of their shoppers.     

The CMA | SIMA Conference highlighted these disparate trends, embracing the speed and efficiency of technology while personalizing and localizing offerings and assortment to build trusted relationships with their shoppers. Here are five key trends from the conference:   

1. Considering Technology and AI/ML: AI and its abilities in space planning was a hot topic at the conference. The ability to decrease redundant work is a clear benefit; however, there is no silver bullet that will truly automate the planogram processes. Rather, it’s necessary to streamline processes that allow category management teams to focus on deeper questions and solutioning. AI requires strong collaboration internally, setting clear expectations and definitions for what problem or objective is being solved. 
2. Maximizing Available Data: Technology improvements are exciting and relevant, but tools cannot be optimized if the data driving them is not clean and synthesized. Integration, access, and optimization of data is key. Category Management needs to be closely connected with IS partners to ensure that data is accessible, available, and utilized. We were pleased to see some CPG brands bringing their IS partners to the conference. 
3. Incorporating Omnichannel into Category Plans: Everyone is aiming for the pinnacle of true omni leadership, but many organizations are still relatively immature in how they incorporate omni into their category plans. Many are not even thinking about e-category management, but rather eCommerce sales and shopper marketing. A simple but impactful change could be ensuring that omni is brought into every category review, helping drive more integrated thinking for both CPG companies and retailers.  
4. Defining the Consumer: Critical to success at shelf, a brand’s ability to empathize and understand its shoppers has shifted from demographics to mindsets. Mindsets can have a strong impact on what shoppers expect and seek out from different channels and categories.  
5. Prioritizing Change Management: With all the changes in technology, Category Management teams are at the forefront of new ways of thinking about the role of AI and their team members. Specifically, they’re working to create a future where AI enables efficiency and allows team members to focus on more critical thinking efforts. Collaboration is at the heart of change management, and Category is uniquely poised to collaborate and lead across their organizations and externally with retail partners. 

Finding Success at the Shelf  

It’s an exciting time for Category Management, with increased data offerings and technology to help streamline and efficiently optimize that data – all with a shopper-centric focus. Category Management is positioned at the center of this change. It’s an opportunity but also a risk…ensure you have the right process, organizational structure, and cross-functional relationships in place to optimize technology while remaining focused on the shopper and their needs. Collaborating with internal teams, technology partners, and retail customers will ensure that change is an opportunity for your organization that can be a building block for success at shelf. 

If you’re interested in chatting more about these themes from the conference, reach out to us.