An incredible source of information on category management

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“Category Management is a retailing and purchasing concept in which the range of products purchased by a business organization or sold by a retailer is broken down into discrete groups of similar or related products; these groups are known as product categories […]. It is a systematic, disciplined approach to managing a product category as a strategic business unit.”

(Reference: Wikipedia )

 

Benefits of category management

The concept was born in the US in the ’80s and gave rise to many good practices that contribute to:
• Better meet the consumer’s needs
• Promote a better collaboration/integration between the manufacturers and retailers
• Increase profitability
• Develop more targeted marketing strategies

 

An excellent source of information for free

There is an amazing website on category management; its blog is written by Sue Nichols, a reference in the field.
This site is a good source of quality information that I really recommend.

 

Category management and data

“Category management is data intensive and analytical in character. Category management is about understanding data.”
(Reference : Category Management Association)

Category management is based on an optimized data exploitation. Whether you are a small manufacturer with very few data available or a multinational company investing millions in data acquisition…

The question you should be asking is: “Are we maximizing our return on investment with data compilation and acquisition?”

 

Category management with Dev-ID and PAWA

Category management is one of Dev-ID‘s major source of information/inspiration for the implementation of better analysis and data exploitation practices at our clients.

• The category management training offered by the category management knowledge group has been very helpful in the design and development of our solutions.

• We create solutions specifically dedicated to category managers

• Our PAWA platform

o Offers a unique and innovative module to simplify as much as possible the integration of data from various sources (POS, Sell-In, shipment data, market data, etc.)

o Is specifically designed to meet the needs of category managers employed by manufacturers/distributors/agents selling products to many retailers

Category management: WIIFY (What’s in it for you ?)

If you don’t have a category manager in your team or a formal category management process, don’t worry. You are like most enterprises.

According to CatMan.global, there are currently 2,500 certified professionals in the world, which is very few.

Category management is the language that allows the conversation to be focused on the consumer and establishes a dialog between the retailers and suppliers.

In the ’80s, category management was developed with a partnership-based approach between Wal-Mart, Proctor & Gamble and Coca-Cola. We could say that they wrote the rulebook.

To play, you need to know the rules…

Your investment on category management will help you develop the skills and practices that will make you a major player.

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