Category Management
Shopper need trends can be uncovered at initial stages through effective Category Management controls.
The Client Change Rationale
The client wants to establish category management structure for his stores, to manage his business more effectively and efficiently. The client emphasizes that category management is a disciplined process that puts all the product items a store is selling, into a practical and manageable structure, to drive customer satisfaction and sustainable traffic, revenues and profit for a store.
Content Vision
The category management process fits all types of stores, general grocery, retail, hardware stores, fashion stores, electronics, spare part sales, and so on. All the thousand of product items that are for sale in a retail store require designing and developing of a manageable structure – else it would be impossible to manage the store sales. The category management process is the “magic” process and methodology enabling the retail stores to effectively manage their large product portfolio, at same time they can firmly create sustainable long-term profitable growth for their business. The process entails the management and marketing methods, and the tools to execute effective category management practices. New product introductions, effective pricing, advertising, and in-store promotions for example, are an engraved part of category management.
Our Work
The best-in-class retailers operate under disciplined category management process to systematically drive sustainable traffic, revenues and profits and consumer satisfaction. Moreover, they have invested intensely in information technology to be more effective and efficient in operating their retail business.
It is the most difficult to design and develop the category management process for the first time and then building a particular category becomes more and less a routine process. The importance of implementing category management is therefore, more than ever, crucial for those companies that do not exploit the category management process, to its best.
TPC-Consulting – Category management definition: Group distinct product items and services into categories founded on the consumer shopping mission, to drive sustainable category sales, through development of effective category marketing schemes, to maximize consumer satisfaction and store traffic, revenue and profit. Furthermore, to manage effectively, the value chain cost and quality and product availability in collaboration with the retail business partners.
TPC-Consulting Core Modules and Content
The retail companies that started category management at early stages use effective information technology to automatically develop continual planning schemes, in order to drive traffic, revenues profit and consumer satisfaction for their store. We help our clients to establish professional category management disciplines.
- Category architecture, role and visual display
- Category assessment and sales activation
- Design and develop look-of-success
- Category business planning
- Partnership with suppliers & procurement management
- Key performance indicators and continuous improvements
Category management is not a “project” with a firm ending. Category management must be introduced and managed as a continual ongoing process, and a new technique, to continually sustain sales growth at the lowest cost possible.
Results
The success of implementing category management can generally be observed almost immediately and one can especially observe positively how the consumer satisfaction level increases. Companies that begin introducing category management, as part of their business processes, will uncover the truth through new perspectives, for what product categories are the most important to drive sustainable traffic, revenues and profit for a store.