by Mike Whittington

Category management continues to be a hot topic in the Wal-Mart supplier world. Questions come from both candidates and companies as to how teams will change to meet Wal-Mart’s category management requirements.

Bill Akins at Shiloh Technologies recently shared his thoughts on trends to watch in category management:

• Suppliers are continuing to place emphasis and resources on their category teams and ensure a clear division between the category people and the sales teams. 
• Suppliers are also treating categories as distinct business units and structuring their teams to support each business unit. Large suppliers with multiple business segments are building teams around each category.
• Many tier-1 suppliers are adding a Team Lead and/or Director of Category Management to manage the local category team and serve as a liaison between corporate Marketing Research / Shopper Insights and the local Wal-Mart team. This person plays both an internal and external role, regularly meeting with their company’s departmental Wal-Mart Shopper Insights Manager and Wal-Mart Marketing Research manager on top of standard buyer appointments.
• Shopper Insights will continue to play an important role complementing Category Management…particularly around consumer insights and how manufacturers evaluate current efforts and adjust programs designed to deliver investment goals.
• The trend toward more Consumer Insights will change the job description for a category advisor. Top category advisors will be those who can build the story and tell the story. “Connecting the dots” is an essential skill that enables category managers to put together the puzzle of disparate data sources and create a value equation on a rolling basis.
• The best category people will be able to “manage the store experience” and link the process of category development with trade promotions and customer business plans. Category advisors will be more solution-oriented rather than focused on reports or drawing modulars.
• “Knowing your shopper” will require a deep dive into consumer insights and determining the difference between the shopper and the consumer because they are often not one and the same.

Overall, Bill emphasized that insights, strategy and trending are the new “currency” of category management.
We invite your comments. What changes are you seeing in category management?

A recent article by Andrew Jensen for the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal highlights CSA Recruiters' Beyond Bentonville recruiting team. You can access the article with this link.

For many years, Cameron Smith & Associates has helped establish and build local supplier teams in Northwest Arkansas. The spotlight has been on how the suppliers have transformed Bentonville and the surrounding towns.

But there are plenty of consumer goods suppliers looking for Retail Link Analysts, Category Managers, or National Account Managers to work out of their own corporate offices - in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. Finding someone in Florida or Pennsylvania with skills and experience working in a specific category with a particular customer can be a challenge.

That's where the Beyond Bentonville team brings value to the thousands of supplier companies that have delayed setting up a Bentonville office. The Beyond Bentonville recruiters introduce companies to qualified candidates in their region. Hiring managers understand that in a contingency search, it costs them nothing to meet these qualified candidates. Talk about a win-win partnership!

CSA frequently consults with companies considering opening an office in Bentonville. But until those companies choose to join the supplier community in Northwest Arkansas, we can still help them grow their Walmart business beyond Bentonville, wherever that may be.