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?