by Carla  Herren

No matter whom you support in the 2008 presidential election, you have to admit that we are watching political history unfold before our eyes. What an exciting time that we live in to be able to tell our children and grandchildren that we participated in this incredible time of change. 

You ask how these changes might affect your family and career. Once upon a time the ideal scenario was for the father to work outside the home while the mother stayed at home to care for the children.  With the rising costs of living it now takes two or more salaries to make ends meet.  While juggling the demands of work, daycare costs and the mortgage, this generation has discovered that women are not the only nurturing parent.

Is our society ready to embrace the stay-at-home dad?  Right now the political spotlight is on Sarah Palin, with people questioning how she can manage a demanding job, time away from home and her duties as a mother. How can it all be balanced? I ask where are those questions for all of the male leaders, whether their role is VP of a company or President of the United States?  Male or female, shouldn’t we all have the same balancing act?  Don’t we each have to attend to responsibilities of work with an eye on what’s best for our family?

Child care is a key piece of this discussion. The average cost of child care in this country is $611 a month for one child.  Here are some questions to consider when deciding which parent should stay home:

• Which salary is larger?
• Which job provides better health care?
• Whose career has better long-term prospects?

Are the National Account Managers and Team Leaders of today ready to come home to prepare for tomorrow?  This is a healthy conversation for us to have as a country, acknowledging the need for affordable child care, flex time and telecommuting options.

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.