Yesterday's category management practices are failing. Shoppers are now mobile-enabled and demanding greater convenience, better value and more choice from retailers. This is driving a blurring of channels, expansion of store formats, a need for more localized assortments and accelerating replenishment cycles. Learn more >> http://www.eyc.com/gold/making-category-management-relevant

1. Making category
management relevant
in the age of the
informed consumer.
2016 Prospective View
Brian Kilcourse, Managing Partner
SPONSORED BY

2. Setting the category
management scene
The objectives of category management are:
- Category Management Association (CMA)
…to determine the point of optimization in pricing, promotion, shelving,
and assortment to maximize profitability and shopper satisfaction.

3. Yesterday’s category management
practices fail in today’s retail
environment
Overtly product oriented practices, where product movement across time and
location is used as the proxy for consumer preference and demand, are no
longer relevant.
Key point:
Mobile technology now influences shopper
behavior. This ever more digital and omni-channel
environment demands that category management
processes be reinvented and focused on the
customer.

4. Key point: Price and product availability are
transparent to a highly informed
consumer community, making
assortment relevance and the shopping
experience important differentiators.
The shopper value
proposition has changed
Winning retailers (those who over-perform compared to their
competitors) are redefining the value proposition. Relevance
and the experience are superseding price and convenience
as the primary demand driver for consumers.

5. Key point:
Yesterday’s Category Management processes
and technology were not built to support today’s
more complex and fast-paced retail environment.
To be customer-centric retailers need to
evolve.
Complexity + legacy technology
> kills speed
High SKU levels and inventory turn rates, plus multiple store formats mean that the
limitations of legacy technology have amplified category management complexity with
many challenged to move to a customer relevant approach. Yet the prize is large.

6. Key point: When compared to laggards, 28%
more Retail Winners rate “integrated
assortment and space planning” as
“highly valuable”.
The Opportunity
Be Agile. Be Relevant.
Given the option, consumers will look beyond “price &
availability” to find something more relevant to their
particular lifestyle needs. While the ability to plan
localized assortments and space is a big improvement
over “one size fits all” planning, optimizing assortments
and space separately risks undermining both plans.

7. Key point: Embracing advancements in visualization
technology can help retailers maximize the
profitability of each store.
Transform the experience:
model the store through the eyes
of the shopper
Analytics and data virtualization technologies can help transform the shopping
experience. Using virtual modeling to simulate the physical store, retailers and their
category partners can more rapidly test new merchandising concepts, experiment
with alternate assortments and macro store plans, analyze actual performance and
adjust plans accordingly.

8. Key point: Next generation Category
Management will help FMCG
retailers achieve strategic
differentiation in today’s
crowded marketplace.
Achieve strategic differentiation with
Next-gen Category Management
Mobile-enabled shoppers have elevated the need
for a new generation of Category Management
capabilities. Retailers should develop plans
based on consumer behavioral insights and test
them virtually to accelerate speed to store at
lower cost.

9. SPONSORED BY
Brian Kilcourse will be speaking at the 2016
Xcelerate Retail Forum in Paris, October 11-13.
Download the full whitepaper for a more detailed
look into the future of category management.
Download now Book your place
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