Category management best practices & thought leadership for Retail & CPG teams. | Sue Nicholls, CPSA Founder & President CMKG (2)

Sue Nicholls, CPSA Founder & President CMKG

Category Management is my passion. Since beginning with P&G in the late 1980s, I have dedicated my work life to building and sharing this passion with others through active involvement in the industry, including long-term business relationships with large Retailer and CPG executives, development and influence on Category Management Association certification standards, curriculum, and conference education, thought leadership publishing and presentations at CSP News’ Convenience University, CMA’s Annual Conference and LinkedIn, and as a member of DePaul University’s Center for Sales Leadership Advisory Board, and Western Michigan University’s Food Marketing Advisory Board. Beginning in 2019, our catalogue of accredited training that my team and I have developed is part of the Category Management Association’s strategic education initiative for all member organizations. Always anticipating where the industry is moving and the skills needed to compete and stay relevant, I’ve helped to bridge the gap between data and insights pioneering the way we use storytelling and data visualization to better understand analytics and make effective decisions for the future. Using my years of experience, I coach clients of all experience levels in the Retail, Manufacturer, and Solution Provider industries to help them propel forward achieving both their learning and career goals whether in eCommerce, sales, or marketing and beyond. My specialty lies in leadership and engagement, networking and consulting with individuals and large companies from around the world to better improve and develop our curriculum and accredited training programs, like our leading-edge Master’s Training, utilized by category management organizations for strategic education. Through this blog and other channels, I share my years of expertise with our industry and believe that an open and ongoing conversation can improve any team’s capacity to implement business strategies that achieve their strategic priorities.

3 Steps to Fact-Based Presentations

By | Sue Nicholls, CPSA Founder & President CMKG | 0 Comments | Retailer Solutions Presentations Supplier Solutions Fact-Based Sales Process

Our industry has changed the way that supplier sales teams go to market – or at least it should have changed! Gone are the days where sales teams rely solely on the relationship they’ve built with their retail customer — a major shift driven by: changing customers and economy, less opportunity to see our retailers face to face, the demand from retailers for value-based category solutions, and the advancements of retailers from both a data and technology perspective. Over the past few years, I have had the privilege of personally training many sales organizations on how to improve their fact-based presentations approach and have documented three steps here, including barriers, analyzing data, and building the presentation.

Identifying Growth Opportunities In Your Business

By | Sue Nicholls, CPSA Founder & President CMKG | 0 Comments | Retailer Solutions Category Analytics Executive Solutions Supplier Solutions Strategic Priorities Work

In a previous blog, I wrote about the importance of business acumen, which is the ability to assess an external market and make effective decisions. Or more simply put, it’s understanding how YOU and the work you do fit into the bigger picture.

Refresh your Category Management Approach with Strategy

By | Sue Nicholls, CPSA Founder & President CMKG | 0 Comments | Retailer Solutions Strategy Executive Solutions Supplier Solutions

Working with many manufacturers and retailers is a great privilege for me, and one that gives me the unique perspective to help identify broader issues and opportunities for our industry. A recent opportunity that was identified by Tom McDonald (Category Management Association) and I was to improve the connection of what we do in category management to the Shopper. How do we better connect with Shoppers? It starts by focusing on the big picture - including defining your department's purpose, and identifying your expected outputs AND inputs. By delving deeper into your inputs - including data, tools, strategy, processes and people (based on where your biggest gaps are) - you can uncover ways to improve your overall approach. These improved inputs can change your game! Are you ready? Although it may be difficult to get out of your comfort zone and start to think about ways to make changes to improve the future for your department, there are three steps that can get you started.

Improving Your Business Acumen in Category Management

By | Sue Nicholls, CPSA Founder & President CMKG | 0 Comments | Retailer Solutions Supplier Solutions

Business acumen is the ability to assess an external market and make effective decisions. You need the skills and tools to think more like an owner of the business and to understand, set and execute business strategy while being able to measure the effectiveness of their business strategy through financial performance – skills that I think many of us can improve upon. Think about what you’re responsible for in your job. How often do you think about or consider the impact of your decisions on other areas in your company? For example product supply? Or finance? Or your implementation team?

Managing Change in Retail Category Management

By | Sue Nicholls, CPSA Founder & President CMKG | 0 Comments | Retailer Solutions Executive Solutions

Retail has changed significantly over the past 20 years – new data, technology, tools, analytics, Shoppers, omni-channel … How much have you changed your internal approach to reflect these changes? I recently co-facilitated a “Retail Leaders’ Forum” for retail executives responsible for category management, with Tom McDonald of the Category Management Association. We talked about the importance for this audience to evaluate their current category management approach in 3 areas.

5 Ways to Maximize ROI on Category Assessments

By | Sue Nicholls, CPSA Founder & President CMKG | 0 Comments | Retailer Solutions Executive Solutions Supplier Solutions

We spend a lot of time analyzing our business, but we need to ask whether we are looking at the entire picture or just scratching the surface. Are you looking for the big opportunities? Developing next year’s category plan? Identifying weaknesses when business is soft? Determining the next big innovation? Evaluating the post results from an initiative? Or analyzing a specific tactic? Identifying the question will help you achieve your goals.