Retail POS (point of sale data) is the “king” of category management data. Are you maximizing the use of this important data source? Retailer Scanned point of sale data and Retailer Measurement data from 3rd parties like Nielsen and IRI (key account data) are derived from scanned point of sale data. Together, these 2 variations of POS data are the primary data sources with which we do category management work.

So you’ve experienced a sales or share growth or decline and want to understand what drove those results. This search for cause is something that happens in our business all of the time. The typical place to look is in your scanned sales or key account/market data. But did you check your household panel data? If you didn't, you won’t know what consumer behavior is driving the increase or decrease in sales. In net, sales are driven by how many households buy your product and how much each household spends – the only place that you can get this information on a regular basis is through household panel data (also known as consumer panel data, panel data or Homescan data). This is an incredibly important perspective in our Shopper-centric category management world.

Looking for some ways to improve your Excel skills to reduce errors, save time and/or take you to a new level of category management analysis? Excel is a great tool and necessary program for almost anyone in business to know how to use. But there’s always more to learn, faster ways to do things, shortcut keys, and helpful formulas. It can also waste an incredible amount of your time and be very inefficient without utilizing Excel’s powerful features through a solid understanding. If this sounds familiar, you are not alone — there are a lot of people in this camp because many of us have learned on-the-job rather than through training. The opportunity? Learn more effective Excel skills, save time and frustration and transform yourself into an Excel rockstar!

Do your presentations need a "facelift"? Start with the basics of visual communication and storytelling. Presentations have become the de facto business communication tool. Companies are started, products are launched, audiences are educated—in small or large part because of the quality of presentations. Likewise, ideas, endeavors and even careers can be cut short due to ineffective communication. Out of the millions of presentations delivered each day, only a small percentage are delivered really well. The reason for this is many of us lack visual communication skills. Most of us were never taught how to move from verbal expression to visual expression (or have ever taken a PowerPoint training course). As communicators, learning to create visual stories that connect with our audience is imperative. Turning category management data and analytics into a compelling PowerPoint presentation that engages an audience starts with the basics—you need to give equal attention to developing the visual story and to delivering the parts of the presentation!

Have you had some stumbling blocks creating plans that get executed at retail? So you've completed an incredible category analysis, derived compelling data insights and tied in your analysis with some tactical changes to drive action in the category. Whether these are formal category plans for retail, or tied in with a new product launch or new news about a category, your work isn't done—now it needs to be implemented. Get ready to learn how to create a category plan that kills it! How many of you have either approved a plan at your desk (as a Category Manager or Buyer) or been given approval for the plan (as a Salesperson or Category Management Analyst), but it never ends up being successfully implemented in stores? I think we all have!

Category Management on Limited Data? No problem! One of the most important requirements in category management is data. In a “perfect world” you would have access to Retail POS data, syndicated market data, consumer panel data, transactional & loyalty card data and tactical data. But in reality, many of us find shortcomings in our data – whether it’s driven by the region or industry you’re in, your budget or specific category data gaps. Limited data doesn’t limit your ability to do fact-based analysis – it just means that you have to become more resourceful in your approach to maximize sources you do have. Here are some resources to get you started in your category management approach using limited data: Infographic: How to Address Data Gaps in a Limited Data Environment Course Preview: Category Management on Limited Data Course Overview: Category Management on Limited Data

Strategy, Insights, Action! You understand your underlying strategies, you’ve learned how to drill down to derive insights from your data, now what? Time to create action through the category tactics, or 4 Ps, including Product, Placement, Pricing and Promotion. Begin to develop analytic skills in category tactics by understanding the big picture of Category Tactics & Analytics. Each tactic influences volume, profit and share within a brand or category, and are the key drivers of “action” in the category. They need to be monitored and analyzed in order to understand how they impact volume growth or decline within a brand or category. Both Retailers and Manufacturers (including category management, marketing, sales, retail operations, etc.) need to understand how to analyze the category tactics (the 4 Ps) to make the best fact-based decisions and recommendations for the categories they compete in.

Being able to analyze data and derive relevant insights from it is a requirement in almost every role for both Retailers and Suppliers. There’s an opportunity for many in our industry to learn how to make fact-based, strategic decisions and recommendations by building skills to effectively read and interpret data. A great starting point for learning how to do this is through a category assessment. Creating a category assessment is also the first step in developing a retail category plan, but the flow, measures and logic apply to development of category reviews, business reviews and internal planning documents. You should be able to analyze, benchmark, interpret and identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats through an effective category assessment.

Data is one of the biggest requirements in category management for moving toward a more strategic, fact-based organization. Many organizations spend millions of dollars on data and sometimes even more money to mine the data through software and front-end reporting systems. But organizations too often forget to train their organization on some of the most important things about data. This is what can lead to misinterpretations and frustrations when using data.

Ready to create your category plans? Start with the essential category management foundations … Effectively defining Retailer strategy is the MOST important foundation to achieve success for any Retailer. Retailer strategy should include consideration of the following: Development of overall strategies associated with your store format(s), your target Shopper, your competition and your Private Label / store brands. Proper category definitions (and associated segments based on the consumer decision tree) based on your target Shopper and how you view and shop the category. Assignment of category roles to provide a structure to managing the categories across your store (once again based on your target Shopper). Once a Retailer’s strategies are defined, they need to be communicated.