Does your team have the Excel skills required to do the basics? Excel is a an important tool for most analysts, sales people, category managers, and business people in general. And everyone knows Excel, right? Or do they? Without basic Excel skills, sales people and category managers can't effectively analyze their business (never mind draw insights from it), administrators can't create great worksheets, and analysts may struggle with fundamental concepts. Never mind the risk of making errors and drawing incorrect conclusions from poorly built formulas and PivotTables. So why is Excel training a requirement for organizations when there are automated reports that should give everyone everything they need for their business? Because they don't (and can't!) meet all needs. The reality is, most meaningful analysis requires data manipulation, cutting, formatting and customizing - and that requires some strong foundational Excel skills. A few months ago, a client of mine contacted me about the need for some training in Excel skills for one of their sales teams. A sales manager had raised a concern that her team was not able to perform certain Excel essentials like formula writing, building PivotTables and creating charts. It was surprising to hear that proficiency in these skills was lacking on her team because, after all, everyone knows Excel, right? After a collaborative meeting with her, I developed a virtual training session that included some Excel basics like moving around in a spreadsheet and sorting data, writing formulas and conditional formulas (SUM, COUNT, RANK, UNIQUE), and creating charts and PivotTables. The session was "opt in", meaning that folks who already had proficiency in these areas didn't need to attend. THE RESULTS? I ran two 3-hour sessions for the client because of the high interest (and remember, this was "opt in", meaning they had the choice of whether or not to attend). The hands-on exercises and examples were particularly relevant for her sales team, using data and item rank reports - not just creating formulas, but also helping to think about interpretation of the different KPI's, as well as getting participants to think about what the formulas are actually calculating. We used one of their massive automated reports to build a PivotTable - moving them from learning to application - using examples from their own business. The training became, not just conceptual, but practical! Here's some of the (unedited) feedback from these sessions: Best 3-hour lecture/class I’ve attended. Time went by way too quickly! I learned many new things, i.e., formula building, shortcuts, and importance of being clear on what I’m trying to say. Handouts were helpful, and I will go back to reference them. Ask your team if they need Excel basics training! You might be surprised by their response. Learn more about Excel Virtual Team Training

As we kick off this new year, there may be obstacles in your category plans that can unknowingly limit your category results. These obstacles exist for many retailers because their category analytics and plan development haven’t kept pace with some of the biggest disruptors in the industry – including data, the changing shopper and the changing marketplace. If you don't change your strategies, processes and thinking to consider these changes, and don’t open up to new perspectives and ideas, your biggest growth opportunities can be completely overlooked. Below I’ve captured some examples of potential barriers that may be limiting your growth:

The direction you need to achieve your goals. You’ve completed a category review or category assessment, ultimately identifying your biggest areas of opportunity to help you achieve your target goals and objectives in the category. Now what?

Note: This content is part of our new eBook on Category Management with Limited Data. Feel free to read and share.

In case you haven’t heard … Things have changed! It’s time to face the facts. Our industry and category management have been evolving for awhile (decades, actually). And, although change can be hard to overcome, attendance at our live webinars last week for both Retail and Manufacturing organizations, as well as Solutions Providers confirm that awareness of the changes ahead is growing — and concerning to both practitioners and leaders alike. Here’s why it’s time to face the facts and consider category management mastery …

Category Management Executives (including Directors, VPs and Managers) Face a Common Dilemma How to get from where you are, to where the industry is going … Here’s what you need to know:

Category Management has become more sophisticated. It’s now CatMan 2.0™ — Are you adapting to more advanced approaches? Are you keeping up with competitors? the industry? Category management has been evolving and changing since its launch in the late 1980s. The changing Shopper, blurring channels, omni-channel, the Internet & digital media and more advanced data & technology are the key drivers that have continued to change category management. It’s not that all of these changes are necessarily NEW, but all of these changes have all recently been captured in one place — in a new advanced approach which is creating buzz, questions, and uncertainty. In this blog, I’ll cover: Why CatMan 2.0™ is important (and more importantly, why you should care), Where some of the biggest changes are, and Next steps to help you plan your 2017.

“We don’t practice category management in our company / region / industry.” It might surprise you that I’ve heard a version of this statement several times in the past few weeks. But the bigger surprise is that even in non-category management worlds, the principles of category management are being used, even though they could be improved for the benefit of both Retailers and Manufacturers around the globe. Whether you call it category management or not, you might be missing the boat if you answer YES to any of the following questions:

Category Management and Shopper Insights/Shopper Marketing have parted ways in many organizations. Shopper Marketing reports to Marketing. Category Management reports to Sales. According to new industry standards, this is not the best way to set your organization up for Shopper success.

Data investments can be in the millions of dollars for organizations. ROI requires using it wisely — here’s how: If you’re like most organizations, you are purchasing more data than ever before, sometimes making decisions on what to purchase without creating necessary standards on when or how to use it to your advantage, but proudly adding it to the portfolio of data that your organization now has access to. Are you maximizing big data? Read on to discover the 4 requirements for Retailers and Suppliers / Manufacturers to maximize data investments.