Master Essential Skills & Topics for Retail and CPG

Buy Training from CMKG.ORG including online training, virtual classroom training, or subscription training for teams and individuals. Not sure where to start? Contact us to request a quote, training assessments, or more information.

Assortment Planning in the Omni-Channel

As the omni-channel continues to evolve and shoppers demand more from their experience, we need to understand how to create strategic, profitable and shopper-focused assortments. Join Sue Nicholls of CMKG as she walks through the requirements, considerations and analytics for Omni-Channel assortments that reflect the needs of shoppers, retailers and manufacturers.
Instructor-Led Virtual Training Session from CMKG.ORG

New Analytics in Retail and CPG


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Analytics Work Data and Insights Instructor-Led Course New & Relevant
The sheer amount of data available today can be daunting. But it’s availability also provides an opportunity to redefine our measurables, improve our decision making and better analyze shoppers, assortments, channels and more. In this training session, participants will learn to analyze “year ago” data in the most effective ways to make the best decisions moving forward, create a new definition of “market” and describe how to capture data from different sources, and describe new ways to complete assortment analytics in the omni-channel world.
Live Webinar Training: Upheaval in Retail Product Supply Chains and its Impact on You… On All of Us

Upheaval in Retail Product Supply Chains and its Impact


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Featured Webinar Instructor-Led Course New & Relevant
eCommerce is impacting tactics in-store and online. To keep up with consumer needs in both, retailers require a clear understanding of how products move from warehouses to consumers. The retail supply chain is now more complex than ever due to changing retail assortments, shifting space requirements, effects on cost and new automation tech. Retailers are changing, including making monumental supply chain shifts, rationalizing assortment lineups and changing planograms, re-examining their pricing strategies and promotional activity as stores become distribution centers for in-store pickup, and prioritizing digital platforms as they move to an omni-channel approach. Participants learn about the changes, challenges, and solutions surrounding the retail product supply chain to help retailers and suppliers make better recommendations and decisions. This course is relevant to and important for anyone who works in the retail industry, sells or supplies to retailers, and/or who wants a broad understanding of retail.
Innovative Responses to the Pandemic

Innovative Responses to the Pandemic


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
This course walks learners through what’s changed for the shopper along their journey because of the ongoing pandemic, and how retailers and suppliers are responding and need to respond in the future to this changing path.

Creating Category Reviews to Reflect the Omni-Channel

In today’s world, both retailers and manufacturers must gain a deep understanding of shopper needs and behaviors to better inform their marketing activity. Category reviews focused on a single channel are no longer sufficient to meet changing Consumer and Shopper needs, and this requires organizations to move beyond traditional data sources into some new and exciting territory. In this course learners will see examples of new data, measures and insights that are available for a deeper Shopper understanding and how they affect the category review process.

Nail your next virtual meeting


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Virtual Meeting Skills Instructor-Led Course
Virtual meetings are essential for CPG and retail organizations to maintain productivity and continuity during the pandemic, and most likely after it too. They can make it easy to align teams, keep employees engaged, and collaborate with clients and vendors. Even if virtual meetings have been part of someone’s work routine for a while, they may still fall victim to virtual meeting faux pas or even worse — bored, distracted, or confused attendees causing a lack of real progress. This course gives the best practices to keep a team’s virtual meetings productive, impactful and interactive.

Changing Shopper Behavior During & After the Pandemic

This course provides new and relevant insights into changing Shopper behaviors as a result of COVID-19 and different perspectives on the implications for future business. We also introduce a COVID-19 Resources Tool to help learners to navigate through the rapidly changing shopper and industry.
Shopper Insights amid pandemic

The Latest and Greatest Shopper Insights Data

In today’s world, both retailers and manufacturers must gain a deep understanding of shopper needs and behaviors to better inform their marketing activity. This requires organizations to move beyond traditional data sources into some new and exciting data. In this course, through collaboration with some top Shopper data/insights solution providers in North America, we provide some case study examples of new data, measures and insights available for a deeper Shopper understanding. Some of the impacts of the COVID-19 virus are also addressed.

Evaluating and Managing Risk In Your Business

Risk analysis is a process that helps to identify and manage potential problems that could undermine key business initiatives or projects. Participants may work for an organization who is encouraging them to “take risks”, however may not be giving them the roadmap to help to do that and feel comfortable with their decisions. In this course, we share the steps course time a risk analysis to give learners more confidence in the choices they make.
Screen Shot 2019-11-26 at 9.58.17 PM

Story Telling, More Than Just Fact Based Selling


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
Category management has changed since its introduction over 30 years ago. So how do the solutions/data/technologies that learners sell fit within the new category management framework? CatMan 2.0 (developed by the CMA) provides a framework and guidelines for a new category management approach. We walk learners through a new learning platform that we rolled out in 2017 that includes a solution provider component (both from an educational and a training perspective), as well as learning how participants can get better educated in the future of category management and how they can help the industry move forward.

Rocking Your Presentations in PowerPoint Part 2


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Presentations Instructor-Led Course
Participants learn how to save time and make presentations look better, slicker, and more compelling; how to get people to say "yes" to their ideas. In the first course (511), we explore some tips & tricks to help create better presentations in less time. In the second (520), we show some lesser-known PowerPoint tips and how-to’s that will further develop learner’s presentation skills with better-looking slides, charts, and tables to will improve your presentations and really help you Rock Your PowerPoint!

Rocking Your Presentations in PowerPoint Part 1


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Presentations Instructor-Led Course
Participants learn how to save time and make presentations look better, slicker, and more compelling; how to get people to say "yes" to their ideas. In the first course (511), we explore some tips & tricks to help create better presentations in less time. In the second (520), we show some lesser-known PowerPoint tips and how-to’s that will further develop learner’s presentation skills with better-looking slides, charts, and tables to will improve your presentations and really help you Rock Your PowerPoint!

Moving to More Strategic, Fact-based Presentations Using Storyboarding


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
Presentation skills continue to be an area that we can all improve on, and it’s a topic that we’ve been working on with a lot of clients through live and course-based training sessions. In this course, we give learners some great tips on ways to draw insights and craft better stories through fact-based presentations, and will share a new storyboarding tool that's hot off the press to help learners develop their own!

Seasonality Analysis For Your Post Season Holiday Evaluation


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
Seasonal merchandising represents one of the biggest opportunities for retailers to increase GM sales, profits and customer count. To realize its potential, it requires focused attention, with an opportunity to follow a category management process to create a strategic approach to a learners most seasonal categories. The definition of “seasonal events” has expanded with changes in the Shopper and their ethnographies, changing weather patterns and any other events that reflect periodic, unique merchandising opportunities. In this course, participants learn how to apply the foundations of category management to your seasonal pre- and post-planning and analysis to drive sales and profits in these important categories.

Developing Your Soft Skills


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
Having the technical skills and knowledge to successfully execute one’s job duties is only one part of being the best they can be in the workplace. In addition to these “hard” skills, we also need “soft” skills. Soft skills are those skills that allow us to effectively work with others. No matter what the position, organization, or industry, we work with people! In this course, we explore how taking the time to build effective soft skills can contribute to a more efficient, more harmonious, and more productive workplace, as well as to one’s own overall job happiness and satisfaction.

Ways to Identify Growth Opportunities In Your Business


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
In today’s business environment, sustaining growth and profitability can be a difficult task. There are shortened product life cycles; business models change and new competitors appear (particularly in the online space). This constant instability makes it necessary to more strategically seek new ways to grow your business. In this course, participants learn some different ways to find growth opportunities in their business.

Trends That Will Affect Category Management


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
There’s no longer a straightforward business industry model or shopper path to purchase, that’s traditionally been based on strong brands and mutually beneficial retail partnerships. In this course, we cover some of the key trends on Shopper, Workplace, Marketing and Data/Technology and talk about some of the implications they may have on category management now and in the future.

CatMan 2.0™ Introduction: What’s Changed?


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
How are you keeping up with the rapidly-changing Shopper and Omni-Channel?

What Happened With The Shopper and Where Are We Headed In The Future?


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
Get perspective on some of the biggest changes in Shopper, omni-channel, and the retail industry through leading-edge industry data sources and solution providers, as well as a glimpse at where things are expected to go in the future. During the course, Sue will share real-world examples and resources that will help learners think about how these changes might affect them, their role, and their company.

Category Management in eCommerce


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
Have you adapted your category management approach for the eCommerce space?

Best in Class Category Reviews Parts 1 and 2


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Data and Insights Instructor-Led Course
Category reviews are an essential part of category management. Too often the day-to-day management of a set of categories focuses on tactical moves only but doesn’t consider the overall strategic direction. By “diving in” to a category at least once, through a category review, learners can ensure the achievement of their long-term goals and ensure they are maximizing consumer appeal. In the first instalment of this series, we go over some of the key components of the category review and gets participants’ perspective on improving the process, increasing automation, and what a “best in class” category review would look like. In the second part, we delve further into category review templates (including layouts and key measures) and integrate the learning into some preliminary outlines for future "Category Reviews" that may help participants to improve the ones they develop.

Applying Critical Thinking to your Category Management Work


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
When assessing a participant’s business or a retailer’s business, it starts with understanding how the overall business is performing – volume, share, profit, and growth – vs. targets and vs. competition. Once learners establish how the business is performing, they should tie it in with understanding what shopper behavior is driving the results. In this course, learners will gain the ability to create a vision or to understand the total enterprise and how the parts work.

New Shopper Perspectives - The Evolution


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
"Shopper" is the focal point of everything these days. Advancements in CatMan 2.0, new data and technology drive the need for us to integrate Shopper more and more in everything that we do in category management. In this course, learners will be given perspective on ways that they can start to better reflect Shopper in the work that they do.

CatMan 2.0: Shopper Marketing and Shopper Insights in the Category Management Process


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
"Roles that are inter-dependent should be in the same organization. Shopper insights, shopper marketing and category management are inter-dependent in creating the necessary output for the ultimate client (the retailer), the category platform." (Quoted from CatMan 2.0™) As we have been “preaching” to our students for a few years now, the Shopper can’t be kept separate from the category management process – it needs to be integrated into all steps of the process! In this course, participants learn more about this important change to category management, and how to incorporate the Shopper into their category management foundations.

Identifying Business Opportunities Through Improved Shopper Focus


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
This course is all about the Shopper, including ways for learners to incorporate them into their work. With presenters from Video Mining and SwiftIQ we'll run through two hands-on case studies in which they will draw Shopper insights from a set of data and learn how to turn these insights into action.

The Power of Shopper Insights: Why it’s important and what to do about it


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Instructor-Led Course
This course addresses the power and importance of Shopper Insights in today’s world, and how Shopper understanding can help drive growth in your business. By the end of this course, learners are able to define Shopper Insights from both a category management perspective and a broader organizational perspective, explain the different perspectives of Shopper Insights for both retailers and manufacturers, articulate the power of Shopper Insights and explain why it is a critical function in today’s organizations, explain the difference between Shopper facts and insights, and identify their organization’s level of Shopper insights through a shopper insights framework.
Artboard 83-50

Improving Your Business Acumen in Category Management


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Career Advancement Instructor-Led Course
Business acumen requires an understanding of finance, strategy, and decision-making. Most managers and employees, however, are responsible for specific areas, and they have little understanding of the impact their decisions have on other areas. In this course, we walk through a big picture perspective to help learners improve their business acumen and, ultimately, increase alignment with their multi-functional teams and external customers.
data insights 3

Developing Data Visualization Skills for Better Storytelling, Part 2


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Data Work Instructor-Led Course
Are your presentations conveying data in an understandable and compelling way?
data insights 3

Developing Data Visualization Skills for Better Storytelling, Part 1


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Data Work Instructor-Led Course
Data visualization is the graphical representation of information and data. By using visual elements such as charts, graphs, and maps, data visualization enables us to see and understand trends, outliers, and patterns in data. Data visualization helps to tell stories, getting rid of the noise and highlighting the useful information. It is where art and science meet in category management and shopper insights - the data and analytics are the science, and it needs to work together with the visuals (or art) for great storytelling. In Part 1 (521), we make connections between creative storytelling and analysis, with some great examples of data visualization for different data sets. In Part 2 (522), we show learners how to create data viz for conceptual ideas and non-data outputs, and how to use diagrams and visual metaphors to illustrate relationships and clarify concepts to reinforce their presentation points.
All Available Training