Master Essential Skills & Topics for Retail and CPG

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Collaborative Business Planning

Collaborative Business Planning

Course Overview This course gives participants the skills to enable effective collaboration between partners, as well as teaches them how partnerships provide a structure to organize, plan and implement mutually beneficial ideas. It also walks through joint business planning in detail, identifying a framework from which joint business planning should be completed. Participants develop key skills to help them become more consultative category professionals and enables them to become more effective with their efforts to solve customer’s key business issues. Approximately 2 hours course time

Understanding and Marketing to Your Shopper

Course Overview
Leveraging Data for Advanced Shelving Solutions

Leveraging Data for Advanced Shelving Solutions

Course Overview
Building Excel Skills

Building Excel Skills


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Beginner Level Excel On-Demand Learning Training Course
Course Overview Participants have access to a set of mini-Excel courses that start “basic” and move up to “advanced” topics, while all the data examples used in these courses are appropriate to category management work. Participants learn to maximize their Excel skills across a broad range of topics, and they also benefit from the applied category management learnings provided in these courses. Topics reviewed include Range Names, Dynamic Range Names, Absolute and Relative References, Basic Formula Writing, Custom Formats, Custom Lists, Text Functions and VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP formulas. Approximately 2.5 hours course time (more time will be required for participants new to Excel)

Category Assessment


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Beginner Level Category Assessment On-Demand Learning Training Course
Course Overview Participants learn how course time a category assessment that includes “most” and “least” developed brands and segments, highest and lowest growth brands and segments, and benchmarking concepts. Workshops give the opportunity to review a category assessment and complete observations. This course includes calculations for Category $ Share, $ Sales % Chg, Absolute Sales Change, Share Pt Change, Retailer Share of Market, Index vs. ACV and ACV. Approximately 2.5 hours course time

Building Powerpoint and Presentation Skills

Course Overview Participants build their skills in technical and tactical functionality of PowerPoint and presentation skills. By understanding the fundamentals of PowerPoint, participants become more efficient in developing effective, succinct, and impactful presentations. The presentation skills included in this course allow participants to take their great PowerPoint presentations, and effectively present them to either internal or external audiences. This course is broken into 2 distinct parts, first focusing on PowerPoint skills, then on presentation development and delivery. Approximately 2.5 hours course time

Category Definition & Segmentation

Course Overview Participants learn to define a category from the shopper’s point of view and understand how category definition affects how the category is merchandised, priced, and promoted. Once the category is defined, it needs to be segmented based on a consumer decision tree. This sets up the category for effective analysis based on how the shopper shops the category. Key steps and varying methods are explored in completing these steps of the Category Management process. Approximately 2 hours course time

Category Management on Limited Data

Course Overview This course gives meaningful insights into maximizing data in a limited data environment. Participants review different report layouts and perspectives, based on limited data in different areas of the business. They learn about the importance of a trust between retailer and strategic trading partners to be successful in a limited data environment, with participants completing the course having examples that they can take back to their desks as examples. The tactics will also be included in the analytics, with suggestions on how to gather and analyze the data for meaningful insights. Approximately 2 hours course time

Category Roles


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Beginner Level Category Roles On-Demand Learning Training Course
Course Overview This course gives an understanding of the importance of the category roles based on the purpose of the category for a specific retailer. Participants learn how assigning a category role to each category allows retailers to strategically lay out their stores and help with tactical decision making through pricing, promotion, placement and product availability. Approximately 2 hours course time

Category Strategies


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Beginner Level Category Strategies On-Demand Learning Training Course
Course Overview Participants learn how retailers can take category roles one step further, by assigning strategies to each category. These strategies help the retailer to define the purpose of each category in the store, beyond the category role. The strategies consider how the consumer shops, the image of the retailer, and the competitive nature of the categories. Participants will understand how these category strategies dictate more detail surrounding the tactics that relate to each category. Approximately 2 hours course time

Category Tactics and Analytics

Course Overview This course reviews each of the tactics, or “4 Ps” (product assortment, product placement, pricing and promotion). Each tactic’s definition, measurement, and basic analytics are included. Specific calculations for “Share per Item”, “Item Share”, “Wtd Distribution”, “Sales per Point of Distribution”, “Shelf Share”, “Feature Share”, “Gross Margin”, “Penny Profit”, and “Avg. Unit Price vs. Avg.Tonnage Price” are included. Approximately 2.5 hours course time

Develop and Implement a Category Plan


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Beginner Level Category Plan On-Demand Learning Training Course
Course Overview In this course, participants learn that although this is the last step of the category management process, it is also the most important. After all the category management work is done and the category plan is complete, successful execution of the plan in stores is critical to the success of the entire plan. This course gives examples of what is included in a category plan and explains the important considerations to ensure successful execution of the plan at store level. Approximately 2.5 hours course time

Retailer Strategy

Course Overview Participants increase their understanding of what is included in a retailer’s overall strategy, and the importance of being able to understand and articulate the strategy (from both a retailer’s and supplier’s perspective). Retailer strategy has a significant impact on category management, and needs to be defined across different buckets, including retail format, target consumer, competitive environment and private label or no name. Each of these areas will be reviewed in detail. A hands-on workshop allows participants to define the strategy for a specific retailer that they either work for, or that is their client. Approximately 2 hours course time

Understanding and Using Data

Course Overview This course gives participants a solid foundation of considerations when using data, including properly citing references, using proper analytic techniques, only presenting relevant data, etc. It includes an 8-step analytic process that helps to plan out an analytic project before completing an analysis project, to save time and effort, and have a more successful outcome, as well as provides an overview of the different types of standard data (including retail POS, retail measurement data, consumer panel data and “other” data. There is emphasis on how all data sources are collected. Within each data source, the strengths & watch outs are identified, along with some basic measures available from the data source. Approximately 2 hours course time
Building Data Competency: Panel Data

Building Data Competency: Panel Data

Course Overview
Building Data Competency: POS Data

Building Data Competency: POS Data

Course Overview Learners get an in-depth look at retail POS data, including retailer and third-party scanned sales data, and learn how the data is derived and understand key measures and definitions that relate to POS data. Trends, out of stocks, sales and profitability, distribution and shopper insights will be reviewed in retail POS data, so that participants learn how to maximize its potential. This includes calculations like Calculate shelf capacity, comp stores, gross margin, markup, initial markup, markdown, and margin. Approximately 2 hours course time
Measuring Category Health

Measuring Category Health

Course Overview Participants learn how course time a category health assessment, including an exploration of internal and external influences. An in-depth understanding of baseline and incremental sales volume, drivers and measures are included in this assessment. Participants acquire the ability to address important questions that relate to a category’s health, including those associated with the consumer, trends, the economy, competition, and tactics associated with winning segments and brands. A SWOT analysis introduced as means to captures the most important strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the category as the health assessment is completed. Calculations include seasonality index, quadrant analysis, baseline sales and incremental sales measures, tactics % change results, temporary price reduction, and shopper measures. Approximately 4 hours course time

Retailer Economics and the Product Supply Chain

Course Overview

Fact-Based Selling

Course Overview
Store Clustering Through Store Level and Geodemographic Data

Store Clustering Through Store Level and Geodemographic Data

Course Overview

Advanced Analytics: Relativity


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: On-Demand Learning Analytics Work Training Course Intermediate Level
Course Overview
Promotion Analysis Techniques

Promotion Analysis Techniques

Course Overview
Pricing Strategies and Analysis Techniques

Pricing Strategies and Analysis Techniques

Course Overview Participants review retailer strategies that relate to pricing, including price setting definitions and price rules for the retailer. It covers how prices are set, including promotional and new product pricing. The second half of the course captures a variety of advanced pricing analytic techniques, including breakeven point, correlation and price regression, activity-based costing and slope. Participants learn many different techniques used to assess retailer pricing. Approximately 2.5 hours income
Space Management Fundamentals

Space Management Fundamentals


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: On-Demand Learning Training Course Space Mgmt Intermediate Level
Course Overview
Efficient Assortment: A Step-by-Step Process

Efficient Assortment: A Step-by-Step Process

Course Overview Efficient assortment is the analytical process that fits within product assortment, and within the category management framework. It is an enabler to the other steps within the category management plan. Participants learn about retailer assortment strategies, and the importance of understanding these strategies before moving into any type of assortment work, then learn the steps course time a manual assortment project, which will give them foundation from which they can either build their own assortment capabilities or better understand the assortment tools being used in their own organization. In this course, basic and intermediate techniques of assortment analytics are reviewed. Approximately 2.5 hours course time

Category Management Overview


*Training Topics, Format, or Audience: Beginner Level On-Demand Learning Category Management Training Course
Course Overview Category management is the retailer/supplier process of managing categories as strategic business units, producing enhanced business results by focusing on delivering consumer value. Category management provides strategic businesses approaches and analytics that benefit sales, marketing and category management professionals to understand. If participants are working in a category management environment, they need to understand the whole process, from a big picture perspective. Approximately 1.5 hours course time
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