Workshop 1: Category management and product

Module 1: category management process in marketing

• The place of category management in retail marketing – pro-consumer perspective.
• Comprehensive approach to category management - definition, structure, scope.
• Common area in category management - manufacturer, chain, customer.
• Elements and process of category management regarding stages of making management decisions - strategy, analyses, instruments, implementation, audit, evaluation.
• Marketing instruments used in category management - product selection, price management, merchandising, product distinguishment strategies – taking the customer's perspective.
• A look at the category management process from the perspective of the market and manufacturer's goals.

Module 2: company strategy for a selected product category

• Analyses and assessments of currently employed solutions in selected categories and competitors’ solutions in order to pinpoint an advantage on the market based on a pre-audit conducted prior to the training.
• Preparing a SWOT analysis for “6P” for a selected category from the perspective of the company, competitors, leading manufacturers.
• Category structure – goals and principles of building a merchandise tree and the place of a product in the category manager’s decisions.
• Determination, within a category, of: merchandise breadth and depth as well as key merchandise/segments expanding categories.
• The importance of customer purchasing motives in the category manager’s product decisions.

Module 3: category structure building

• Classes: building the structure of a merchandise tree for a selection of categories.
• Presenting possible goals to be set within a category: sales, margin, share, turnover, cross-selling, marketing goals, etc.
• Determining KPI to measure the accomplishment of objectives in category management.
• Exercise: determine KPI for a given category based on prepared analyses.