The Category Management Preamble — Zycus Procurement Blog
The merits, rewards and how can it rationalize your organization’s spending trend.
An organizations growth is adjudged on the basis of its ability to glue different business functions. According to a recent survey conducted by Future Purchasing, organizations could increase their savings by between 50% or more through streamlined category management. Let us take a look at what is category management, why it is essential and how can it help simplify the procurement team’s functionality.
Keep Calm & Manage Categories
What is Category Management?
The collaborative process which integrates multiple products into specific a broad group of similar kind known as categories so as to optimize pricing, inventory, promotions to drive profits & customer satisfaction. The classification of products into categories additionally aids in observing consumer purchase patterns, industry buying trends and results in better foot traffic, improved sales and opportunities for sustainable growth.
Why is Category Management essential?
Category Management helps the procurement teams understand supplier metrics and industrial attributes that drive their economy. Implementing a segmented approach, the procurement teams could drill down the spending trends and find out in what capacity is a product or a specific service being consumed. This enables the teams to create a review process to see what has been implemented or what can be done to generate more opportunities.
How does technology tie in with Category Management?
The new category management solutions improve turn-around-time & agility and can be easily deployed via cloud services, allowing procurement teams to focus more on their business processes and change management whilst attaining results. At the heart of category management lies a centralized planogram allowing better visibility and understanding of demand. Additionally, organizations can consolidate various performance reports into one dashboard allowing creation of growth & profitability plans.
How can I benefit from Category Management?
Primarily, category management assists in directing the right product to the right consumer at the right time. Let us take a look at how Category Management can help procurement teams alike:
1. BETTER PROFIT MARGINS:
- Streamlined and effective pricing
- More effective and efficient promotional scheduling
- Replenishing inventory and materials is cheaper
2. IMPROVED VENDOR RELATIONS:
- Better visibility allows the retailer to share more information
- Improved alignment of marketing programs
3. INCREASED SALES:
- Easier shelf sets to meet consumer demand
- better price image and sustainability
4. AUGMENTED POSITION IN THE MARKET:
- Better market share
- Improved customer loyalty
- Higher consumer footfall
- Sustainable growth and higher longevity of the organization
Catalyst to success:
A successful category management solution brings in a 360 degree efficiency. Have you implemented a dedicated category management module? How has your experience been? Share you views with us in the comments section below
