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Advanced Category Management – A Pizza Case Study

• January 4, 2012
• Posted by: tpgstaging
• Category: reports

Price: Complementary

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This report shows how to create an advanced, consumer-oriented category business plan. It provides insights to suppliers and distributors regarding their organizational capability to create such a plan through a real life example of advanced category management planning. The reader will come away with an understanding of the steps taken, information gathered and benefits accrued from the development of a collaborative management business plan.

A narrative format was used to convey the human interactions within the category management process. Therefore, this report is designed to allow you to become an observer in an advanced category management plan being developed by a joint supplier/distributor team. The narrative allows you to see the issues, concepts and challenges from the perspective of both the distributor and its supplier trading partner. This real world example shows the struggles and benefits of practicing advanced category management.

The case study follows two companies – a supplier and a distributor – through the advanced category management planning process. The distributor is Fresh Foods, a company headquartered in Chicago that owns 350 retail outlets and operates two stores types – a grocery/drug combo and a “corner market.” Shearen Frozen, Inc., the suppler highlighted in the case study works out of Milwaukee and supplies several food categories, including frozen snacks, frozen entrees/dinners, and frozen pizza. Its corporate revenues totaled $8.4 billion in 1997. Through a detailed and exacting team effort, the category of prepared pizza was scrutinized. New goals and strategies emerged.

The category management process encourages a broad perspective of the total system and a break from current paradigms. Each step in the development of a category management plan focuses on enhancing consumer value and thereby increasing the sales and profits of the distributor and supplier. It is fundamentally a data-driven, fact-based, analysis-intensive process. Advanced category management builds on the techniques used in category management yet aims to uncover additional opportunities where product supply strategies and tactics could be used effectively to cut costs.

To gain the most benefit from the case study it is crucial to understand fully the process of advanced category management. To facilitate this, an in-depth summary of advanced category management is provided in the first chapter. Advanced category management is necessary to be successful in today’s market because of a changing consumer profile, competitive pressures, retail industry consolidation, economic considerations (including low inflation) and changing technologies that affect the industry.

At the heart of a company’s effort to advance its category management efforts are the following questions: – How can an organization more effectively maximize multifunctional resources (at the headquarters and in the field) in a collaborative manner? – How can an organization create synergies across departments to enhance both consumer value and business results? – How can the organization and its trading partners gain greater focus on the consumer through collaboration and sharing? – How do companies use activity based costing to better manage costs and limited assets?

These questions – and others – are addressed by representatives of Fresh Foods and Shearen Frozen, Inc. Together, the group worked through the eight-step category management approach described in the seminal ECR Category Management Report. Yet, the close association between supplier and distributor pushed the results to a higher level. A clear benefit of this relationship is that it helps ensure that the marketing and product supply strategies are complementary and interwoven. And both sides assist in the implementation of the plan.

Additional resources are brought to the planning process. In the typical category management process, team members have the role and responsibilities of coordination and facilitation; distribution/category/local market expertise; data and analytical expertise; consumer research expertise; product supply expertise, and retail operations expertise. To be considered advanced category management, the added resources include marketing expertise, financial expertise and information technology expertise.

Only a full reading of the case study will take the reader through the process. It is interesting to note some of the insights gathered by the Fresh Foods/Shearen Frozen collaboration about the specific category studied – frozen pizza.

To obtain a copy of the full report or learn more, contact The Partnering Group email at [email protected] .

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Cate gory Management Case Studies

Practicing skills to solve problems, gain insights, and work together.

Practicing skills, decisions, and critical thinking benefits learning in two important ways.   First, there is the practical benefit of putting knowledge to work using a real world example where perfect circumstances don’t exist. Second, case studies give your team the opportunity to gain confidence in solving issues before the stakes are too high. 

We often say that you don’t really understand something until you can explain it to others and work together to solve a problem or create new solutions. With three levels of case studies, participants can begin with developing a basic category plan, then a more comprehensive one that provides recommendations for a Retailer and, finally, test their advanced skills with multiple data sources.

Teams and individuals can work separately or together and have the opportunity to present their findings to peers and/or a senior management panel in a live or on-line session. This highly effective approach also builds presentation skills for participants.

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Industry case studies, practice, deepen learning, and build long-lasting expertise, provide a low stakes environment where mistakes are ok..

Our case studies use real world examples designed at a variety of levels that help learners deepen retention while also understanding where they may need further study or review — all without making mistakes in a real world setting.

Build teamwork and collaboration.

Teams work best when all members are functioning at their optimum level and communication is flowing throughout the process. Shared successes and experiences create trust and confidence and open up the lines of communication across a team or organization.

Customize case studies for enhanced learning.

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Successful Category Management: Phases, Benefits & Challenges

By Nicole Leonardi, Director of Corporate Accounts

Employing category management can help supply management practitioners to reduce risk while building stronger relationships with internal business stakeholders and external suppliers. Further, a solid category strategy aligns the organization’s strategies with the goals of the supply management group.

With these benefits, it’s no surprise that 95% of respondents in the CAPS Best Practice report, Exploring Strategic Category Management 2019 , said their supply management teams were using category management.

The 3 Phases of Category Management

The recent CAPS Research report, Exploring Category Management: Across Different Business and Organizational Settings , sought to understand how category management evolved across time and various organizations. While the researchers did not uncover distinct differences between industries, they did determine that the practice of category management is not static. As organizations gain experience, their category management process evolves to take on more areas of spend and deeper integration with suppliers. Evolution was divided into three stages, early, growth, and advanced. Of the 18 companies interviewed for the research, 67% were in the growth stage and 28% in the advanced stage.

• Early Stage – Primary goals are to reduce costs, or in some companies to reduce risk. There is a focus on understanding the spend and using supply base optimization and spend consolidation to gain leverage or use bidding to increase market competition.
• Growth Stage – In this stage, use expands to include both indirect and direct spend. Category managers begin using external supply market information to develop a broader set of more innovative strategies to lower total cost. These strategies can include changing the timing of sourcing and contracting, using should-cost or other in-depth analyses to support a fact-based negotiation. The right talent becomes critical in this stage.
• Advanced Stage – At this stage, almost all of the organization’s spend is managed by a category. There is a focus on agility, product innovation, and identifying synergies across categories to create additional business value, such as supplier innovation. Strategies may involve engaging with strategic suppliers for innovation and using creative approaches to redefine commercial relationships that are beyond the traditional supply management scope.

Benefits and challenges

Although extensive research has been done on the steps and process of category management, we wanted to learn more about its perceived benefits and challenges, how category management changes over time, and the required skills for effective category management. To answer these questions, researchers interviewed 32 supply management professionals in 18 large companies across revenue ranges and industries for our recent report, Exploring Category Management: Across Different Business and Organizational Settings .

Across the interviews, the most commonly mentioned benefits and reasons for adoption of category management were reduced costs, improved internal relationships, increased innovative strategies, improved supplier relationships, and reduced risk. The report includes specific case studies from companies highlighting examples of these benefits at their company.

These benefits are not without challenges. There was consensus among interviewees on the hurdles to successful category management, including convincing internal stakeholders to support the strategies, gaining visibility into internal spend, and having the right talent in category management roles. The most coveted skills were analytical thinking, influential communication, strategic thinking, relationship building, and entrepreneurial skills.

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Nicole Leonardi

Nicole Leonardi, Director of Corporate Accounts

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Revolutionising Category Management with Analysis and Insights

Imagine you are navigating through a dense forest with multiple paths , each leading to different treasures waiting to be discovered. Which path would you choose? How would you ensure you are making informed decisions to uncover the hidden gems? Just like this forest, the realm of category management presents businesses with numerous paths to success , but the key lies in making the right choices supported by relevant and actionable insights.

In the ever-evolving business landscape, category management plays a crucial role in driving growth and profitability. It involves strategically organising and optimising product categories to meet customer needs and achieve business objectives. However, in today’s data-driven era, relying solely on intuition and guesswork to manage categories is akin to wandering blindly through the forest, hoping to stumble upon treasures.

So, how can businesses navigate the intricacies of category management effectively? How can they uncover the hidden patterns, consumer preferences, and market trends that lead to success? 

The answer lies in harnessing the power of data-driven insights and analysis.

Fun Fact: In the retail industry, data-driven category management has shown remarkable results. According to a study by McKinsey, retailers that effectively utilise data-driven insights can outperform their competitors by up to 20% .

In this article, we delve into the importance of data-driven insights and analysis in revolutionising category management. We will explore how businesses can unlock the true potential of category management by embracing relevant and actionable data-driven insights. From understanding the market landscape and consumer behaviours to optimising pricing strategies and identifying emerging opportunities, data-driven insights pave the way for informed decision-making and strategic growth.

Join us as we embark on a path that leads to better decision-making, enhanced customer experiences, and ultimately, unlocking the treasures of success in category management.

RELATED: Product Development for Corporate Growth: Key Considerations and Best Practices

The Current Landscape of Category Management

Category management has long been a fundamental strategy for businesses across various industries. Traditionally, category management involves the process of organising, controlling, and optimising product categories within a company’s portfolio. However, as the business landscape evolves, traditional category management practices face limitations and challenges that hinder their effectiveness. To overcome these obstacles and drive success in today’s competitive market, there is a pressing need for a paradigm shift towards data-driven insights.

Overview of Traditional Category Management Practices

Traditional category management practices typically revolve around manual analysis, intuition-based decision-making, and a hierarchical approach. Businesses would categorise their products, negotiate with suppliers, and develop strategies based on past performance, industry expertise, and personal judgement. While this approach has yielded some success in the past, it is increasingly proving inadequate in today’s complex and dynamic marketplace.

Limitations and Challenges Faced by Businesses

One of the primary limitations of traditional category management is its reliance on subjective decision-making. This often leads to inefficiencies, missed opportunities, and suboptimal outcomes. Without access to real-time data and insights, businesses struggle to identify emerging trends, understand shifting consumer preferences, and adapt quickly to market changes.

Additionally, the lack of data-driven insights hampers accurate demand forecasting, inventory management, and pricing strategies. Businesses are left guessing, resulting in overstocking or understocking products, pricing inaccuracies, and lost sales opportunities. Moreover, the inability to analyse competitor activity, market trends, and customer behaviour leaves companies at a competitive disadvantage.

Need for a Paradigm Shift Towards Data-Driven Insights

In today’s data-rich world, businesses have the opportunity to revolutionise category management by embracing data-driven insights. By leveraging advanced analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, companies can tap into vast amounts of structured and unstructured data to gain valuable insights and make informed decisions. According to a study by NewVantage Partners , 97.2% of executives report that their organisations are investing in big data and AI initiatives to drive business transformation and gain a competitive advantage. This highlights the growing recognition of the importance of data-driven insights in various industries.

Data-driven insights enable businesses to understand customer preferences and behaviours with precision, uncover hidden patterns and correlations, and anticipate market trends. By analysing purchasing patterns, demographic data, social media sentiment, and other relevant factors, companies can identify emerging opportunities, develop targeted marketing strategies, and optimise their product portfolios.

Furthermore, data-driven insights empower businesses to enhance collaboration with suppliers, negotiate better deals, and improve supply chain efficiencies. By having real-time visibility into supplier performance, market dynamics, and customer demand, businesses can proactively adapt their strategies, optimise product assortments, and drive profitability.

The Power of Data-Driven Insights in Category Management

In the realm of category management, data-driven insights have emerged as a game-changer. By harnessing the power of data analytics, businesses can unlock valuable information that enables them to make informed decisions, drive growth, and gain a competitive edge. Let’s explore the value proposition of data-driven insights, the benefits of leveraging data for decision-making, and how these insights help identify trends, opportunities, and risks.

Fun Fact: Walmart, one of the world’s largest retailers, is known for its advanced data analytics capabilities. This case study showed that the company collects around 2.5 petabytes of data every hour , allowing them to make data-driven decisions in various areas, including category management, supply chain optimisation, and customer analytics.

The Value Proposition of Data-Driven Insights

Data-driven insights provide businesses with a deeper understanding of their markets, customers, and competitors. By analysing vast amounts of structured and unstructured data, companies can uncover patterns, correlations, and hidden relationships that would otherwise go unnoticed. This valuable information fuels strategic decision-making and empowers businesses to drive performance and growth.

Benefits of Leveraging Data to Drive Decision-Making

Leveraging data for decision-making offers numerous benefits in category management. Firstly, it enhances accuracy and precision in understanding customer preferences, buying behaviours, and product demand. By examining historical sales data, consumer surveys, and social media sentiment analysis, businesses can gain insights into what drives customer purchasing decisions, enabling them to tailor their product offerings and marketing strategies accordingly.

Secondly, data-driven insights enable businesses to optimise pricing strategies and promotions. By analysing pricing elasticity, competitor pricing, market seasonality and customer segmentation, companies can identify the most effective pricing points, optimise discounts, and maximise profitability. This data-driven approach ensures that businesses are pricing their products competitively while still meeting their revenue and profit objectives.

How Insights Help Identify Trends, Opportunities, and Risks

One of the key advantages of data-driven insights in category management is their ability to identify emerging trends, opportunities, and risks. By monitoring market dynamics, consumer behaviour patterns, and competitor activities, businesses can stay ahead of the curve and proactively respond to changing market conditions.

Fun Fact: Data-driven insights can also help businesses identify emerging trends and capitalise on them. For example, in the food and beverage industry, data analysis revealed a growing consumer preference for plant-based products. This insight prompted many companies to introduce new plant-based options and reposition their offerings to cater to this evolving trend.

Data-driven insights enable businesses to spot emerging consumer trends and preferences, allowing them to adapt their product offerings to meet evolving customer needs. This agility in product development and innovation helps companies seize market opportunities and gain a competitive advantage.

Moreover, data-driven insights can also highlight potential risks and threats to a business. By identifying market shifts, competitive moves, or changing consumer sentiments early on, businesses can mitigate risks, adjust their strategies, and protect their market position.

RELATED: Product Category Analysis: Understanding the Competitive Landscape

Unlocking a New Level of Analysis through Quality Data Insights

Quality data insights have the power to unlock a new level of analysis in category management. By leveraging advanced analytics and technologies, businesses can delve into various types of analysis to gain a comprehensive understanding of their markets, customers, and competitors. A report by Deloitte reveals that companies that leverage data analytics are twice as likely to have significantly improved sales and customer engagement, compared to those that do not use analytics effectively. This demonstrates the positive impact of data-driven insights on business performance.

Exploring the Types of Analysis Achievable with Data Insights

Market Trends and Consumer Behaviour Analysis: Data insights enable businesses to analyse market trends and consumer behaviour with a granular level of detail. By examining historical sales data, purchase patterns, and demographic information, companies can identify shifts in consumer preferences, emerging trends, and evolving market dynamics. This analysis helps businesses anticipate customer needs, develop targeted marketing strategies, and tailor their product offerings to meet changing demands.

Competitive Landscape Analysis: Data-driven insights empower businesses to conduct in-depth competitive landscape analysis. By analysing competitor pricing, market positioning, and product assortments, companies can gain valuable insights into their competitors’ strategies and identify opportunities for differentiation. This analysis enables businesses to stay ahead of the competition, adjust their own positioning, and identify gaps in the market that can be capitalised on.

Pricing and Promotional Strategies Analysis:   Leveraging data insights allows businesses to optimise pricing and promotional strategies. By analysing pricing elasticity, customer segmentation, market and brand seasonality and the impact of promotions on sales, companies can make data-driven decisions to maximise profitability. This analysis helps businesses determine optimal pricing points, evaluate the effectiveness of promotional campaigns, and identify opportunities for revenue growth.

The Impact of Analysis on Strategic Decision-Making and Resource Allocation

The analysis driven by quality data insights has a profound impact on strategic decision-making and resource allocation in category management. By leveraging data-driven analysis, businesses can make informed decisions backed by evidence and minimise the risk of costly missteps. For example, businesses can test promotions or product features on a regional level, obtain market feedback and then roll out nationally. Data insights provide the foundation for strategic planning, enabling businesses to allocate resources effectively, prioritise investments, and optimise operational efficiencies.

Furthermore, analysis based on data insights allows businesses to identify opportunities for growth and innovation. By uncovering market trends, consumer preferences, and competitive gaps, companies can seize opportunities to develop new products, expand into new markets, or enhance existing offerings. This analysis-driven approach ensures that strategic decisions are aligned with market demands and customer expectations.

Partnering with a Data-Driven Insights Platform

Partnering with a reliable data-driven insights platform such as Trendata can significantly enhance category management practices. Trendata offers businesses access to advanced analytics, powerful algorithms, and a wealth of data-driven insights.

Introduction to Trendata as a Reliable Insights Partner

Trendata is a leading market intelligence platform that empowers businesses to unlock the full potential of their category management efforts. With its sophisticated analytics capabilities and user-friendly interface, Trendata provides businesses with actionable insights that drive informed decision-making. As an industry-leading platform, Trendata is trusted by businesses across various sectors to gain a competitive edge through data-driven category management strategies.

Key Features and Benefits of Trendata in Category Management

Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Algorithms : Trendata leverages advanced analytics techniques and machine learning algorithms to analyse vast amounts of data efficiently. By processing data at scale, Trendata uncovers valuable insights that drive strategic decision-making in category management. The platform can identify patterns and trends by analysing 5 billion search queries daily, providing businesses with a comprehensive understanding of market dynamics and consumer behaviour.

Data and Actionable Insights: Trendata offers unparalleled, actionable insights, allowing businesses to stay agile and make timely decisions. With up-to-date information on market trends, competitor activities, and consumer preferences, businesses can respond swiftly to changing market conditions, optimise product assortments, and tailor their strategies to meet evolving customer demands.

Customisable Dashboards and Visualisations: Trendata provides both predefined and customisable dashboards and visualisations that enable businesses to display and interpret data in a user-friendly and intuitive manner. This allows category management teams to gain a clear and holistic view of their performance, market trends, and competitive landscape. With interactive visualisations, businesses can easily communicate insights and share information across departments, facilitating collaboration and driving alignment in category management strategies.

Predictive Analytics and Forecasting: Trendata’s predictive analytics capabilities enable businesses to identify market trends, and forecast consumer demand, and sales performance with greater accuracy. By leveraging historical data and advanced modelling techniques, businesses can make data-driven predictions about future market conditions, enabling proactive decision-making, optimising inventory management, and maximising sales potential.  

RELATED: How to Streamline Your Category Management with the Right Intelligence Platform

In Conclusion

Just as a skilled explorer armed with a compass and a map can navigate through the forest with confidence, businesses that embrace data-driven insights in category management can navigate the complexities of the market landscape, gain a deep understanding of consumer behaviours, and optimise their strategies with the power of relevant and actionable data. Thereby confidently charting their path to success. 

So, let data be your guide, and let the revolution in category management begin.

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Introduction to category management | Definitions and best practices

Category management is a cross-functional approach to managing similar areas of spend. It identifies opportunities for business value and consolidation.

Updated: Mar 14, 2024

Category Management (CM) is a strategic approach to procurement where organizations group together similar areas of external spend to identify opportunities for consolidation and to create added business value. 

Approaches like this were originally designed for project-based sourcing of goods and services. It has grown to include much more: spend management and analysis, market intelligence, leadership, performance development, corporate reporting, sustainability and risk mitigation.

It allows procurement to focus their efforts and evaluate different market segments to leverage their agreements.

In this article, I'll cover:

• What is category management?
• What are procurement categories

Case Example: HR category in transition

How does category management work in practice.

Best practices in category management

How to overcome barriers

What is category management .

Category Management provides a systematic cross-functional process to develop and utilize best practices. It is supported by people, tools, and technology.

Its use is widespread in businesses, government, and not-for-profit organizations to align business strategy with sourcing initiatives and supplier relationship management.

Benefits include cost efficiency, improved quality, efficient use of resources, improved market understanding, streamlined business strategies, and improved collaboration.

Is it the same as strategic sourcing?

The term Category Management is often used interchangeably with strategic sourcing, but it is not the same.

CM is a systematic, holistic way of managing categories for the whole life-cycle of goods and services, directing procurement activities. Strategic sourcing is a process of developing a channel of supply for products or services with the best supplier at the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

The strategic sourcing process combines spend analysis, market research, negotiation, and contracting.

Procurement Analytics Demystified gives you an understanding of the power of data behind category analysis -- check it out!

Strategic sourcing is a key activity within CM framework as seen in this example:

What are procurement categories?

A procurement category is a logical group of products or services with similar characteristics, supply and demand drivers, and suppliers.

The categorization depends on the industry, procurement’s own organizational structure, spend profiles, and the external marketplace.

The general principle is to group goods and services that have similar characteristics either using a global standard such as UN Standard Products and Services Code  (UNSPSC) or an internal classification method, also called a spend taxonomy.

There is no correct way to categorize spend, but there are best practices. Don't know what to consider when designing your taxonomy? Have a read!

There are two broad groups of spend at the highest level:    

Direct categories

The term “direct” is normally used to refer to raw materials and items for use in the manufacture of goods for resale. Direct spend management is the process of purchasing or obtaining materials, resources, goods, and services that are used in the core operations of its business.

They are vital to the business and are often acquired in large quantities, are of high value, and are sourced from trusted suppliers. Practical examples would be chemicals for the manufacture of soaps or engine parts for airplanes.

Direct and indirect categories may look different depending on the industry you are in. The IT category may be “direct” in banking and insurance where it is vital to core business operations and service provided to customers but “indirect” in the food or beverage sector.

For a fuller read on direct procurement, see: What is direct material procurement? Definitions, types, and examples.

Indirect categories

Indirect categories are those goods and services that are required to support day-to-day operations. Indirect products and services enable business operations and production processes but cannot be allocated to a specific product.

Indirect categories include marketing (we explored this category in-depth) , maintenance, professional services, utilities, and telecommunications.

Professional services is a common indirect category group in most organizations. It includes legal, human resources (HR), and business consulting services.

All sub-categories require focus and expertise as many services have specific pricing models and market characteristics. In the following example, we open up the level of sophistication.

The HR category is becoming more thrilling and complex to manage as we deal with major changes in work life. Distance work allows us to source the best talent without geographical limitations.

There is a trend in flexible employment models and freelancing that benefits both organizations and individuals. A highly specialized skillset is required to be successful in talent acquisition as new competence domains emerge.

Talent attraction today is more than just a competitive salary and permanent contract. There is a new expectation level for what is considered employee wellbeing. New technologies are emerging for performance management and development.

Workwear needs to be more sustainable, potentially with circular economy consideration. All these elements will have an impact on category management and sourcing decisions.

In addition to market changes, there is a constant drive by top management for cost savings in this area, which is challenging even for the most seasoned HR procurement professionals.

Procurement needs to collaborate proactively with the People team to optimize the balance between core internal resources and such expertise that could be outsourced cost efficiently without losing strategic business capabilities.

Simultaneously, HR suppliers can be local or global, while the hundreds of stakeholders are spread around the various business functions.

Example of the HR category with sub-categories:

CM will cover the entire procurement cycle from sourcing to managing the supplier relationships. The main objective is to manage each category and sub-category of spend holistically, through their entire procurement lifecycle.

Large categories of spend and those that are strategic to the organization require dedicated time and a high level of specialization. The process used remains the same regardless of the category.

An effective process could look like this:

A category plan is critical to successful category management initiatives. It is documentation that includes category targets, stakeholder requirements, opportunities, prioritization, resourcing, and scheduling of activities.

The category planning process is led by a category manager who directs the portfolio, and runs the day-to-day activities and strategic sourcing. A category manager is a procurement role that is responsible for overlooking a specific area.

A category manager will track the market to understand pricing trends, regulatory changes, and innovation for the entire category. Category plans can be developed for the long-term (3 – 5 years), medium-term (1 – 3 years), and short-term (quick wins).

Categorizing historical spend in a structured way creates opportunities for cost savings and extracting more value from suppliers. The trend in category spend management is towards full transparency which is being achieved partly through the application of digital tools. A higher level of transparency leads to more insights and business value as more professionals can find opportunities for improvement and strategic sourcing.

Best practices in category management 

Turning data into category insights with spend analysis is a good starting point, but isn’t enough to succeed in ambitious development efforts. Leading category managers spend a significant amount of time with stakeholders and end-users to understand their business needs so they can jointly support the organization’s goals.

Active stakeholder collaboration, networking, and benchmarking are keys to success. It requires multiple areas of expertise, such as

• stakeholder identification and management,
• supplier relationship management,
• performance management & development,
• sustainability & environmental management,
• risk management,
• effective communication
• and leadership skills.

Success is enabled by: People, Technology, and Tools.

At best, a category manager is a value-adding partner, that supports market analysis, external resource management, supplier performance development, and realization of business targets.

They will have extensive knowledge of the global supply market, and emerging trends and will encourage deeper collaborative relationships between suppliers and internal stakeholders.

Benefits include:

• Benefits of consolidation - Better pricing, improves quality management, and more beneficial terms and conditions can be achieved by aggregating spend and having fewer suppliers for a product or service.
• Improved spend visibility - Aggregating and validating spend by category provide insight into where money is spent and with which suppliers. Category management identifies improvement opportunities in maverick and tail-end spend.
• Better supplier relationships - Category management promotes single points of contact which avoids conflict and builds trust. The category manager facilitates closer collaboration with the selected handful of category suppliers. Fewer supplier contracts mean less administration time as well. 
• End-user satisfaction - The category manager becomes the supply market expert and go-to person for a given product or managed service. A focused approach enables continuous learning and improvement within own area of expertise. This results in a better product-to-customer fit.
• Less risk and better governance - Understanding your category characteristics and suppliers helps address category-specific issues and improves compliance.
• Business strategy execution - Category management translates business strategy into specific category targets and deliverables.

CM is continuous improvement and execution of the strategy. Markets keep evolving and not all changes are positive. A strategy that works well today might deliver opposite results tomorrow.

Obtaining stakeholder support for category strategies is not always easy. Business units have their own agendas and can be skeptical about potential misalignment, failure to understand their specific business needs, failure to supply, lower quality, and losing their preferred partners.

Open lines of communication, proactivity, and transparency are required from a category manager when aligning category plans with user requirements and business goals. Customer orientation and continuous seeking of opportunities for improvement and new business are preferred qualities of a great category manager.

Curiosity and genuine interest in your business areas will build common ground with stakeholders and develop your market knowledge.

Procurement is in a unique position to access market-specific information on new development, forecasts, upcoming trends, and changes.

To prove your value, you need to excite your business partners with new insights and be willing (and able) to share your expertise. The sheer volume of historical category spend cannot be managed manually to provide guidelines for category plans.

Analytical tools that provide greater clarity and visibility into spend categories, sourcing opportunities, and harnessed opportunities have been developed. Solutions like this are being used to support category management work for the best results.

Being able to share your wins and true category management impact in a transparent, unquestionable format is critical to earning stakeholder trust and mandate to operate.

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Jasmiina Toikka

Jasmiina is Head of Content Marketing at Sievo with broad expertise in procurement and category management.

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What is Category Management? Definition and Examples for Retail Professionals

• by Matt Ellsworth
• January 22, 2020
• 3 minutes read

At a broad level, category management is simple: to improve the customer experience, drive efficiencies for businesses, and deliver quality products and services that generate profits. As we all know, this isn’t as simple as it sounds.

In reality, there is much more to category management.

Category Management Definition

First of all, what is category management? This is one of the harder retail concepts to define, as category management can mean different things to different people.

In general, category management is the process of bundling like products into a singular category, or business unit, and then addressing procurement, merchandising, sales, and other retail efforts on the category as a whole.

A central idea behind this strategy is to emphasize the benefits of the category for the consumer and remove inefficiencies and unprofitable competition among brands and suppliers within a category. For instance, this approach can help retailers lift profits on similar products in multiple ways, including by organizing procurement efforts under a single category instead of by individual brand or supplier.

Category management is the process of bundling like products into a singular category, or business unit, and then addressing procurement, merchandising, sales, and other retail efforts on the category as a whole.

Category Management Examples

What does category management look like in real life? This concept gives category managers multiple options to solve retail challenges.

For starters, an organization can procure goods on a category level, not a product, brand, or store level. This can centralize procurement under one person or team. That can simplify negotiations with suppliers and save the business time and money.

Category management can also be used to improve the customer experience. In grocery, for example, most stores are organized by category (dairy, produce, meat, and more) which makes it easy to navigate stores and find specific products. Furthermore, management can make changes at the category-level. They can launch new promotions, planograms, and much more across a single business unit.

Category Management in Practice

How a company approaches this strategic concept really depends on the organization in question. For some, it’s all about procurement: purchasing the right products and services for that category that will generate the most sales and profit for the business.

For others, it’s also about the category on the shelf . How the planograms look, which displays and promotions drive the most sales, and which products are most desirable for consumers. Beyond that, this type of category role also includes in-depth analysis. Managers need to know the data behind their category—what is working, what isn’t, and what can be done to improve.

With that in mind, a category manager job could easily involve:

• Defining the category
• Analyzing procurement and spend
• Understanding the market and consumer behavior
• Planning changes and improvements to the category
• Implementing the plan and measuring the results

Tools for Category Managers

Effective category management can then rely on a wide range of tools and resources in the retail industry. Professionals need to know what is going on at the shelf-level. Therefore, they need accurate, real-time store insights on their categories.

This can be data on planogram compliance, out-of-stocks, display compliance, facings, adjacencies, and much more.

Stakeholders will also want to monitor prices on the products in their categories. Category tactics will often include price changes, so it’s necessary to know how other products are priced, what other stores are doing, and what the market trends and consumer expectations are when it comes to price. This way, category managers can provide the most value to both their customers and their companies.

Lastly, it’s a must to have high-quality insights into shopper behavior. Which products resonate with consumers? Which promotions and displays are most effective? What do they consider good value for a product in this category? Brands and retailers need to survey shoppers regularly to find out or turn to data providers to gather information on consumer behavior and buying trends.

Effective category managers need data on planogram compliance, out-of-stocks, display compliance, facings, adjacencies, and much more.

Your Strategic Approach to Category Management

All in all, category management is what you make of it. Depending on who you ask, this concept can be defined, approached, and completed in different ways.

That means you can create your own strategic approach that fits your needs. You could focus on purchasing, assortment, visual merchandising, pricing, inventory management, promotions, or something else! Perhaps you focus on all of these items.

No matter what, effective category management requires actionable data to support and guide your business decisions. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools you can leverage to take control of your category management program and set your business up for success.

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Home › Casestudy › Exploring Success: Development of a Precise Category Management Plan for a Leading Wine and Spirits Retailer I A SpendEdge Case Study

Exploring Success: Development of a Precise Category Management Plan for a Leading Wine and Spirits Retailer I A SpendEdge Case Study

Engagement overview:.

The client, a leading wine and spirits retailer wanted to enhance their category management strategies. Additionally, the client was looking at modifying their category management strategies to address the changes in the global retail sector. To do so, the wine and spirits retailer approached SpendEdge t o help them leverage it’s strong expertise in category management to address challenges arising due to their inefficient category management strategies.

This category management engagement entailed the use of a detailed quantitative analysis of various supply chain categories to identify and benchmark the best suitable category management strategies.

About the Client:

A leading player in the retail sector.

Business Challenge:

The retail sector is in the midst of a profound cultural and structural shift toward a hybrid digital environment. This along with the availability of huge volumes of market data accelerated the need for major transformations in the client’s category management strategies.

  How did SpendEdge Help the Client?

• Step 1: Defining the category and the role of each category

The initial step revolved around the process of defining the role of each category within the wine and spirits segment. This helped the wine and spirits retailer to gain a better understanding of the various categories in their organization. By doing so, the client was able to prioritize each category and understand the importance of each category in driving their profit margins.

• Step 2: Fine-tuning category management strategies to meet the organizational objectives

Category management strategies are aimed at increasing market share, improving ROI, enhancing sales, and increasing customer satisfaction. The client’s category management strategies required massive changes to ensure they meet their organizational goals and objectives. This step involved the detailed assessment of different categories to help the client develop precise strategies to drive category growth.

• Step 3: Assessing the cost of the devised category plan

The penultimate step in category management deals with the processes involved in accessing the cost of the category plan against its benefits. To implement any category plan it is essential to ensure you’ve got it right by assessing its impact. This includes the implementation of a schedule around how the plan will be executed as well the securing the resources required to do so.

• Step 4: Implementation and review of the devised category plan

The scrupulous four-step approach to category management enabled the wine and spirits retailer to scrutinize their strategies to ensure they meet their category goals and objectives. Though category review is not an essential step in the process of category management, it is highly recommended to include it throughout the entire process.

Benefits of the Engagement:

The devised category management plan enabled the wine and spirits retailer to enhance the strategies involved in the end-to-end management of the supply chain . The adopted approach also enabled them to effectively organize the procurement resources to focus on specific areas of spend. This further helped their category managers to focus on conducting an in-depth market analysis to entirely leverage their procurement decisions on behalf of the organization.

The Future of Specialty Liquor Retail

The future of specialty liquor retail in terms of procurement is poised for intriguing shifts. Direct sourcing from distilleries and producers might become more prevalent, cutting out intermediaries and ensuring authenticity. Technology will likely streamline procurement processes, enabling real-time inventory tracking and demand forecasting. Blockchain could enhance transparency by recording every step of the supply chain, from production to distribution. Collaborations between retailers and producers might flourish, leading to exclusive offerings and limited editions. As consumers seek unique experiences, retailers could invest in partnerships to create custom blends or aged spirits. In this future landscape, procurement will play a pivotal role in securing exceptional products and meeting evolving consumer expectations.

Why is category management essential in the retail sector?

The growing competitive pressure in the retail sector poses major challenges for players in terms of effectively managing different categories to drive profitability. This makes it necessary for them to rethink their approach to targeting customers.

However, over the next few decades, the best practices in retail category management will be focused on enabling a faster response to changing market conditions . This means that category management will transition from a rules-driven paradigm to a learning model enabled by machine learning and other advancements. In this new era, retailers will need to enhance their strategies and function at a faster tempo than their industry peers by understanding and anticipating customer behaviors. Moreover, understanding the why, what, how, and where of consumer’s buying patterns will allow them to think like a customer but act like a retailer. This new reality will leverage the need for a category management plan that facilitates agile decision making and supports rapid strategic shifts.

Due to such factors, leading companies are now approaching SpendEdge to leverage our market expertise in developing advanced category management plans to drive organizational value . Also, with the help of our category management solutions, it is now possible to align category management strategies with business objectives, which go hand in hand in helping companies enhance market presence.

Key questions answered in this category management engagement

  our findings:.

As procurement functions continue to evolve toward a strategic function across industries, procurement leaders and other procurement officials are regularly assessed based on their team’s strategic contributions to the overall business. Therefore, to maximize their procurement efficiency, best-in-class procurement firms are turning to category management as an effective lever to drive strategic value and growth across different procurement categories.

Moreover, a structured approach to category management such as the one developed in this engagement can not only help you improve profit margins, but also helps improvize supplier performance, mitigate risks in the supply chain, and drive innovation. If your organization is on the lookout for an objective way to drive category growth, SpendEdge’s category management solutions will help you do so by being your roadmap to success.

Doesn’t this sound intimidating? It’s time to start making the necessary changes in your category management strategies. Get in touch with our experts to build a category management capability that will position your company for continued success.

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From retail to healthcare, businesses are scraping the bottom of the barrel hoping to find the next opportunity for topline growth or spending cutbacks. Contextualized category intelligence is increasingly the key differentiator.

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How to Build a Business Case for a Category Management Process

This is a template for your use provided by the Sourcing Industry Group. Use this template to develop a business case for category management in a specific spend category.

Please visit the SIG Resource Center for additional items related to “Category Management” or to access additional tools, templates, and thought leadership. 

This guide provides an introduction to category management and explores the potential benefits and challenges of using the approach.

It outlines the key stages of the category management process and supports these with case examples, a detailed case study and top tips from local authorities who have used the approach. The guide also contains links to a range of documents with more detailed information about aspects of category management.

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Category Management: A Complete Guide

What is category management.

Category Management is a function at retail and ecommerce businesses, where related products are grouped together under separate product categories , in order to manage their performance more efficiently.

When a retail or ecommerce business grows to a level, where there are thousands of SKUs across many different product departments, the need arises for assigning a team member, the category manager, to be responsible for his/her category’s performance and return on investment.

Category management is often implemented by big retailers, such as grocery stores, home improvement stores, furniture stores, drugstores, and major ecommerce players like as Amazon.

Benefits of Category Management

The goal of the category management function is to ensure that each category’s performance is maximized to its full potential, by implementing different strategies and tactics starting from buying and supplier management to visual display and sales performance management .

Each category is hence treated as a stand alone business unit and extra care is given to the different product SKUs under that category. This ensures that products don’t get neglected and inventory return is maximized as much as possible.

It also means more effective buying, as each category will have its own Open to Buy , and managers will put more insights into the sales forecast of the category’s products, that is based on their trend monitoring, rather than just budgeting based on sales history.

Another main benefit of category management is consolidation and achieving savings through economies of scale.

This is because the purchasing for all the stores for the same retailer will be centralized through the category manager, and instead of buying for one or two stores, the manager will be buying for a chain of 50 or 100 stores and negotiating better product prices.

This also gives the retailer a big bargaining power while dealing with suppliers & wholesale vendors, which allows him to further negotiate better payment and shipping terms , in addition to the product cost savings.

Read Also: Bargaining Power of Suppliers

The 4 P’s of Category Management

The 4 P’s of category management are product , price , placement and promotion .

The category manager will ensure that the right products are bought based on his/her analysis of the previous sales reports and current consumer trends .

He/she will then ensure that those products are priced at the right level for them to perform as planned and to maximize their returns.

He will also make sure, through planograms and other visual display elements, that those products are placed correctly at the store and highlighted to improve their performance.

Finally, the category manager will use different promotional tactics to push the sales of those products, maximize their sell through rates and manage excess inventory if necessary.

Category Management vs. Buying

The category manager and the buyer share similar responsibilities, such as choosing the right products and managing vendors relationships. However, the category management function is broader than the retail buying function and it extends to marketing the category and managing the visual display on the sales floor or the ecommerce website.

The category manager is more like an end-to-end business manager for the respective category he is in charge for.

The 8 Step Category Management Process

According to the Brian Harris Model, category management process is divided into 8 steps that are implemented in order as below:

1. Define The Categories

The category management process starts by defining what exactly goes together under one category.

The is no standard definition for each category of products in the industry, and so retailers have a freehand in choosing what goes where, based mainly on their end goals behind applying category management.

When a retail or ecommerce business initially starts, it sets up its own merchandise hierarchy .

This hierarchy groups down products into product departments, categories, classes and subclasses. So a retailer can choose to make the category management process at product department level (e.g Men’s Apparel, Women’s Apparel, Kids..etc) or can go further down to product categories levels.

It depends on how big the product catalogue is and how efficiently it can be managed.

MERCHANDISING & INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

• Generating & Analyzing Reports
• Managing Inventory Levels
• Planning & Managing Markdowns

2. Assess The Role of Each Category

Not all products in a retailer’s product portfolio play the same role.

Some products serve as the core of the business and their role is to build transaction volume and help shape the main image & positioning of the retailer. For example, the core product category at Victoria’s Secret is “ Bras “.

Core products are the main contributor to the sales mix of the retailer.

Other products serve as a destination , or what we refer to as “traffic drivers”. These do not contribute much to the total sales of the business, but help bring new & repeated customers to the stores. A good example here is Costco’s rotisserie chicken .

These products are usually not very profitable, as their main goal is not to build profits, but rather to drive traffic.

Read Also: Loss Leader Pricing Strategy

RETAIL PRICING & PROMOTIONS

• Factors Affecting Retail Prices
• The Different Pricing Methods
• Pricing a Product Portfolio

Other products are convenience products. They are there to complement the shopping experience and are usually used as add-ons to the main categories. Their contribution is not high but could have high profit margins, and so they can add to the profitability of the portfolio. For example, if you are running a shoe store, these could be shoe polish.

Finally, some products are seasonal . They will play an important role in driving your sales and profitability during their particular season, but will not be there all-year-round. Example for that are Christmas related products.

Assessing and assigning roles to the different categories and the different products under each category will help in setting up the right strategy for those products.

For example, as we mentioned, destination products are not meant to drive profits, so their pricing strategy will be different from the core products or the convenience products. The same will apply to buying , as seasonal products will be planned differently.

3. Assess Current Performance (Category Analysis)

Assessing the performance of each category will require a thorough category analysis.

Here, you will generate the sales and inventory reports and perform a complete inventory analysis for the products under each category.

The Category Analysis will cover:

• Sales Volume
• Sales Contribution
• Gross Margin
• Inventory Turnover
• Sell Through Rate
• Basket Analysis (which products are often bought together)

RETAIL BUSINESS PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

• Analyzing the income statement
• Generating relevant reports
• Calculating financial ratios

4. Set a Scorecard for Each Category

Then you will set your new objectives based on the analysis you made in the previous step.

You will set specific, measurable targets for each metric you want to improve, so you can measure the performance of the category at the end of the year against it.

Category X Scorecard Sales Contribution Target: 30% Inventory Turnover Target: 3 GMROI Target: 2.5$

5. Device Strategies

Based on your analysis (step 3) and your objectives and targets (step 4), you will now draw a roadmap of how you will get from the current performance to the targeted performance within the required timeframe.

Here you will set your broad category management strategies that you will then implement through tactics around buying , pricing , promotions and display .

Six Category Management Strategies:

• Traffic Building
• Transaction Building
• Turf Defending
• Profit Generating
• Excitement Generating
• Image Building

6. Set Tactics to Implement Your Strategies

Now, you will take the broad strategies you set in step 5, and form specific, actionable tactics that translate those strategies into specific actions.

For example , you might decide to change your buying strategy towards a higher breadth and lower depth . This means adding more styles and products to your portfolio, in order to add more products to the transactions ( Transaction Building )

The tactic here will be: Finding 3 new products and new suppliers for those products ( Buying ).

You might find that the main product in your category is losing market share to a new competitor and your strategy is to price it more competitively ( Turf Defending ).

Your tactic will then be to lower the price to X level, by sourcing it at a lower price or finding a new supplier ( Pricing ).

You might find that the sell through of Product X that has very good margins was very low and your analysis revealed that the product was not having good visibility at the store. So your strategy for this product is to improve its visibility to drive its sales and overall profits ( Profit Generating ).

Your tactic will be to assign a better place for Product X in the planogram or display it next to product Y that could push its sales ( Display ).

7. Implement

Here you will implement the tactics in step 6 and attempt to deliver them within the agreed timeframe.

Implementation can be done directly by the category manager or his team, or might require collaboration with other parties, such as suppliers, store managers, visual merchandisers,..etc.

So it is important while setting the plan to assign roles for each tactic in the plan and be realistic about the expectations you have from other parties.

The review process will typically be at the end of the agreed on time frame (e.g. end of quarter or end of year) and here you will measure how you have performed against the set targets that you have put in the scorecard in step 4.

From this step you will then go through the process again to review the performance and improve on what you have achieved so far.

Category management is an ongoing process, so the 8 steps will keep repeating as products and trends will keep changing and there will always be room for further improvement.

Category Management Tools

Open to buy plan.

One of the most important tools to plan and manage inventory.

The Open to Buy (OTB) is a planning tool that provides an overview on the inventory levels of the category and how much inventory is needed, in order to deliver future sales goals.

The OTB plan is done for a period of rolling 6 months and gives the buyer the amount in dollars to buy products for this 6 months period, in order for the business to have adequate amount of inventory for the level of sales it is projecting.

We explain this in full details in our free Open to Buy guide , and our members get access to download the excel sheet and practice the entire process using simulated data.

Google Trends

Another tool that is used by marketers and we have found to be very useful in category management is Google Trends

This tool helps the category manager or buyer to spot specific trends inside their respective category. It can help in choosing which brands to carry and which colors to choose.

We explain this in more details, using the example of sneakers category, in our article on Google Trends for Buying.

Category Management Considerations

The goal of category management in the first place is to give more attention and resources to each category at the business, in order to maximize its performance, and consequently the performance of the entire business.

However; since category management is a function at a bigger business (the retail or ecommerce business), but at the same time the category is managed separately, it is very important for the top level management of the business to ensure that the different categories do not compete with each other or jeopardize each other’s plans.

At the end, all the categories have to ensure communicating the same message of the business to the end consumer and contributing to building the same brand image.

This is especially important when it comes to implementing different pricing and promotional strategies.

This can be achieved by setting broad guidelines and rules for the entire business and having regular meetings, where each category manager will present their strategy and their future plans, which will then be compared against the set guidelines of the business.

How to Become a Category Manager?

A category manager is viewed as an independent business unit manager, so in order to become a category manager you will need to have good business acumen and managerial skills. You will also be expected to have experience or product knowledge of the category you will be managing.

Skills Required for a Category Manager Role:

• Relationship Management Skills
• Communication Skills
• Business Acumen
• Analytical Skills
• Presentation Skills
• Using Excel
• Category Knowledge

Furthermore, you should be comfortable with reading financial reports and analyzing a lot of different retail metrics and numbers, such as gross margins, inventory turnover, GMROI.

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Category Management Resources

Join our program and learn how to manage a product portfolio and optimize its performance, and earn a career certificate in Commercial Retail Management.

You’ll specifically learn:

• How to generate and analyze sales and inventory reports
• How to measure the returns on your existing inventory by category/sub-category
• How to optimize performance of your product mix, by making better merchandise planing and buying decisions
• How to price your product portfolio to generate the highest returns
• How to efficiently manage markdowns on your product portfolio
• How understand the positioning of your brand, and integrate this into your pricing and buying decisions

In addition to that, you’ll learn fundamental business knowledge, such as marketing, economics, consumer behavior and strategy, which will help you understand the bigger picture of running a business unit, and make better decision.

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The Category Management Process

By Hugo Britt | October 12, 2021

The category management process

Below, we explore the six steps in a typical category management process, along with some best-practice tips for procurement success.

1. Define categories

Just like a household budget or a to-do list, organizational spend is very difficult to manage as a single unit. Splitting your spend into categories (and even sub categories) makes them easier to manage, analyze, and improve.

A helpful start is to put your categories under two headings: direct and indirect spend .

Direct spend categories

Indirect spend categories.

Indirect spend is usually decentralized, meaning anyone in the business can do the buying. Indirect categories include anything necessary for the day-to-day running of an organization such as staffing costs, energy costs, IT, office supplies, travel, shipping and logistics, facilities maintenance, and more.

Top tip: Where possible, assign people with relevant backgrounds to complex categories. For example, assign a procurement professional with a computing degree to the IT category. This will mean a better understanding of the ins and outs of the category, and the ability to speak the language of stakeholders and suppliers.  

2. Understand the market

The next step in the category management process is to gather market intelligence for each category. This can involve understanding the supplier landscape (who are the main suppliers, where are they located, are there any local suppliers , and so on), the trends and long-term outlook for the category, average prices, and any factors such as seasonal demand.

Market intelligence can be gathered through online searches, news articles, company reports, Google alerts, and from your supplier ecosystem.

Top tip: Market intelligence gathering can be outsourced to syndicated or custom intelligence providers.

3. Analyze spend

Spend analytics is about identifying opportunities to add value.

As with all analytics, start with making sure there is a single source of truth for company spend data – that is, a central software platform or database.

Using spend analytics software , category managers can identify opportunities for consolidation, spot duplication, flag areas with high maverick spend, and identify risks.

Top tip: Don’t just gather spend data for data’s sake. Make sure all insights are actionable and support better business decisions.

4. Create your category strategy

Now that you have defined your category, gathered market intelligence, and conducted spend analytics, it is time to create a category strategy .

• Define category objectives and milestones. 
• Make sure objectives can be tracked and measured through KPIs. 
• Ensure every objective is linked to your overall business strategy.

Top tip: Create a strategy that is flexible and adaptable to changing business conditions.

5. Implement improvements

While all the previous steps involved planning and intelligence-gathering, step five of the category management process is finally about applying the learnings you have gained to make improvements and add value.

Depending on what you’ve uncovered through spend analytics and market intelligence, this could involve: 

• Building better relationships through Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) and stakeholder management.  
• Educating/engaging with maverick spenders.
• Changing or consolidating suppliers. 
• Negotiating better deals with existing suppliers. 
• Build digital capability in your category.

Top tip: Expand your definition of value beyond cost to include factors such as risk reduction, brand-building, sustainability, and social benefits.

Category management is not a set-and-forget exercise. Objectives should be regularly reviewed to ensure your strategy stays relevant against a background of ever-changing business priorities. Category strategies will also need to flex in response to disruptive forces such as new technology or materials shortages.

Collect feedback and drive continuous improvement by surveying your category’s key stakeholders and suppliers.

Top tip: Use a voice-of-the-supplier survey to uncover opportunities to work better with critical suppliers in your category.

Never underestimate the time and resources required for category management. If you have a small procurement team or believe additional value could be found in a category, consider partnering with a group purchasing organization. GPOs leverage their awesome buying power to unlock volume discounts across popular indirect spend categories including office supplies and facilities maintenance. Contact Una to learn more.

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Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies of 2021

Two cases about Hertz claimed top spots in 2021's Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies

Two cases on the uses of debt and equity at Hertz claimed top spots in the CRDT’s (Case Research and Development Team) 2021 top 40 review of cases.

Hertz (A) took the top spot. The case details the financial structure of the rental car company through the end of 2019. Hertz (B), which ranked third in CRDT’s list, describes the company’s struggles during the early part of the COVID pandemic and its eventual need to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

The success of the Hertz cases was unprecedented for the top 40 list. Usually, cases take a number of years to gain popularity, but the Hertz cases claimed top spots in their first year of release. Hertz (A) also became the first ‘cooked’ case to top the annual review, as all of the other winners had been web-based ‘raw’ cases.

Besides introducing students to the complicated financing required to maintain an enormous fleet of cars, the Hertz cases also expanded the diversity of case protagonists. Kathyrn Marinello was the CEO of Hertz during this period and the CFO, Jamere Jackson is black.

Sandwiched between the two Hertz cases, Coffee 2016, a perennial best seller, finished second. “Glory, Glory, Man United!” a case about an English football team’s IPO made a surprise move to number four.  Cases on search fund boards, the future of malls,  Norway’s Sovereign Wealth fund, Prodigy Finance, the Mayo Clinic, and Cadbury rounded out the top ten.

Other year-end data for 2021 showed:

• Online “raw” case usage remained steady as compared to 2020 with over 35K users from 170 countries and all 50 U.S. states interacting with 196 cases.
• Fifty four percent of raw case users came from outside the U.S..
• The Yale School of Management (SOM) case study directory pages received over 160K page views from 177 countries with approximately a third originating in India followed by the U.S. and the Philippines.
• Twenty-six of the cases in the list are raw cases.
• A third of the cases feature a woman protagonist.
• Orders for Yale SOM case studies increased by almost 50% compared to 2020.
• The top 40 cases were supervised by 19 different Yale SOM faculty members, several supervising multiple cases.

CRDT compiled the Top 40 list by combining data from its case store, Google Analytics, and other measures of interest and adoption.

All of this year’s Top 40 cases are available for purchase from the Yale Management Media store .

And the Top 40 cases studies of 2021 are:

1.   Hertz Global Holdings (A): Uses of Debt and Equity

2.   Coffee 2016

3.   Hertz Global Holdings (B): Uses of Debt and Equity 2020

4.   Glory, Glory Man United!

5.   Search Fund Company Boards: How CEOs Can Build Boards to Help Them Thrive

6.   The Future of Malls: Was Decline Inevitable?

7.   Strategy for Norway's Pension Fund Global

8.   Prodigy Finance

9.   Design at Mayo

10. Cadbury

11. City Hospital Emergency Room

13. Volkswagen

14. Marina Bay Sands

15. Shake Shack IPO

16. Mastercard

17. Netflix

18. Ant Financial

19. AXA: Creating the New CR Metrics

20. IBM Corporate Service Corps

21. Business Leadership in South Africa's 1994 Reforms

22. Alternative Meat Industry

23. Children's Premier

24. Khalil Tawil and Umi (A)

25. Palm Oil 2016

26. Teach For All: Designing a Global Network

27. What's Next? Search Fund Entrepreneurs Reflect on Life After Exit

28. Searching for a Search Fund Structure: A Student Takes a Tour of Various Options

30. Project Sammaan

31. Commonfund ESG

32. Polaroid

33. Connecticut Green Bank 2018: After the Raid

34. FieldFresh Foods

35. The Alibaba Group

36. 360 State Street: Real Options

37. Herman Miller

38. AgBiome

39. Nathan Cummings Foundation

40. Toyota 2010

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What is Category Management? 5 Tools for Success

by Surefront on Apr 25, 2024 10:30:00 AM

Category management gathers similar products into a single category to address business initiatives for that particular product set. Category management optimizes how your retail team accesses products, maintains buyer/supplier relationships, and executes the procurement process. 

Do you want to efficiently source products and increase margins? That's the main objective of category management tools. They aid in sourcing while providing repeatable processes for internal and external communication. 

In this article, we’ll give you a breakdown of category management. We’ll also share 5 category management tools for improving your merchandising process.

What is the category management process?

First, what’s a “Category”? A category is any group of similar items that a company wants to buy under the umbrella of a single deal.

“Category Management” is about making business decisions at a category level. These initiatives can include the procurement process, product information management, merchandising, sales, product lifecycle management, and other retail efforts.

It’s important to differentiate between category management and similar concepts:

• Category management . The process of grouping similar items into categories to address larger business concerns.
• Vendor management . The managing of product communication and collaboration to bring new products to market.
• Product data management system . A piece of software that manages data but may or may not have category management tools.
• Catalog management . The process of building and maintaining your online catalog of products.

Now we know what category management isn't, let's talk about what it is. At its most basic level, category management bundles like items to avoid separate or scattered agreements. This saves time, money, and resources by consolidating disparate agreements into a single contract. Category management is a quintessential feature of your overarching product collaboration strategy. 

A practical example of category management

Let’s say you’re a sporting goods retailer looking to bolster sales ahead of Little League season. You have a procurement team dedicated to your baseball department ready to source products.

Without category management, your buyers will end up negotiating one-off agreements. Suppliers can take advantage of your urgent need to source baseball equipment, which drives up per-unit pricing. This isn't the ideal situation. 

It’s inefficient to have separate buyers negotiating single contracts for bats, gloves, balls, protective equipment, and soft goods. Especially when you can when you can negotiate them together . 

By bundling goods into one category and agreeing on a single contract, you can better track negotiations with built-in risk management. You can manage category negotiations, assess category performance, and drive down pricing. You can also cut the time and resources needed to negotiate agreements when a single order contains more units.

The result? Category insights drive better supplier relationships, a more profitable product mix, and transaction-building category tactics. You’ll have a better product selection, boosting your brand image and increasing customer loyalty.

8 steps to implement and maintain category management

Category management was coined by Brain F. Harris in 1997. The methodology was intended to improve the strategic approach to sourcing. Harris’s project management approach is structured, and measurable.  It has a track record of driving improvements across an organization’s processes.

Harris suggests you use the following 8-Step Cycle to implement and maintain category management:

• Step 1: Define the Category – Set the parameters for your category based on your customers’ behavior. How do they navigate the category? This will help inform product selection and category segmentation.
• Step 2: Assess the Category Role – Assess how the category relates to your broader portfolio. Define the category's role in your current strategy and its importance and impact. Approach this step from a sales perspective and a volume standpoint.
• Step 3: Track Performance – Assess how the category is performing from different angles. How does it perform at the retailer, within the market, compared to other categories, etc? This multi-lensed approach will provide a foundation for the next few steps.
• Step 4: Set Benchmarks and Objectives – Any business initiative should have clear goals for driving success. Your merchandising plan is no exception. Define your benchmarks and objectives to set the category’s KPIs. Asses sales, volume, market share, and assortment to ascertain overall profitability.
• Step 5: Plan Strategies – Gather your thought leaders and devise strategies built from your goals. Devise a marketing angle and in-store presence for your category. Always look for ways to grow market share, increase sales, and boost foot traffic.
• Step 6: Designate Category Tactics – Get into the nuts and bolts of putting your strategies into motion. Set clear and repeatable actions to improve category strategies. Consider how to improve products, placement, promotions, and supply methods.
• Step 7: Implementation – Once you’ve set your strategies and identified your tactics, you’ll want a tangible plan for your team. Create a written plan to solidify tactics, category roles, and objectives.
• Step 8: Review – This isn’t a one-time procedure. It’s designed to be an iterative cycle. In this final step, measure your results and modify the process as you go back through the steps.

Why Was Category Management Created?

Before category management, the way buyers and sellers at most organizations collaborated to produce a product was chaotic and prone to delays, waste, and suboptimal output . Consider the abovementioned sporting goods example—when you give suppliers the power to set prices for individual products, your margins diminish.

That’s why Brian Harris created category management to address the following seven key areas:

• Force consumer focus when making retail decisions. Think of product signs at department stores. They give insight into category management hierarchy. These should be strategically placed and organized for the average consumer.
• Develop a strategy for differentiation and competition. The better organized your categories are, the more you can control your price when sourcing.
• Provide a model for collaboration. Organizing by category will inform your team on how to collaborate internally and externally with suppliers. Learn more about how your team can engage 3rd party partners in our supplier management article .
• Promote information sharing to improve decision-making. Information should be open and accessible for all involved across the category.
• Provide greater strategic logic when making tactical decisions. It’s easier to adjust or even pivot your different strategies for a category once all agreement info and current performance data are available in one place.
• Clarify decisions about asset and resource allocation. Think of category management as another arena for data analysis. Optimize the time and personnel you’ll need to complete all objectives for the product categories.
• Further clarify employee responsibilities. After organizing your procurement plan into categories, you can easily group personnel into those categories and better define their roles to achieve your goals.

A category plan will guard your organization against chaos. It’s a common language for buyers and sellers with designated inputs and outputs. This leads to predictable and manageable results.

How Has Category Management Evolved?

To better understand the value of category management, it’s important to look at where it came from. You may be familiar with strategic sourcing. Though the two have similarities, category management evolved from strategic sourcing.

The Brian Harris model refined the process of strategic sourcing by finding its weak points in organization and communication. 

Typically, an organization’s buying team functions as the gatekeeper for suppliers. Their preferred procurement method is a Request for Quote (RFQ) to compare suppliers and their products/services. In the silo model, these RFQs are often created on an individual basis—to fulfill an immediate need. This neglects the bigger picture of related products.

Aside from working with suppliers, the buying team has direct relationships with legal, finance, and other key departments. They also engage with business reps—often in an ad-hoc or project-specific way. Suppliers communicate with these same stakeholders—usually without the buyers being present or aware. You can see where this model leaves gaps in communication and efficiency.

Category management breaks this siloed thinking . When you designate categories and the teams responsible for necessary functions, you maximize cost savings and efficiency with a clear and defined common goal. This process includes an open discussion by all stakeholders to optimize and streamline the supply chain for a given product category.

It’s time to start thinking about your organization from a category standpoint. By clearly defining these categories and following the 8-Step Cycle detailed earlier, you can begin to improve your workflow and increase profits.

Ask yourself the following to get started:

• How can I group and organize my similar products into defined categories?
• How would I organize my categories into a hierarchical structure? Do I have product segments that are more important than others? How do I define their importance?
• What are the steps for my team to go from the RFQ process to finalizing a purchase order? How is information shared between organizations? What steps (if any) are redundant?
• If product information management and product lifecycle management is part of your process, how does that fit into the questions above?
• What other internal departments do my buyers deal with to finalize a purchasing agreement? Do my suppliers have separate conversations with these departments?

Answering these questions should help you identify which processes you can adjust to implement the category management model.

The 4 Ps of Category Management

If you’re familiar with the core principles of product marketing, this will sound familiar. Great category management strategies are built upon 4 essential elements of successful products. These make up “the 4 Ps of effective category management,” which include:

We'll now examine the role each of these Ps plays in category management.

#1 - Product

The category management function starts with the strategic procurement of goods. Every category manager must buy products to stock shelves, but product buying shouldn’t be random. It should be about bringing in the right products, at the right price, at the right time . 

Category managers use previous sales reports, consumer trends, and seasonal forecasting to inform their buying decisions. This should be part of your unified PLM and PIM strategy.

Let’s dive into an example: 

• A category manager for a clothing retailer wants to obtain affordable bottoms ahead of next season. Specifically, they want to get a pair of wool trousers from a supplier that has historically sold well. 
• Market research and feedback suggest that demand for these trousers is high among working adults aged 30-45. The supplier is offering them at a great wholesale price, so everything points toward a win for the category manager. 
• The only trouble is Spring and Summer are ahead and procurement is focused on outfitting the store for those seasons. Though the wool trousers are ideal for business people in Fall/Winter, they are not a good fit for the warmer seasons.

This underscores the power of category management to utilize financial and consumer trend data points to line up with seasonal buying. Category management is a dynamic, timely process that demands careful planning for the best product assortments. But it doesn't work alone. 

For the best results, integrate your category management strategy into your overarching supply chain strategy, which should include: product lifecycle management , product information management , and customer relationship management . 

#2 - Pricing

This one is fairly straightforward. When category managers buy products, they leverage wholesale quantities to drive down pricing. They also purchase for the category as a whole to get better per-unit pricing—as demonstrated in our sporting goods example. 

Category managers also shop around from different suppliers to compare products and prices for their category plans. There are 2 price points to consider here: wholesale pricing and retail pricing. 

Wholesale price is the business-to-business (B2B) price of the products. Then, there’s the retail price which represents the price tag for the shopper, or business-to-consumer (B2C). Retail price is informed by the purchase price and all other costs (shipping + logistics), or "landed cost," along with the target margin for the retailer.

Products come with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP), which is another data point that helps a retailer set prices. To stay competitive, retailers must consider their margin compared to competitor pricing for similar products. Learn how to identify hidden revenue within your supply chain here. 

#3 - Placement

This is where we get into planogram software. Category managers have to collaborate with merchandising teams to discover the best way to organize their assortments into cohesive categories within the store. 

A good category management system keeps track of these assortments and considers the strategic placement of complementary products for logical continuity within the aisle. This is intended to bolster sales. 

For example, the baking aisle at the grocery store will group flour, powdered sugar, cake mixes, oils, and baking soda all in the same general area. This helps with the customer experience and boosts sales. Placing ingredients for common baked goods in the same place helps customers remember the items they need and possibly stock up on even more than they need.

Retailers often place new items and specialty items on end caps and other visible displays. A healthy category management process connects assortment planning with merchandising teams to maintain and update the best planograms for business. Communication is key. The right Unified Product Collaboration Platform will open the lines of communication between internal and external associates for the best possible results.

#4 - Promotion

Retail promotions are marketing tactics used to drive sales. These promotions are usually timed before products hit shelves and during seasonal buying periods. Most retail promotions appeal to logic and urgency to ignite a need to purchase the product.

Many factors go into sales promotions, including inventory, seasonal relevance, sales performance, and competitor promotions. The category management team has to forecast the performance of their category, identify opportunities for promotions, and adjust the plan accordingly based on product performance. For more promotional insights, click here to read our latest piece on fashion retail marketing trends. 

The 5 best tools for a category manager

It’s time to identify the best tools to accomplish your goals. We suggest both an all-in-one solution and some a-la-carte tools you can add to your daily operations.

1. Surefront Unified Collaboration Management Software

First, we’ll start with an end-to-end solution for your merchandising needs. Surefront provides industry-defining software that helps automate the category management process.

The live catalog offers easy-to-use tools for importing and categorizing your SKUs. Once you import your products, you can upload photos, and add specifications and pricing details for both internal and external use.

As a retail business or brand, these features help establish category management while streamlining merchandising and procurement processes. Surefront lets you create an internal structure for your teams and enables collaboration with outside organizations, all in one place.

This software eliminates the need to email spreadsheets, PDFs, RFQs, notes, and purchase orders to outside entities. Surefront brings these functions to one platform, improving productivity, eliminating waste, and increasing profitability. Sounds pretty similar to the goals of category management, right?

Surefront goes far beyond just category management software. We can help brands with their product lifecycle management and overall merchandising processes to achieve a guaranteed 10x ROI.

2. Assortment Optimization Software

When sourcing for brick-and-mortar retail, the products available at stores are important for the shopping experience. With assortment optimization software, you can take your category and inventory management up to a more focused level. Identifying customer segments along with the products that best serve those segments is crucial.

Retailers have moved toward offering assortments that align with local shopper preferences and values.

3. Planogram Software

Both retailers and suppliers use planograms to show how products should be displayed. This helps with determining how much space they should be allocated. Planogram software goes nicely with your assortment optimization. As you identify the products for your target segments, you can think about how your consumer encounters those products on the shelves or in the aisles.

Drawing a logical link between products in physical space increases sales. Think of chips and salsa being displayed next to each other. The logical link between the two promotes a single customer purchasing both even though one is a snack and the other is a sauce.

Planogram software helps with planning these logical connections and tactical displays.

4. Promotion Planning Software

Promotion planning software is connected to the space planning tools above. Top retailers use store promotion planning to improve supplier involvement and in-store promotions. This helps you create a strategic plan for different categories to earn additional revenue from suppliers.

From a category perspective, this can help you better align your procurement methods with your promotional plans to squeeze the best margins out of your products.

5. Retail Analytics Software

Knowledge is king. With retail analytics software, you can get an idea of how your categories and product segments are performing at the store level. This is what elevates the top retailers as they use data to understand consumer trends and needs.

The more you can connect multiple data sources for your categories, the better you’ll be able to merchandise like a pro.

The new wave of category strategies

You don’t want your data to be siloed. Your company’s CRM, PIM and PLM solutions shouldn’t operate in a vacuum. Surefront is a Unified Product Collaboration Platform to power growth and ROI. 

Our patented PIM, CRM, and PLM solutions streamline the omnichannel sales, merchandising, and product development processes. By combining these essential functionalities, Surefront creates a single source of truth throughout your product lifecycle, sales, and listing processes. 

The results? Up to 150% more revenue per employee and a 40% shorter product development cycle is just the beginning. Try our 10x ROI calculator to see your company’s potential profits . Or, skip the noise and book a custom demo with one of our unified product collaboration management experts today. 

The retail industry evolves quickly and has a lot of moving parts. We do all of the research, so you don’t have to. Stay ahead of market fluctuations, trends and new features by subscribing to our Unified Product Collaboration Management Blog.

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• Category Management:  Break Through Strategic Planning – Why You Should Embrace It?
• Do You Know the Difference Between Strategic Sourcing & Category Management? Decisions, Decisions, Who Makes the Decisions?
• Category Management: High Performance Leadership Teams
• Do you Know the Difference Between Strategic Sourcing & Category Management?  The ART of Persuasion!
• Category Management:  Was COVID a Temporary Blip Or??

Category Management:  A Real-Life Case Study

I was looking through some client files  for some examples to send to a multi-billion dollar multi-national client who is looking to “future-proof” their competencies.  I came across this example from another client (ABC) that I ended up sending and thought it was worth discussing with all of you because it lays out a clear path ABC followed to a very successful initiative.

The ABC executive  first communicated his business objectives:

• Support the aggressive growth objectives for ABC
• Focus on improving Quality, Delivery and Cost (in that order)
• Build strong relationships with suppliers (their growth was totally dependent on their suppliers)
• Develop competencies and share market knowledge with Stakeholders
• Ensure Purchasing & Supply Management (P&SM) was directly contributing to top AND bottom line results

The CPO launched his initiative by declaring the Competency Program as a top strategic priority for his organization realizing that achieving ALL his other business objectives depended on this priority:

Identified as a Top Strategic Priority for P&SM

• Identified the required competencies for a world class P&SM organization
• Gap identification done
• Developed an ABC common, mandatory and comprehensive competence program for all job families within P&SM
• Integrated in the Personal Development process
• Curriculum Developed

I want to underscore the message here:  The Competency Program was identified as the enabler of ALL the business objectives.  That is a powerful message for his organization and their Stakeholders!

He then laid out some Principles to ensure that everyone understood where he stood on this program because he was making a significant investment (financial AND political):

• The competency programme  is a common, mandatory initiative within ABC
• It targets the functional AND  stratgic competencies and skills that are identified that a world class purchasing organization needs to master
• Covers ALL the job families, ALL levels and from basic to advanced
• The initiative is an integrated part of the PBP process and will be used in the overall evaluation process of ALL employees

We then led the effort to evaluate their current AND future needs and helped him identify what the required competencies were for P&SM:

To become a world class organization, P&SM need to excel in the following 10 Functional AND Strategic competencies

• Change management
• Problem solving
• Project management
• Business & Enterprise knowledge
• Supply Chain management
• Collaboration
• Strategic Sourcing
• Supplier development
• Supplier relationship management
• Negotiation and contracting

We then helped him identify all the different job families he had to facilitate the identification of specific gaps by job family so that programs could be tailored by job family.  Even more importantly, it helped hm track progress by job family and hold his managers accountable.

“Job families” have been identified, each one will have a tailored “ideal” program – of course movements within are facilitated

Job Family 1 : Executives, Directors

Job Family 2 : Purchasing/Commodity Managers

Job Family 3 : Supplier Development Managers (All Engineers)

Job Family 4 : Purchasing Professional

Job Family 5 : Supplier Development Professional

Job Family 6 : P&SM all Business Support Professional positions, controllers, analysts, administration

His organization consisted of over 250 people spread across the globe and a large number of them were engineers who were directly involved with suppliers.

And then he showed his level of commitment and support by encouraging them to invest their time and effort into the program:

The average program length is spread over 18 months and equivalent to 1 day /month.

• Basic training will be conducted at site to facilitate attendance
• Several E-learning modules can be taken at your convenience
• From advance level, networking is encouraged so off site training is considered
• Emphasis on applying new gained skills between courses

This goes to show you that Competency Development programs can be very successful if the leader is ready and willing to make a commitment.  Are you one of those leaders :-)?

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The 22 Best Case Study Examples That Boost Sales (+ Templates and Tips)

Jackie Jacobson | June 29, 2023 | Case Studies | 20 min read

Quick Links

• 1.   What Is It?
• 2.   Why They're Important
• 3.   Case Study Length
• 4.   Where Do I Put Them?
• 5.   Case Study Format
• 6.   How to Write One
• 7.   Examples
• a.   PDF
• b.   Online

The Best Case Study Examples

• 1.  Adobe: Royal Bank of Scotland
• 2.  BrightEdge: Stanley
• 3.  LeadGnome: Host Analytics
• 4.  Bitly: Vissla
• 5.  Taboola: The Line
• 6.  OutBrain: Lane Bryant
• 7.  Google Analytics: Optimizely
• 8.  LinkedIn: HubSpot
• 9.  LevelEleven: Staples
• 10.  Life Size: Rackspace
• 11.  Five9: Weed Man
• 12.  LogMeIn: Extent Technologies
• 13.  Red Hat: North Carolina State Websites
• 14.  VMWare: CenturyLink
• 15.  HPE: Mendix
• 16.  Gravitate: Global Expeditions Group
• 17.  IDEO: INFARM
• 18.  Forge and Smith: Happy Planet
• 19.  CoSchedule: English Heritage
• 20.  Slack: OpenAI
• 21.  Square: The Epicurean Trader
• 22.  Bluleadz: BandGrip

Building an effective content marketing strategy that can take your prospects through every stage of the buyer's journey means creating a variety of content.

From relevant, informative blog content to engaging webpages, landing pages, whitepapers, and emails, a comprehensive content marketing strategy should run deep.

One powerful, but often underused, piece of content is the case study .

What Is a Case Study?

A case study acts a narrative, featuring real-world situations where certain products or services are used in a way that demonstrates their value. They are a special type of thought leadership content that brands can use in marketing and sales to guide their target audience to the decision stage of their buyer's journey . Engaging case studies walk prospects through how a real life customer identified a specific pain point , started using your product or service, and overcame that pain point while reaping additional benefits.

A case study is a unique type of thought leadership content that tells a story.

Case studies are narratives that feature real world situations or uses of products or services to demonstrate their value. A well written case study will follow a customer as they define a problem, determine a solution, implement it, and reap the benefits.

Case studies offer readers the ability to see a situation from the customer's perspective from beginning to end. 

Need an example of a case study? Check out some of our case studies here !

Why case studies are important.

A marketing case study is one of the most compelling content items in your sales funnel .

It’s the perfect way to guide people into and through the decision phase, when they have the best options laid out on the table and they’re ready to puzzle through that final selection.

Because of this, case studies are uniquely useful as bottom of the funnel content .

By the time prospects are ready to read case studies, they have a nuanced grasp of the problem in front of them. They also have a good selection of potential solutions and vendors to choose from.

There may be more than one option that’s suitable for a given situation. In fact, there usually is. But there’s just one option that fits the prospect best. The challenge is figuring out which one.

Since B2B decision makers aren’t mind readers, they need content to bridge the gap between “what they know about your solution” and “what they know about their own business.” The case study does that by showing how a similar customer succeeded.

The more similar the prospect is to the customer in the case study, the more striking it will be.

For that reason, you might want to have a case study for every buyer persona you serve. And naturally, case studies pertain to specific products or services, not your whole brand.

So, you could find yourself with multiple case studies for each buyer type.

However, the effort is worth it, since case studies have a direct impact on sales figures.

How Long Should a Case Study Be?

Honestly, the more to-the-point you can be in a case study, the better.

Great case studies should pack a lot of meaning into a small space. In the best examples, your reader can grasp the single main idea of each page in a short paragraph or two.

Each detail should build on the next, so they’ll keep moving forward until the end without getting distracted.

Sure, it’s no Dan Brown novel, but if you do it right, it’ll still be a real page-turner.

Note: Some businesses will have a brief case study in PDF form to use as sales collateral then a longer form, more in-depth version of the same case study on their website. In this case, it can be normal to write a lengthier case study.

Where Should I Put My Case Studies?

Anywhere you want, really!

Ideally, you should upload case studies somewhere on your website so new leads coming to your site have the opportunity to see just how kickass your business is at driving revenue and results for your current customers.

Whether it's an online case study or a PDF version, making your successes available to the public can prove just how valuable your efforts are.

Plus, make sure every member of your sales team has access to your case studies so they can use them as sales collateral to send to prospects and opportunities! A quick PDF attachment to a sales email can be very convincing.

It can also help to sprinkle links and CTAs to your case studies throughout your content:

The Best Case Study Format

• Introduction: Provide context for the story.
• Challenge: Describe the primary issue being faced.
• Solution: Identify the product or service being used.
• Benefit: Emphasize the most impactful advantages.
• Result: Detail the specific outcomes the customer earned.

Like press releases, case studies often fall into a certain specific format.

While it’s not required that you have all of the possible topics in a particular order, picking a consistent format will help you accelerate production down the road. It also makes your content easier to read.

Many B2B businesses use the following approach:

• Introduction: sets the stage by providing context for the situation.
• Challenge: discusses the key problem that the customer was facing.
• Solution: a basic overview of the product or service the customer used.
• Benefit: recaps the solution’s top advantages – why it was the right choice.
• Result: the positive business outcome arising from the solution and benefits.

This formula gives you enough flexibility to highlight what’s most important about your enterprise, solution, and the customer you’re showcasing.

At the same time, it ensures that your team will know exactly what information they need to compile to design case studies in the future.

It also serves as an intuitive trail of breadcrumbs for your intended reader.

How to Write a Case Study

1. Ask Your Client/Customer for Approval.

This first step is crucial because it sets the layout for your entire case study. 

If your client or customer gives the ok to use their name and information, then you can add as much detail as you want to highlight who they are, what you helped them do, and the results it had.

But, if they would rather remain anonymous or want you to leave out any specific details, you’ll have to find a way to keep your information more generalized while still explaining the impact of your efforts.

2. Gather Your Information.

Like any good story, a marketing case study has a beginning, middle, and end. Or, you could think of it as “before, during, and after.”

Before: The Problem

Your case study will always open by presenting a problem suffered by one of your clients.

This part of the study establishes what’s at stake and introduces the characters – your company, the client company, and whichever individual decision makers speak for each side.

During: The Solution

Once you define the problem, the next step presents your offering, which serves as the answer to the dilemma.

Your product or service is, in a very real sense, the hero of the story. It catalyzes the change, which you describe in terms of your features, advantages, and other differentiators.

After: The Result

In the final step, you discuss the “happy ending” brought about by your solution.

Returning to the “stakes” you established at the very start, you expand on how much better things are thanks to your intervention. You want prospects to imagine themselves enjoying that level of success.

3. Get a Quote.

Of course, a study about two corporations isn’t very interesting on its own. The best case studies personify the protagonists, including the vendor and the client company, by having plenty of quotes peppered throughout the entire story.

Naturally, the business problem to be solved is the big, bad villain here, so you want the client (and preferably, your own team as well) to weigh in on that problem: How complex it is, what solving it would mean, and what not solving it would cost.

Then, as the situation turns around, testimonials become essential.

Naturally, the longest, most emphatic testimonial should come from the top decision maker. But you should aim to include a glowing quote from many different stakeholders – representing the full cast of “characters” who might be making consensus buying decisions around your solution.

Note: Don’t use a testimonial or quote if your case study is anonymous. 

4. Find Some Compelling Graphics.

A case study isn’t a whitepaper: You shouldn’t be trudging through page after page of text.

In fact, some of the most powerful case studies establish their own vivid, graphics-heavy style – looking a lot more like an infographic, or even a magazine, than traditional B2B marketing collateral.

Color blocks , strong contrasts, skyscraper photography, and hero shots are all on the table when it comes to case studies. The more data you have to convey, the more creative you should be in presenting it so it can be understood at a glance. 

15 Great Examples of Offline Case Studies

1. adobe: royal bank of scotland.

This study focuses on the solutions Adobe provided for the Royal Bank of Scotland. Their top challenges included fostering a culture of data driven decision making, eliminating disjointed systems, and delivering digital experiences that are relevant and easy to use.

Adobe's approach resulted in a 20 percent increase in conversion, as well as improved internal communications, faster optimization, and a reduction of their content management footprint. 

2. BrightEdge: Stanley

In 2015, Stanley consolidated two separate brand web properties into one site. The process needed to mitigate traffic disruption, improve traffic, and increase organic search results.

The results? Almost 40 percent of keywords Stanley ranked for were on the first page of organic results, and the company generated a 100 percent lift in revenue, thanks to support from the BrightEdge platform.

3. LeadGnome: Host Analytics

Host Analytics moved to an account based marketing strategy in 2015. They noticed that the marketing efforts were limited by a large number of low quality needs.

Their problem was solved when they used an automated email marketing approach from LeadGnome to nurture and qualify leads via email marketing.

4. Bitly: Vissla

Vissla is an online ecommerce company with a need to understand big data across multiple marketing platforms.

Bitly provided a a way to consolidate data and literally link channels together to display all information on a single dashboard.

5. Taboola: The Line

The Line is an online boutique that offers shoppers a unique experience and showcases products that can be found at their brick and mortar store in NYC's Soho neighborhood. Their goal was to increase first time visitors to their site.

Taboola offers a product that drives first time users. The result? Over 72 million impressions within three months, and email subscriber growth of 12 percent.

6. OutBrain: Lane Bryant

Lane Bryant, the leading retailer for women sized 14 – 28, launched a campaign designed to celebrate all women and redefine the traditional notion of sexy with a simple message – ALL women are sexy.

The goal was to amplify the campaign and drive traffic and engagement.

The result? OutBrain used media amplification to take the campaign viral, resulting in over 48,500,000 impressions in just two weeks!

7. Google Analytics: Optimizely

Optimizely is a leading online A/B testing and user experience optimization platform that offers innovative data-driven marketing solutions to maximize user experience and keep them coming back for more. 

The challenge they faced was better identifying page views to determine where customers are in the buying cycle.

The solution was provided by using data from Google Analytics Premium to successfully move leads through the sales funnel.

8. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: HubSpot

HubSpot, in search of quality leads, turned to LinkedIn Marketing Solutions to engage with marketing professionals in small to medium sized businesses, targeting them with ebooks, webinars, and how-to guides. Sponsored organic content appeared in members' LinkedIn feeds.

The result: 400 percent more leads within their target audience than efforts on other platforms.

9. LevelEleven: Staples

LevelEleven helped Staples focus their teams on the critical sales activities that matter.

The end result? Their team developed a better understanding of the KPIs that matter and experienced a 182 percent increase in key selling activities.

10. LifeSize: Rackspace

Rackspace is a world leader in hybrid cloud computing with offices throughout the world. The challenge was collaborating and communicating across offices.

The approach? LifeSize created a video solution to build stronger relationships across international offices.

11. Five9: Weed Man

Five years ago, the lawn care company Weed Man had an idea -- If their phone-based reps could connect with more prospects, more decisions would result, without adding sales reps.

The solution? Five9 assisted Weed Man with migrating their data to the cloud. This case study shows why SMBs like Weed Man should store business data on the cloud for CRM.

12. LogMeIn: Extent Technologies

One of the better, more concise case study examples, this one page synopsis clearly defines the challenges and goals of Extent.

It explores how LogMeIn provided effective solutions and produced stellar results, including a boost in staff productivity, an increase in first contact resolution rate, and an improvement in overall service. 

13. Red Hat: North Carolina State Websites

Under mandate from the governor, the North Carolina Department of Information Technology needed to update state websites to overcome complex processes and limited technical resources.

The resulting solutions from Red Hat reduced maintenance times and lowered staffing costs.

14. VMWare: CenturyLink

This study addresses the complexities of cloud hosted infrastructure. One element of all case study examples is to educate perspective clients about the services and products offered.

This study takes a complex subject and makes it easy to understand, while clearly outlining the solutions VMWare can provide.

15. Hewlett Packard Enterprise: Mendix

This study breaks down another complex subject: rapid hosted cloud app development.

HPE links to additional content so readers can gain even more knowledge about the subject and the solutions HPE offers.

7 of the Best Online Case Studies

1. gravitate: global expeditions group.

This case study is a great example of how to break up a detailed case study for an easier read.

Gravitate starts off by introducing their client, Global Expeditions Group (GXG), to give visitors a little background into what they do. They then dive straight into what their role was in helping GXG with a robust content marketing strategy.

What catches your eye at the beginning of this case study is the results. Rather than forcing readers to find out the impact of their efforts at the very end, they call out some major statistics and improvements that they helped GXG achieve. It's a great way to entice readers to keep them wanting to learn just how they did it.

Gravitate did a great job breaking up their rather long case study. Since it focuses on an entire content marketing strategy, they put various parts of their case study into separate sections, from their rebranding efforts to their website design and copywriting.

2. IDEO: INFARM

What we like so much about IDEO's case study about INFARM is that it reads just like a simple blog post – there's no sections and no busy graphics. While this doesn't work for everyone, it really matches the vibe of IDEO's brand.

This case study is short, sweet, and to the point, with the largest elements on the page being the images and a quote. At the very top, they outline the entire case study in two small sections – the challenge and the outcome.

What we like about this particular case study is how IDEO talks about what's next for INFARM. Beyond the typical problem-solution-result structure, they took it one step further to talk about the future and what INFARM plans on doing next. 

3. Forge and Smith: Happy Planet

Forge and Smith effectively uses real mockups and examples from the work they did for Happy Planet to showcase their work in action.

This case study is perfectly designed into multiple modules to break up chunks of text into three phases. They start off with the objectives they set in place for their website design and development work for Happy Planet, which is pretty unique for a case study.

What's great about this case study is the opportunity to view the finished website. A hyperlink isn't just hidden within the text forcing you to dig around looking for it; it's called out right then and there to let you view their finished work on the Happy Planet website.

Another great feature is the option to view a previous case study or all the case studies if you're interested. No need to locate the main page, you have direct access! 

4. CoSchedule: English Heritage

CoSchedule treats their case studies as customer stories, highlighting who their customers are and how their platform was able to help them. Their case study on English Heritage is simple to view and comprehend.

On the left, there is a customer spotlight on English Heritage, complete with a company logo, brief description, industry, company size, size of the marketing team, and more. These little details help give you a better idea of who the company is.

Then, on the right side of the screen, is a blog-like case study.

Rather than breaking up their message into the standard format, CoSchedule calls out the results that English Heritage has seen since switching to CoSchedule. Within each result, they touch on the challenge they had before CoSchedule then the lasting impact it created.

Throughout the case study, CoSchedule includes relevant screenshots and impactful quotes from English Heritage employees. This helps readers visualize what they are talking about.

5. Slack: OpenAI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have quickly claimed center stage in the digital world. Slack is one business that hopped on the bandwagon and incorporated AI generated assistance into their platform, and this case study tells a story of success using modern technology.

In this case study , Slack relies heavily on testimonials to share the impact that OpenAI has made on their product. The story of Slack and OpenAI is told directly to readers by the people who experienced the partnership and how it can improve user experience for all kinds of businesses. Sharing a success story in this way makes the whole case study feel much more personal than just providing a list of statistics. 

When customers read through the case study, they'll get to know perspectives from multiple people, hopefully coming across one that really resonates with them. 

6. Square: The Epicurean Trader

The Epicurean Trader case study featured on the Square website follows the tried and true structure for a closer look into a success story. First, this case study introduces The Epicurean Trader and what problems they were facing as a retail business. 

The next section of the case study discusses the solution proposed by Square and the implementation of their products as The Epicurean Trader expanded their business. Finally, this case study concludes with notable impacts as a result of using Square's software, including revenue growth and comparisons to standards set within the industry. 

Reading through this case study, you'll join The Epicurean Trade on their journey to enhance their retail practices. Thanks to testimonials from the owner of the business, you'll also get an inside look at how this brand was able to grow with some help from Square. 

Overall, this case study example is clear, concise, and easy to follow. Readers will get to know a highlighted business and how Square stepped in to resolve a problem they were facing. 

7. Bluleadz: BandGrip

We couldn't  not pat our own backs for recently publishing a case studies page on our website.

Bluleadz often uses case study PDFs as sales collateral to send to qualified prospects. While we used these PDF designs internally, we wanted to make sure our client success stories were available to everyone coming to our site.

Thus, our case study page was born.

Our BandGrip case study really sticks out to us. We start off by introducing who BandGrip is, who they serve, and what they do.

Then, we highlight the struggles they were having with getting demo sign-ups on their page. We included relevant quotes from the CEO to show their need for a solution.

We then begin to outline all the pre-show and post-show tactics that we implemented to help them tackle their challenge and earn them more demo sign ups. Landing page screenshots and other various graphics help readers visualize what we were able to do.

Toward the end of the case study, we highlight the impact of our efforts, calling out some of the major statistics. 

Highlight Your Past Successes to Attract Future Business

Each of these case study examples does an excellent job of outlining the challenges, solutions, and results provided. If you are building a portfolio of case studies, use these excellent examples for inspiration and format.

Once you master the art of the case study, you’ll find it’s packed with marketing power, giving you a huge ROI for the time you put into creating it.

If your leads have been falling off in the decision phase, a marketing case study may be just what you need.

Case studies are a powerful tool in your content marketing arsenal, so why not create one today? Click below to create your very own case study!

General FAQ

What is a case study.

Case studies are narratives that feature real-world situations or uses of products or services to demonstrate their value. A well-written case study will follow a customer as they define a problem, determine a solution, implement it, and reap the benefits.

The more to-the-point you can be in a case study, the better. Case Studies typically range from 500 words to 1,500 words depending on what's getting highlighted.

What Format Should My Case Study Be In?

Typically, a case study contains an introduction, a challenge, a solution, a benefit, and a result.

Why are Case Studies Important?

Case studies allow businesses to showcase how their product or service has been implemented successfully by their customers. It allows businesses to show how their product/service is actually used and the impact that it can have.

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie is a Copywriter at Bluleadz. She graduated from Elon University with a degree in Creative Writing and is currently living in Charlotte, NC. If you need her, you can find her exploring the city or relaxing with a good book.

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Home » Management Case Studies

Management Case Studies

Management case studies are real-life examples of issues and problems found in particular workplaces or business organisations. Case study assignments give the opportunity to relate theoretical concepts to practical situations. Most case studies are written in such a way that the reader takes the place of the manager whose responsibility is to make decisions to help solve the problem. In almost all case studies, a decision must be made, although that decision might be to leave the situation as it is and do nothing.

Case Study: Henry Ford’s Contributions to Organizational Behavior and Leadership

Henry Ford, born in 1863 with his innovative ideas in producing motor vehicles and excellent engineering works went on to become the hero of people in the industry. His primary goal was always to produce petrol propelled motor vehicle and in 1896 he developed his first self propelled vehicle which he called the quadricycle. After a lot of struggles and legal battles, he founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 with only $28000. He dreamed of making efficient affordable cars and in 1908 produced the popular model T. Henry Ford changed the world with his revolutionary ideas and transformed the motor industry with his leadership. The main aim of this case study is to describe his major contributions to the  Continue reading

Case Study: The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Uber’s Founder Travis Kalanick

Travis Kalanick is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder of Uber Technologies Inc., a ride-hailing company that revolutionized the transportation industry. He was born on August 6, 1976, in Los Angeles, California. Kalanick grew up in a middle-class family and showed an early interest in entrepreneurship. Kalanick attended the University of California, Los Angeles, but dropped out before completing his degree to pursue his entrepreneurial ventures. He co-founded his first startup, Scour, a peer-to-peer file-sharing company, in 1998. However, Scour faced significant legal challenges related to copyright infringement and was eventually forced to file for bankruptcy. Kalanick went on to found several other startups, including Red Swoosh, a content delivery network, and Uber, which he co-founded in 2009 with Garrett  Continue reading

Business Ethics Case Study: Caterpillar Tax Fraud Scandal

Accounting fraud is the manipulation of financial statements in order to benefit the business financially or to create a false appearance of financial health. In the situation of Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) – a manufacturer of heavy construction and mining equipment, diesel-electric locomotives, diesel, and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines – the payment of federal income taxes on their earnings was avoided to boost the company’s financial status, saving the company billions of dollars and keeping its stock price high. CAT, having more than 500 locations worldwide – including the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East – is vast in size and an economic standpoint, with sales and revenues of $53.9 billion in the year 2019.  Continue reading

Case Study: Corporate Merger Between Volkswagen and Porsche

The German Dr. Ing. H. C. F. Porsche (Porsche) automobile manufacturer specializes in sports cars and a new line of all-terrain vehicles. In the mid-2000s, Porsche was recognized as a leading global brand for its consistent quality and cultural icon status with models including the 911, the Boxster, and the Cayenne. The company achieved strong financial performance cementing Porsche’s market dominance. Porsche’s operating profit increased from 1,204 million in 2002 to 1,832 million in 2006, representing a growth rate of 52.1%. The net profit of the company also increased to 1,368 million in 2006, an increase of 74.8% over 2005. One of the central elements of Porsche’s business model is its low manufacturing depth, which means that it does not  Continue reading

Case Study: The Collaboration Between Sony and Ericsson

Nowadays, it’s very common for companies from different countries and sector to work together. In 2001, a joint venture company – Sony Ericsson Mobile communication has been established by a Japanese electronics company Sony Corporation and Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson. The aim of this cooperation is to produce the mobile phone with multimedia communication solution to customers all over the world. The initial for this collaboration is to associate the Sony’s multimedia consumer electronics expertise and Ericsson’s technical knowledge in telecommunications. Once Sony Ericsson established, both of the companies stopped their individual mobile business. The Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications is a London-based 50:50 joint venture business. Before the collaboration, Ericsson ran its mobile business in the market for years and  Continue reading

Case Study of Rolls Royce: Innovating for the Future

Rolls Royce is a market leader in propulsion and distributed energy systems for both the defense and civil aerospace markets. Their commercial markets cover nuclear, gas turbine, and diesel technologies to power everything from small planes and trains to entire cities. The aerospace applications for innovation are where Rolls Royce has made significant investments and reaped interesting rewards. On the defense side of their business, they have over 16,000 engines in service. In the civil aerospace side of their business, they provide engines to airlines, private business and engines for helicopters. Major Changes in Industry The nature of the aerospace industry has relatively high barriers to entry as the cost for entry is high and requires specific skills and expertise.  Continue reading

Top 10 Project Management Case Studies with Examples 2024

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