Category – Management, Captaincy & Leadership skills

Category Management is a retailing concept in which the total range of products sold in a store is broken down into discrete groups of similar or related products; these groups are known as product categories. Each category is then run like a "mini business" (Business Unit) in its own right, with its own set of turnover, targets and strategies.

An important facet of Category Management is the shift in relationship between retailer and supplier: instead of the traditional adversarial relationship, the relationship moves to one of collaboration, exchange of information and data and joint business building.

The focus of all negotiations is centered on the effects of the turnover of the total category, not just the sales on the individual products therein. Suppliers are expected, indeed in many cases, mandated to only suggest new product introductions, a new planogram or promotional activity if it is expected to have a beneficial effect on the turnover or profit of the total category and be beneficial to the shoppers of that category. The concept was initiated, and is still most commonly found in Grocery (Mass merchandising) retailing, but now also found in other retail sectors such as DIY, Cash and Carry, Pharmacy/Drugstore and even Book retailing.

Category Captaincy

It is commonplace for one particular supplier in a category to be nominated by the retailer as a Category Captain. The Category Captain will be expected to have the closest and most regular contact with the retailer and will also be expected to invest time, effort, and often financial investment into the strategic development of the category within the retailer.

The above is the spiel of text books. In real life or shall I say Retail Life the category captain is what every brand tries to project itself as and fights bitterly with retailers for that bit of extra space for a poster or dangler to be put up.
In such a scenario only the most creative brand is able to hold its own.
The test of a Category Captain is not in being able to get the most communication and shelf space rather its in being the fastest selling and most relevant communicator. Inorder to achieve this target the Brand needs to have some basic skill sets.

Leadership skills
The attributes that you look for in a good leader of men (think Obama ) are the same ones that you look for in a Category leader. e.g.
1) A leader should be able to lead through innovations, new thoughts and foresight – new product features, offers and correctly predicting the future market situations
2) A leader should work for the greater good eschewing his own – even if a Category captain does not have each and every product that forms a part of the category basket that should not stop it from thinking on behalf of the whole category
3) A leader should be able to lead his people to safety in dire times – in times of low sales, recession and other problems a Category Captain has to continue to be a good leader by working out solutions on behalf of the entire category.

I am sharing here some pictures of a category leadership exercise taken by an erstwhile client J&J while working for Ramms.
Challenge:
J&J continues to be the most trusted brand in babycare in India and the challenge was to reinforce the leadership position of the brand while uplifting the look and feel of the entire Babycare category in modern retail. The clear diktat from the retailer was that no brand name should be visible on the communication.
Solution:
By a clever usage of the brand images and colours the brand association was made apparent while the interesting and cute looking headers and side boards added an element of interest in an otherwise dull category.
Since this exercise J&J has come up with many other such activities and competitors have also followed suit with similar activities of their own. However this was the first activity undertaken in this category and hence is considered a Pathbreaker.