Category Management (1997-2000)

The Category management project of ECR Europe consisted of 2 distinct phases:

1) Providing a basic roadmap for category management
At the inception of ECR many retailers and suppliers focussed their ECR programmes only on efficiency improvements for the supply side, whereas Category Management also integrates the more consumer-oriented strategies of ECR. Category Management provides a working process to realise the benefits of each ECR strategy for a category in a framework of supplier-retailer co-operation. Category Management is, therefore, a key component for ECR success since it can be a catalyst to changes that enhance both cost savings as well as turnover, profit and market share growth. Category Management allows a retailer and its suppliers to move concurrently towards capturing important cost savings, while at the same time focusing on more effective, consumer-oriented marketing and merchandising practices. Experience shows that practitioners of Category Management find their greatest benefits in the area of creating consumer demand.

• The objectives of the project was to provide European industry with:
• A standard Category Management approach, including a methodology, specific definitions and work processes for use by the European industry.
• Sufficient details and insights to allow a company to evaluate the potential adoption of Category Management practices as a means to improve its competitiveness in the marketplace and its business results.

Project facilitators: Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and The Partnering Group

2) Making category management part of daily operations
The ECR Europe Day-to-Day Category Management project, a team of retailers, manufacturers and marketing information providers from across Europe, pooled their expertise and transformed category management from a project based approach to a day to day business process.

A "one size fits all" solution is unlikely to work given the widely varying levels of resource, data availability and experience in countries, companies and categories across Europe. The project therefore identified a "continuum solution" whereby a set of key business questions can be answered in different ways - and with different levels of sophistication - appropriate to the situation at hand; guidance was also given on how to find an appropriate position on this continuum.

A core set of 25 templates was provided as a starting point, along with suggestions for additional and alternative means of analysis. Considerable guidance was also given in the crucial areas of implementation and review. All templates are included in the guide and can be downloaded by clicking here.

Project facilitator: Andersen Consulting (now Accenture)

CASE STUDIES presented at ECR Europe Conferences

Brussels 2004
Starter seminar on category management, including cases by:
Carrefour - Colgate Palmolive
Arla Foods 

Berlin 2003
Auchan - Colgate Palmolive
Haussmann - L'Oréal

Barcelona 2002
dm DrogerieMarkt - Johnson & Johnson
Carrefour - Gillette

Glasgow 2001
Coop Switzerland - Procter & Gamble