Procurement Category Management Experts

Many organisations that claim to have adopted a category management approach have simply organised their teams into category groupings. They focus on volume consolidation and competitive tension, and rarely have they trained their teams in category strategy development and implementation.

Those organisations that have optimised and embedded category management have transformed procurement teams into influential commercial experts and trusted business partners. They see a step change in the scale and range of value opportunities they help their organisations to identify and implement.

Co-creation in Category Management is fundamental for greater value

Its value lies in deep collaboration with stakeholders and alignment to their requirements. These behaviours result in the widest possible range of value levers being accessed for each category – covering cost reduction, risk reduction, sustainability and revenue improvement.

Other performance outcomes that will be improved:

Significant uplift in stakeholder satisfaction and engagement: With co-creation of category strategies at the heart of the approach, stakeholder’s understanding, motivation and commitment increases dramatically.

Speed and quality of strategy creation and implementation: Support from motivated and committed stakeholders ensures that relevance and quality of category management strategies increases, as does implementation success.

Increase in procurement capability and professionalism: Improvements in category management specific learning and behaviours can be measured through assessments with managers and peers.

Boost in category manager confidence: Operating as a trusted advisor to stakeholders is a key aim for category managers, and by using category management effectively they report increased confidence in working with stakeholders.