Category Management Overview

Category Management: Engaging Stakeholders, Delivering Results

An effective sourcing and supplier management strategy requires a good understanding of procurement best practices, but it also requires detailed knowledge of the spend category and the marketplace. As procurement departments strive to provide more value outside of traditional spend categories, they must initially leave the cost discussion at the door, and instead focus on strategic ways that they may be able to help the often reluctant stakeholders and spend managers.

As category management becomes more important to procurement’s duties, departments find themselves heavily involved in leveraging their skills to manage suppliers and further develop markets.

A proper category management plan facilitates business development through target definition and accurate forecasting. This means understanding the goals of the organization as a whole and developing a strategy for the category you manage that is well aligned with those goals. Once a plan is established, suppliers must be identified that can support those short-term and long-term initiatives. In addition, internal resources must be developed through education and training to facilitate the new category management objectives. Besides tracking supplier performance, continuous tracking of industry trends should be performed, and information should be shared with the department’s procurement and strategic sourcing supports on a regular basis.

A strong category management program allows procurement and strategic sourcing departments to get involved in the development of new products, technologies, services and strategies. An effective category management plan enables the company to work with suppliers to speed up the time between initiative adoption and full implementation while also providing a layer of continual strategy adjustment once a new supplier or contract has been initiated.

As part of the proactive category management duties, procurement and sourcing groups must come to understand every organizational department’s needs and concerns. It is only then that procurement and sourcing will earn its seat at the planning table, which is where it needs to be in order to effectively manage, source, and develop category strategies.

Corcentric is well equipped to help your team with its category management duties. Our experts have delivered detailed market analyses to scores of clients across the globe, identifying needs, successes, and future opportunities. Our experts are renowned for defining industry best practices and are ready to work with your team to isolate and capitalize on the things that make your organization stand above its peers.

Corcentric’s experts have backgrounds in strategic sourcing and spend management but speak the same language as finance, IT, marketing, and most departments within your organization. We know what each department holds important across each category, and can help you build credibility by working with their stakeholders to develop each and every category.