G. Robert James
Vice President, Strategy & Insights
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.
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Mike Spindler, President, Panther Mountain Companies
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Bob Wong, Delmonte,
Chairman of the Category Management Standards & Certification Steering Committee
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Win Weber
Chairman & CEO
Winston Weber & Associates, Inc
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Alison Chaltas
Principal, Interscope
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Tuesday morning Oct 28th Keynote:
Dr. Brian Harris, Chairman and Founder, The Partnering Group
and Dan Salcido, Managing Partner, Organizational Development Practice, The Partnering Group
"Future Trends in Category Management: Focusing on the Shopper, Execution and Organization Capabilities"
Category Management was first introduced to the industry by Dr. Harris almost 20 years ago. In that time, the philosophy and process of Category Management has become a “must have“ in the strategic infrastructure and decision-making toolkits of retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers around the world. Dr. Harris will retrace and highlight the key accomplishments, learnings and challenges of Category Management over the last 20 years. Since this management approach continues to evolve to meet the changing needs and environment of the industry, he will then describe the key advances that are now occurring and those that he expects will occur in the processes and practices of Category Management in the next decade. This vision will provide a “roadmap” for organizations to follow for the continued successful use of Category Management in the years ahead. Dan Salcido, who leads TPG’s Organizational Development and Training Practice, will reinforce a key message of Dr. Harris that the success of Category Management ultimately comes down to people and the capabilities of the organizations in which they work. He will describe the key skills and capability requirements that are needed for success and will present a “blueprint” for the effective development of these skills and capabilities within today’s organizations.
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Tuesday afternoon Oct 28th Plenary Session
The Impending Economic Change and its Effect on the Evolving Grocery Channel
G. Robert James, Vice President, Strategy & Insights, The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.
- What socio-economic factors are impacting our industry?
- Inflation
- Employment
- Consumer Confidence
- Consumer attitude and behavioral shifts – Matures/Boomers/GenX/Millenials
- Alternate Channel Influence
- Plus a Million Other Details (labor pool, union, real estate, global supply/demand shifts, etc., etc., etc.)
- How is this manifest?
- Shift in Spending Behavior
- Volatile Supply Side
- Forcing Increased Cost Control for Retailers
- Channel Blurring Retail Landscape
- Industry Evolution – How we expect the industry to evolve.
- Paradigm Shift
- Consolidation
- Getting out of the middle.
- Localization/regionalization
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Wednesday morning Oct 29th Plenary Session:
No Silver Bullets
One of the keystones to successful category management is the information used to drive the practice, the implementation and the measurement of both the implementation and the results vs. expectation. Mike Spindler has participated in and driven much of the evolution of; that information, the technology, tools and processes that generate it. Spindler has held general management roles at Nielsen, efficient market services, inc., MyWebGrocer, Gladson and now Panther Mountain Companies. In each of these firms he has led the development of systems and process revisions to bring about better, faster, cheaper tools to support Category Management and the implementation of the entire demand chain. He has learned a great deal about what has worked and what has stymied progress. He has put it together in a cross-silo, cross partner prescriptive he calls No Silver Bullets! In this session he will briefly describe the remaining inefficiency issues, the causes and then describe what is needed…and largely in place to finally put all the pieces in place.
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Wednesday afternoon Oct 29th Plenary Session:
A presentation from the Category Management Standards & Certification Steering Committee about the results of the work they have been doing for the last 18 months.
- Bob Wong, Del Monte Foods
Chairman of the Category Management Standards & Certification Steering Committee
This Steering Committee has formed to address industry guidelines for category management standards and certifications -- broadly defined to include establishment of skill areas and minimum levels of capability across relevant areas such as data analysis, space management, and shopper/consumer insights.
Kudos to the following companies who meet monthly by webinar and contribute their expertise:
Abbott Nutrition * Anheuser-Busch * Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages * Colgate-Palmolive * DePaul University * Del Monte * Gerber, Nestle Infant Nutrition * Hormel Foods * Johnson &Johnson * Johnsonville Sausage * Mars Snack Foods USA * Nestle Purina * St Joseph’s University * University of Pittsburg, Katz Business School * Wal-Mart * Western Michigan University
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Thursday morning Oct 30th Plenary Session:
The Future: Shopper Centric Retailing
Win Weber has a worldwide reputation as one of the original architects of category management, introducing the concept through HEB Food & Drug in 1991. He is also credited with introducing retailer/supplier partnering in the US, Mexico, Australia and Asia. Known for his leading edge and strategic thinking, his new Shopper Centric Retailing model is being enthusiastically received. In this session Win will address why and how retailers must restructure their organizations to support a shopper centric approach to the business; the need to move beyond traditional behaviors and performance measures, how the relationship between trading partners must be realigned to support a shopper centric approach to the business, and what this means to CPG manufacturers. He will share details of the new Shopper Centric Retailing business model, the magnitude of change that must take place and importance of beginning the transformation process now.
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Closing Session at Lunch Thursday: P.R.I.S.M.
The shift from in-home traditional media to in-store as a media type is a significant trend. CPG retailers have been involved in that move for a number of years, but the pace through their own branding and new media types is quickening. Internal pressure to participate and external pressure to evaluate expenditures in new media is something manufacturers face every day. The ROI for such a move is a story yet to unfold. At retail, Nielsen In-Store and the P.R.I.S.M. Consortium of manufacturers, agencies and retailers have banded together to try to bring consistency to measurement across media types to include the in-store advertising. The next step is to try to measure and compare media channels and their returns. This will represent a major change on how product assortment decisions are made, how category adjacencies are organized, which products and which advertising vehicles are chosen in combination to satisfy both advertisers, retailers and agency partners.
- Steve Frenda, Managing Director, Strategy and Development, The In-Store Marketing Institute
- Alison Chaltas, Principal, Interscope
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‘I view the Category Management Association Conference as the flagship event and I congratulate the association on providing this important forum for the continued development of professional category management practices".’Dr. Brian Harris
Chairman and Founder
The Partnering Group
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