Page 60 - Retail World March 2021

CATEGORY MANAGEMENT FROM PAGE 57 management, put planograms at the forefront of category management for both retailers and suppliers: both need to be more agile and have experienced resources available in category and space management. Why is space such an important strategic capability for suppliers and retailers? Space and floor planning capabilities are where the ‘rubber hits the road’ for category management and are critical to successful retailing – optimising space, inventory, speed to market, meeting geographic and demographic differences by store, delivering on shelf availability and improved customer satisfaction, and delivering category KPIs and profitability. The advancements in technology and solutions have accelerated in recent years with space automation, assortment management and advancements in space planning and 3D store layouts. These advancements are allowing retailers to make smarter and faster space decisions, combined with the utilisation of the latest data in shopper behaviour and category performance. We’ve worked closely with retailers and suppliers to bring to life best- in-class solutions and enablement of space systems and processes. Some of our clients have achieved exceptional results embracing and accelerating this new world of space management and can now move faster and accelerate projects to meet the changing landscape in retailing, and to deliver category and customer plans that drive growth. This is called competitive advantage. What are the benefits for both retailers and suppliers in a collaborative approach to category management? The most successful results in category management we’ve seen is when retailers and suppliers work together to deliver category plans and planograms to meet the needs of their shoppers and consumers. Gone are the days of making a basic PowerPoint deck with a picture at the back of a planogram from suppliers. It just doesn’t cut it and it’s not good enough anymore. It never really was ... aligned category plans and planograms are a critical part of the category management process. A collaborative approach with a true understanding of what’s important is what’s needed to be a leader within category management and deliver results. A true category approach with specific planograms and range solutions (eg, demographic, size, assortments) and bringing to life true insights that drive growth to the category and meet the shopper’s needs is what’s required to deliver a best-in-class result. How can suppliers work to deliver a collaborative approach? The first thing to understand, and deliver against, is that each retailer in each channel is different and will most likely have their own way of conducting category reviews. No two categories are the same, and no two retailers use the same process. But there are some commonalities among category reviews: the need for a category approach, performance and shopper understanding, and insights driven from shopper research and post-review evaluations. Key areas of development and the formula for success are determining KPIs, knowing the category and range intimately, understanding the key category influencer metrics, determining product and category growth opportunities and risks, planning out your retail activation, and delivering the category review and cycle with an aligned and collaborative approach. It’s an important opportunity for your business, having the right resources and skills in place to build a best-in- class category review and position you as a category thought leader. Bring solutions to the retailer’s table, not problems, issues or challenges! Haley Group brings to life the best- in-class approach with collaborative partners in the industry – Focus Insights, 3DVR Solutions, and rev Branding – to deliver industry leading thinking and solutions. So, from your perspective, businesses need to embrace category and space management and be fast and agile to be successful. Absolutely. There’s been a belief in the industry, or a blindside in strategy, that only the bigger suppliers can be category thought leaders, and retailers aren’t engaging with smaller suppliers in category plans and space management. While I’m sure that some retailers and suppliers are approaching category management this way, I’ve seen a definite shift in the embrace of the collaborative approach. As I mentioned earlier, the companies that are collaborating with their trade partners and being agile in their approach are experiencing more success and a greater outcome than those that don’t. Over the longer term, this will open the divide with significant competitive advantage to those that choose the collaborative approach. What are the applicable channels for space management? Space management has been around for decades and delivered in many ways, from the early days of visual merchandising with magnet boards and pen-and-ink layouts, and teams of people going from store to store aligning merchandise standards across the chain, to the high-end integrated supply chain to planograms systems that we use today. There’s a critical tipping point when it becomes unviable both financially and practically to go from store to store executing merchandise standards manually without the support of sophisticated space platforms to guide and deliver the outcome. The ability of category and space solutions \[is\] to uniform and align best practice to every store, allowing strategy to be applied in-store in both a fast and cost-effective way. We’ve worked across different retail sectors and channels, and the need/ question is the same. How do we expand our stores and how do we drive our strategy at retail in a uniform and efficient way? Both retailers and suppliers are benefiting from advancements in space delivering best-in-class planograms, strategy to retail, perfect store plans, manufacturing efficiencies through utilising space in portfolio planning, and embracing space planning as a key part of the category management process. What’s next for Haley Group? Haley Group is well positioned to assist our clients in advancing category and space management and, given 58 RETAIL WORLD MAR, 2021