Strong senior management support for the category management process is critical for successful deployment of category management in an organization. Without the support of senior management across the organization, category teams will face changes in stakeholder resistance.
Some executives are more open to category management and the idea of approaching supply decisions more strategically than others, and we will begin with them. Executives who view procurement as a tactical purchasing function will not support the investment of time and cross-functional resources to create a strategy, and may openly resist implementing category management.
One of the first indicators of readiness to embrace category management is business structure. Numerous discrete operating units with separate P&Ls encourage and reward very different executive behaviors than organizations with collaborative, cross-business leadership structures. In short, implementing category management brings about changes that require investment and executive commitment. The results can be immense, but without executive leadership, broader organizational resistance to change may block efforts.
Read more about The Global Category Manager’s Handbook