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Category Management - when collaboration between suppliers & retailers is at its best

Category Management - when collaboration between suppliers & retailers is at its best

July 27, 2021

The winner of the Category Management Award will be chosen again this year via the results of the annual Advantage Engagement Program. The Drinks Association has been commissioning Advantage Australia for the past decade to conduct the annual program, which provides members with favourability ratings and qualitative retailer feedback from the off trade, on premise and wholesale channels.

"Collaboration between suppliers and retailers on Category Management can be a powerful combination for achieving growth," explained Steve Andrews, Advantage General Manager.

"The discipline of Category Management continues to be the most significant area of underperformance, and therefore biggest improvement opportunity, for liquor suppliers in Australia. The Category Management Award is designed to recognise the supplier who represents best practice capability, and who retailers consider exemplifies their expectations from the industry.”   

The Category Management Award will celebrate the critical competency of category management, including planning to meet category objectives, providing valuable insights, optimising category assortment and shelving.

“Liquor suppliers have some of the best knowledge and passion for their consumers of any companies in the world. Suppliers who can bring that knowledge objectively to work with retailers to jointly create category development plans are likely to win disproportionate support,” Mr Andrews said.

“It requires a willingness, and capability, to look beyond a brand focus only and consider both the overall category growth opportunities as well as each retailer’s shopper engagement priorities, resulting in a genuine category-first approach.”

The winner of this award is based on the following measurements:

  • Works with partners to develop plans that help meet their category objectives
  • Takes an objective category perspective
  • Provides valuable insights
  • Optimises category assortment and layout

BevChain are sponsoring the Category Management Award. Bevchain’s President, Misha Shliapnikoff said, "As the industry-solution for the drinks trade, BevChain puts tremendous value on being able to engage with our customers beyond the day-to-day direct contact we enjoy.

"The Drinks Association, through the forums, events and introductions it provides, enables us to get involved in the industry-wide conversation. The more deeply we understand what’s going in our customers’ world, the better placed we are to continue to evolve our solutions to ensure we continue to create exceptional supply-chain value within our customers businesses."

The Supplier Awards will be announced on Thursday, 5 August and the winners will be published on the Drinks Association and Drinks Trade websites on Friday, 6 August.

The Australian Drinks Awards will be held on Tuesday, 23 November at the Ivy Ballroom in Sydney when winners of the Supplier awards will be celebrated in person, along with the Brand and Contribution to Industry Awards.

Photo with thanks to New South Wales Wine

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