What is Category Strategy?

Category strategy is the process of understanding the internal stakeholders’ product and service requirements and analyzing the marketplace to understand market trends, cost drivers, and risks, and building a strategy that aligns stakeholder requirements with the realities of the supply market.

Depending on the complexity and the spend associated with the category, the process further involves determining optimal relationship characteristics and price/cost issues, developing a business case for moving forward, developing and executing a negotiation and contract strategy, establishing a basis for ongoing management and continuous improvement of supplier management for that category, and transitioning this responsibility to appropriate stakeholders.