Last year, conference chairman Luc Desmedt presented a unique study on category management in food retail. This zoomed in on current topics, such as price and promo pressure, retail media. It is often said that food is ahead of non-food: this is why RetailDetail and LD&Co are conducting the study this year among non-food retailers in do-it-yourself, garden, electronics, pharma, drugstore… Also curious to find out whether this statement is true and interested in gaining insight into what category management means for non-food? Then don’t hesitate and register for the conference!

Category management is a profession in its own right. From his years of experience at leading companies like Douwe Egberts and Lotus Bakeries, Pascal Deckers will explain his hands-on vision on category management. How do you transform category management into a strategic spearhead within commercial organisations? What tangible results does thinking from the category and the shopper lead to? How do you achieve a win-win-win result for retailer, manufacturer and shopper?

The founding father of category management will give his views on the past, present and future of category management via live streaming from Los Angeles. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the process? How does shopper marketing relate to category management? What is the role of retail media in category management? What can we expect from AI?

Successful retailing hinges on knowing your shoppers. Who visits your store, which shoppers do you manage to convert to category buyers, what do they ultimately spend on this category? This and much more detailed information is collected thanks to Consumer Panel Services GfK’s consumer panel. For this anniversary edition, Davy Van Raemdonck brings some cases where this panel data contributed to category development. Davy also gives an overview of the latest market and shopper trends within FMCG.

Luc Verschueren has extensive Category Management experience and also participated in the research on CatMan in non-food retail. Consequently, he’s well placed to share and discuss his reaction to the results. We pay special attention to his views on strategic collaboration with suppliers, what his expectations are in this regard and to what extent these are met.

To what extent can the potential of category management be exploited in a channel where there is relatively little data available, and usually limited resources? What data is available and how can it be used? To what extent can there be strategic collaboration with out-of-home customers? Where are there still opportunities, what are the main threats? A duo presentation with Julie De Buck, Category Manager Away from Home.

Laurence van de Putte has extensive Category Management experience and also participated in the research on CatMan in non-food retail. Consequently, she’s well placed to share and discuss her reaction to the results. We pay special attention to her views on strategic collaboration with suppliers, what her expectations are in this regard and to what extent these are met.

What’s in it for you?

• Practical Tips
• Winning strategies
• Networking
• Experienced professionals on stage

Language

• Most presentations are in Dutch
• Slides in English or Dutch