Category Management: Assortment Matrix Optimization by the Case of Sport-ex

Category management is the main platform where brand owners interact with retailers. Product category management in retail is a language, process structure, and metrics for communicating all strategic and tactical recommendations to the seller. Category management is not just a department that creates beautiful planograms, but rather a fundamental discipline that deals with consumer research or brand strategy development. As practice shows, successfully mastering or neglecting category management methods is what separates leaders from followers. The relevance of this work is confirmed by the transition to a post-industrial economy that requires new ways of managing and actively developing competition in the consumer market by optimizing business processes, studying the consumer preferences of the target audience and its retention. Indeed, during economic and political instability, an increasing part of retail business is considering using category management techniques to reduce the overall cost of storing inventory, reduce the OOS indicator (Out-of-Stock), increase profits by optimizing the assortment and layout, as well as understand consumer behavior in the category by customer field research. Based on the research, appropriate conclusions were made about the effectiveness of using this technique and a basis was created for the use of category management practices for the Sport-ex. The purpose of the work is to make a practical comprehensive analysis of the "bicycles" category of the sport-ex and suggest steps to optimize the assortment in order to increase sales and reduce inventory storage costs. The tasks are the following: 1. Reveal the concept and essence of category management 2. Describe in detail the process of category management 3. Describe and analyze the process of product selection by the customer 4. Examine the roles of parties in retail (supplier-retailer) 5. Analyze the category and range of the Sport-ex retailer The object of research is category management: theoretical foundations and application practices. The subject of research is the structure of categories, the process of category management and practical optimization of the category. The theoretical basis of the research was formed by the main scientific concepts of management theory, marketing, Economics, as well as theoretical research in the field of trade organization, product assortment management, joint management of product categories, trade Economics, category management by both Russian and foreign authors. The information base of the research was articles of scientific journals, publications of University research, industry reports, educational practical materials and Internet resources. Theoretical and practical significance. The theoretical significance of the dissertation research is to form a comprehensive view of category management and ways of its joint management by the retailer and supplier. The practical significance of the research is to encourage the use of category management tools for solving topical applied problems by small businesses. The results of the research can be used in management practice when optimizing the assortment, developing a pricing policy, and customer demand research . The work is divided into three chapters: Theoretical, application of category management in the world practice, and practical. The first section deals with the essence of category management as a strategic process of managing a category by a retailer and supplier, the types and structure of categories, as well as the stages of implementing category management in an organization. In the second section, the thesis describes world category management practices and the role of the category captain and category manager in the process of managing categories. In the third section, methods and practices of category management are applied on Sport-ex in order to optimize the range and increase its sales.