Research Briefings

Research briefings & keynotes

Optima offers two research-led ways to bring this work into your organisation.

The first is a Private Research Briefing: a focused leadership session designed to go beyond the public release and explore the deeper findings, themes and frameworks shaping the future of Category and commercial decision-making.

The second is a Keynote or Leadership Session: a broader, theme-led format designed for offsites, internal events and conference audiences.

Private Research Briefing

A Private Research Briefing is the clearest way to engage with the research in a senior team setting. It is designed for organisations that want to go beyond the headline findings and explore what the research may mean in their own context: where pressure is building, what the six themes suggest, and which capability or operating model questions now matter most.

This session gives leadership teams access to the sub-themes, qualitative insights and proprietary frameworks that sit beneath the headline findings, and uses those to explore what the shifts identified in the research may mean for your organisation's specific commercial context.

Each briefing includes a substantive takeaway deck that captures the key headlines and implications from the session.

A Private Research Briefing is typically used to:

Sharpen leadership thinking on where commercial decision-making is heading
Align senior teams around a clearer view of Category, RGM and retailer expectations
Surface the capability and operating model questions most relevant to the business
Create a shared language teams can use across functions

At a Glance

Format: Virtual or in-person
Typical group: 6-15 participants
Duration: 90 minutes
Includes: Sector-framed leadership session, detailed exploration of the six Future Category themes, supporting frameworks, Q&A and substantive takeaway deck
Optional add-on: CCAI™ Benchmark - internal calibration against the 50-supplier dataset
Timing: Most sessions arranged within 2-3 weeks of an introductory call
Investment: from £2,750 + VAT - scoped to your format and needs

REQUEST BRIEFING

CCAI™ Benchmark Add-on

For organisations that want a more structured internal discussion, the Private Research Briefing can be extended with an optional CCAI™ Benchmark.

This is a directional diagnostic designed to compare internal perceptions of current capability with the future importance of the four capability domains in the Optima Retail Category Capability Alignment Index.

Ahead of the session, 5 to 10 employees complete a short calibration survey. Their scores are averaged and compared with the current 50-supplier benchmark, creating an organisation-specific directional comparison against the industry-relative benchmark.

The CCAI™ Benchmark is designed to:

Add a structured internal calibration to the briefing
Compare your organisation’s directional profile with the current supplier-side benchmark
Highlight relative strengths, weaker areas and possible sources of friction
Support a more specific leadership discussion about implications and next steps

Both the standard briefing and the CCAI add-on are well suited to:

leadership offsites
senior team discussions
internal strategy sessions
annual planning events

EXPLORE THE BENCHMARK

Keynotes and leadership sessions

Keynotes and leadership sessions are broader and more presentation-led than the Private Research Briefing.

They draw on the research, but are not designed as a debrief of the results. Instead, they are built around a chosen theme or leadership challenge and are intended to provoke thinking, create shared language and build momentum with a wider audience.

Our keynotes combine clear, evidence-led insight with practical next steps, designed for executive teams, commercial offsites and industry events.

Keynotes and leadership sessions can help organisations:

Reset the narrative around commercial clarity
Create immediate momentum for leadership and functional discussion
Build shared language around selected themes and priorities
Bring evidence-led thinking into senior forums in a practical, usable way

Well suited to:

Executive and commercial leadership team offsites
Category, Sales, Marketing and Insight town halls
Customer and retailer meetings
Industry events and conferences

Example themes include:

The Future of Category Management
Category’s Strategic Lens: Reclaiming a growth role
Make Today’s Tools and Data Work Harder
AI-Shaped Commercial Decision-Making
One Growth Logic: Aligning Category, RGM and Sales
Building a Category-First Culture

Each session is shaped around the audience, context and leadership questions that matter most. Once we have agreed the theme, we will work you to align on messages that matter most, and the balance between provocation, practical examples and discussion, so the session delivers for the room and remains useful afterwards.

DISCUSS A KEYNOTE OR LEADERSHIP SESSION