Category capability built around live commercial decisions
More data, better tools and wider access to AI do not automatically produce better commercial decisions. The advantage comes from the judgement to frame the right question, expose the trade-offs and turn evidence into action.
Our training builds that judgement inside the Category team, and helps the wider commercial team use that thinking as a shared way to frame growth decisions, not a specialist analysis handed over at the end. The result is recommendations the business can commit to and that stand up to retailer challenge.
Discuss your team's capability priorities →Current and research-led
Informed by ongoing primary research with more than 200 commercial professionals, spanning 29 countries.
Applied to live work
Built around the categories, decisions and commercial calendar already in front of your team, not a hypothetical case study.
Led from both sides
Simon spent 10 years making Category and buying decisions at Sainsbury's and Tesco. Since 2013, he has helped suppliers unlock retail growth and strengthen commercial strategy. He leads every engagement through to the three-month review.
After the workshop
Every engagement ends with agreed application commitments and includes a three-month review of what was applied, what changed and what should happen next.
Where the work usually starts
Built for Category and commercial teams that already understand the fundamentals but need sharper questions, stronger analysis, recommendations that hold up under challenge and greater influence over commercial decisions. Most conversations begin with one or more of these challenges:
- Your team produces good analysis, but it doesn't consistently change what the business or the retailer decides.
- Category, Sales, RGM and Insight each hold different pieces of the commercial picture, and turning them into one decision-ready recommendation is where progress stalls.
- You've invested in data or AI and know there's more value available, but its impact on decision quality is inconsistent, and the next priority isn't clear.
What changes through the training
Category doesn't need to become everyone's job for Category thinking to shape more of the business. We help teams use it earlier in the decision: to frame the question, connect the evidence and make the trade-offs visible before the answer is already formed.
- The team starts with the decision that needs making, not the data that happens to be available.
- The team connects the evidence, objectives and constraints across Sales, RGM, Insight and leadership into one commercial diagnosis, rather than treating each perspective separately.
- Recommendations carry the trade-offs, not just the answer, so they hold up when challenged in the room.
- Data and AI get pointed at the question that matters, with someone clearly accountable for the judgement that follows.
We use the initial calibration to prioritise which of these changes will move performance fastest, given your people, data, tools and commercial priorities.
Two ways we build this capability
Both programmes are tailored to your priorities and applied to live commercial work, typically combining one or two workshop days with a short CCAI™ calibration and the included three-month review.
Future Category
Future Category applies our ongoing research into how Category and commercial decision-making are changing, drawn from data and first-hand interviews alike, to the live decisions in your business. It helps teams become more future-fit without waiting for a full structural redesign, building four capabilities:
Frame the decision, not just the analysis
Define the question that matters and concentrate depth where it can change the answer, not where the data is easiest to analyse.
Build one commercial diagnosis
Connect data, shopper evidence and retailer context so different functions can see how their evidence fits into the same commercial picture.
Make the trade-offs explicit
Show what the recommendation means for growth, retailer relationships and delivery, not just the headline answer.
Build the route to action
Design the work around the people, forums and decisions that determine whether it moves forward.
The result: a Category team that helps the organisation make better growth decisions, not just one that supplies the analysis behind them.
Built on our ongoing Future of Category research. Read the research →
AI in Category Management
AI in Category Management takes the same research-informed, live-work approach into practical AI use. Where Future Category addresses how AI changes the questions and judgement teams need, this programme builds repeatable workflows inside your approved tools and ways of working.
Identify where AI adds real value
Understand where AI can genuinely improve the speed or depth of Category work, and where it adds risk or noise instead.
Build repeatable workflows
Frame the question, supply the right context, test outputs and validate the evidence.
Apply AI to live Category work
Use those workflows inside your organisation's tools, data rules and ways of working, so outputs can be understood and used by the wider commercial team, not just Category.
The result: practical AI capability that improves Category work without replacing the judgement behind it.
Looking for an individual place? Join the open AI in Category Management course waitlist →Case Study
Category thinking, applied at scale
In a wider Insight Driven Value programme for Panasonic, developed with Panasonic and two specialist agency partners, Optima's contribution focused on shopper understanding, Category growth and go-to-market strategy.
The 11-module programme ran over 12 months in English and Japanese, growing from an initial group of 20 colleagues.
"Through this unique collaboration not only have we developed new capabilities for the Panasonic business, we have started a new conversation which now has its own momentum across the business.
We look forward to seeing the fruits of this new approach in the months and years to come!"
How each engagement runs: Benchmark, Apply, Commit, Review
01 — BENCHMARK
Using CCAI™, a short team calibration places your capability in context against responses from commercial professionals working across more than 100 manufacturer organisations in our primary research, rather than relying only on an internal view of where you stand. We use it to focus where the engagement goes deepest.
02 — APPLY
Every session works through a live commercial decision, using your own categories, commercial calendar, data and the perspectives of the functions that shape it.
03 — COMMIT
Every engagement ends with the team agreeing two to three specific changes to apply, whether to the questions they ask, how functions work together or how decisions move through the business. These are signed off with your programme sponsor, creating clear authority and accountability.
04 — REVIEW
Three months on, we come back for an included 60 to 90 minute session, review the agreed commitments and examples of the team's work since, and agree the next capability focus.
Arranging a call
A short capability conversation with Simon. We'll discuss where decision-making is getting stuck, which functions need to be better connected, what change would matter most in practice, and whether Future Category or AI in Category Management is the right fit. No brief or preparation required.
Discuss your team's capability priorities →