Category Management Masterclass

Not all spend deserves the same treatment. A category management approach recognises that a critical single-source component, a commoditised office supply, and a strategic long-term services contract all need fundamentally different sourcing strategies — and treating them the same way is where most procurement value gets left on the table. This masterclass gives you a structured framework for telling those categories apart and managing each one deliberately. 

The discipline has come a long way from its retail merchandising roots, where it was used to organise shelf space around customer buying patterns. Today it’s the backbone of how leading procurement functions rationalise spend, structure supplier relationships, and align category strategy with organisational objectives. This hands-on training works through the full toolkit — segmentation models, Total Cost of Ownership, Supplier Portfolio Analysis, Economic Order Quantity — including where AI now accelerates the analysis, so you can move from spreadsheet-heavy category reviews to strategy work that actually changes outcomes.