Ever wish you could peer into the future and see what’s coming next? To better understand what technology investments are being prioritized to reach the modern shopper, we surveyed more than 130 category management and merchandising professionals as part of this year’s Voice of the Category Manager survey. Following are some key takeaways:
Understanding shopper behavior is a top focus
The need to better understand the modern shopper is driving the priorities of both retail and manufacturing respondents. In the next five years, nearly half of the survey respondents plan to invest in customer-driven data science, a 16 percent increase since JDA conducted the first Voice of the Category Manager survey in 2017.
Consumer data mining yields results for many
Survey respondents’ ability to effectively mine and leverage consumer data has improved significantly in the past two years. More than one quarter of respondents feel they are very successful when it
comes to mining consumer data to generate usable insights, a 50 percent increase since the 2017 Voice of the Category Manager survey.
The ability to conduct a deeper analysis of shopper personas, patterns and trends are just a few of the ways in which customer-driven data science can be used to drive smarter and more strategic decisions for each store and customer group.
Digital technologies and personalization top investment priorities
As respondents look to adopt new technology solutions, the top two priorities driving their investments are: using automation to do more with less, and the ability to leverage consumer insights to support localization, dynamic pricing and improved merchandising.
Whether a category management and merchandising strategy is successful hinges on its ability to enhance the customer experience. To do that well, retailers and manufacturers alike are increasingly turning to analytics-driven tools to gain insights about shopper behaviors at the macro and local market level, which can then be leveraged to create localized, space-aware assortment plans that drive profitable growth.
Interested in learning more?
Download the 2019 Voice of the Category Manager survey to read the entire report. Also, see how JDA is continuing to enhance its market-leading category management solutions for manufacturers and retailers through its partnerships with dunnhumby and InContext Solutions to help you fine-tune your merchandising decisions and drive further category growth.
