Category/Commodity Management

Implementing Category/Commodity Management is a key step for a maturing supply chain organization. The transition from “picking the low hanging fruit” to the alignment of your supply chain team with the company’s strategic objectives provides many challenges. The initial steps in the development of Category/Commodity Strategies involve exploring outside of the traditional tactical focus of a Procurement organization. Strategic questions that need to be explored include:

• What will our products look like in 2 years?, In 5 years?
• What materials will we be using to manufacture our products?
• What will our manufacturing footprint look like globally, and how will our operations need to be supported with materials and services?
• How are customer expectations changing on product styles and product quality?
• How are the global supply markets for the materials and products we are buying changing?
• How are these supply markets forecasted to change over the next 2-3 years?, Over the next 5 years?

Understanding the answers to these questions and more will allow your organization to develop a gap analysis between the current state of your supply chain and the future state that will be required to meet the needs of the company.

At Northern Star Consulting, our team has over 25 years of hands-on experience in developing and implementing integrated Category/Commodity Strategies. Our consultants work hand-in-hand with Senior Management, Supply Chain, Operations, Marketing, Sales, Quality, Engineering and Finance at our clients to develop and implement the right strategies to meet the evolving needs of the company.