Category and channel strategy

The quality of your category and channel strategy greatly influences your relationship with retailers. Whether you have an existing strategy ripe for optimisation or need support building from the ground up, we’ll help your team get comfortable gathering and using category insights.

Download the programme summaries

Problems we solve

Category vision and strategy

Consumer behaviours and market trends are changing faster than ever. And organisations with a robust category vision can’t keep up. We help you understand what’s driving change in your categories, uncover how to set your business apart from its competition and enable your team to regularly refresh your strategy.

Expanding category knowledge

It’s no secret that retailers expect suppliers to have a clear category vision and strategy. We help you get to know your category inside-out, uncovering market drivers and opportunities for growth. By showing retailers you understand — and can alleviate — their pressures, you take an important step towards winning their trust.

Building confident commercial teams

Can every member of your sales team talk confidently about your category? Is their knowledge surface-level, or do they share a deep understanding of consumer trends and behaviours? We can help your teams access and absorb the knowledge they need to talk about your business and impress your clients confidently.

Connecting with retailers and vendors

In the battle for retailer and vendor attention, it pays to have a unique point of difference. We work with you to devise an objective category perspective for your business that provides a common ground for connection with retailers. You will consider important industry context, news and pressures, such as inflation and CPI.

Become a category leader

Get ready to drive real change in your customer relationships by devising channel-specific strategies influenced by each customer’s needs and consumption behaviours.

Optimised sales vision

Re-engage your sales team with its category visions and strategies by increasing awareness of how your consumers, shoppers and channels continually evolve.

Exponential growth

Drive retailer engagement by devising a clear account growth strategy, a customer-facing category vision and initiatives designed to maximise opportunities.

Our category and channel solutions

Discover the tools and solutions your consumer-facing teams need to get on the same page as retailers and optimise category efficiency and conversion.

Capability Development

Our programmes are built for your teams’ unique needs. That means we tailor the content to your challenges and use a combination of virtual and face-to-face solutions. Each programme follows three key steps:

DISCOVERY: We understand more about your commercial needs. This enables us to tailor the content to your questions and challenges.

WORKSHOP: Delivered by senior FMCG experts, the workshop delves deeper into your unique situation. Our experts work closely with your team to uncover opportunities and devise plans.

EMBEDDING: This final step ensures your team can put their skills into practice, encompassing several learning elements, including individual coaching sessions, E-learning modules and refresh sessions.

Consulting Solutions

Many businesses benefit from additional in-depth advisory support. Our consulting services help you define the role and purpose of each category in the face of changing consumer behaviour. With the support of commercial experts, you develop best-in-class category visions that support alignment and growth.

Our experts work across all levels of your business to define and execute strategies that consider the needs, expectations and commercial challenges in each category, delivering maximum returns.

Explore our workshops and programmes below!

C-Cubed Programme

In this unique programme, your team will expand their knowledge of your customers, categories and channels with the aim of understanding the importance of category management in growing trading relationships. Participants will learn what it will take to differentiate their team in your customers’ eyes and work on a continual category development plan. And most importantly, we will work with your teams to ensure your plan is successfully implemented with your retail customers.

Category Vision and Strategy Consulting

We work closely with your team to develop a category growth plan. Participants will leave with a clear category vision and supporting strategies informed by insights on consumer and shopper behaviour.

Channel Strategy Consulting

Our experienced industry experts work with your team to create a plan of action based on your established category visions and strategies. Participants will leave with an understanding of how, where and when to execute these solutions.

Embedding tools

Through our in-depth understanding of how learners learn, we have extended our range and style of interventions

The world's leading FMCG suppliers trust Total Negotiation Group

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Hiring TNG has been one of the most significant and impactful decisions I have made in my role. With their help, we have created $5m of net value.

Total Negotiation Group are excellent negotiation experts who take the time to understand your situation and work closely with you on alternative solutions.

A huge thanks to TNG for their hard work on our customer preparation and negotiation this year. It is an area that our business would highlight as a real success and a great building block for the development of the Go To Retail team over the next few years.

I can honestly say it's a pleasure to work with Total Negotiation. They are incredibly collaborative, proactive and innovative. The pace at which we were able to move was remarkable, and their in-depth knowledge and adaptability across markets and individuals was amazing.

Total Negotiation Group takes you through all the different levels of preparation and scenario planning, so that you are always ready at any given moment. You quickly learn the balance of power and tactics that are always at play.

TNG's negotiation programme delivery teams are the best I have seen. They are head and shoulders above anyone else – commercial experience, facilitation skills, best practice sharing... they bring it all!

My experience with Total Negotiation Group has been invaluable. From continuous feedback, to key learnings and building important preparation skills, TNG has been an excellent partner throughout all stages of my negotiations. Working with them has been one of the best key learning experiences of my whole career.

Total Negotiation were trusted to dig deep into our business, to ensure that the capability programmes were not simply "off the shelf", but tailored specifically to our industry, our brands and to the individual delegates. The result was a rich training programme that used industry terminology and examples throughout. This accelerated learning and engaged the team from the first moment.

My team found the Total Negotiation course invaluable in their learning journey. I have witnessed a positive tone in how they are now carrying conversations with our business partners. This is definitely a training course which has not only provided new capabilities, but has been a real confidence booster to the team.

Total Negotiation Group has a way of not just giving you the answers but arming you with the tools and learnings to get you to a recommendation on your own. In most cases, we were able to successfully negotiate either a P&L neutral result or a "pay-for-performance" agreement with many of our key retail partners. Win-win scenarios.

I love the way Total Negotiation Group has built an RGM (Revenue generation management) programme and incorporated core elements of our playbook.

My current senior cohort have been blown away by the quality of the workshop and the way it has been delivered.

I used TNG's negotiation framework this week for internal alignment and preparation... I just closed the price negotiation at the optimal position!

Total Negotiation has been incredibly helpful in bringing clarity of thought and clear guidance in our preparation and implementation of annual negotiations. We have managed to close all key agreements and reach optimal results.

First class experience every time my team and I work with TNG. An experience that puts the business managers at ease, where they can open up about the varied challenges and core issues without any fear of judgement.

TNG has an amazing balance of teaching theory and providing hands-on participation. Their workshops are really inclusive and interesting.

Get in touch

To enquire about working with us or ask a question, get in touch via the form below. One of our negotiation experts will be in touch within 24 hours.