Engagement Overview
The client wanted to identify and capitalize on new opportunities. To enhance their product offerings by refining their product development strategies, the petrochemical industry client approached SpendEdge to help them gain an improved understanding of different supply chain categories, their customers, and disruptive forces across the industry.
To help the petrochemical industry client identify category-specific best practices, a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of different categories was carried out by the category management experts. 
The engagement also helped the client generate innovative business ideas, which, in turn, helped them to enhance their business efficiency.
About the Client
A world leader in the petrochemical industry space with business units spread across multiple geographies.
Business Challenge
The client was facing stiff challenges in enhancing their product development strategies.
How did SpendEdge Help the Client?
Step 1: Detailed inspection of customer needs across different categories to generate new product ideas
A detailed understanding of customer needs was obtained by implementing category management solutions. It included comprehensive insights that were obtained through an analysis of product development trends and product mapping studies.
Step 2: Developed a three-step methodology to tactically address the challenges across diverse categories
The experts followed a structured approach comprising of data validation, industry analysis, stakeholder reviews to develop an accurate product development strategy.
Key questions answered in this category management engagement
Benefits of the Engagement
With the help of the category management engagement, the petrochemical industry client eliminated irrelevant information and extracted precise content to deliver actionable insights to category managers. The engagement also helped the client monitor all the developments across the establishment’s direct and indirect procurement categories.
Why incorporate category management?
Category management helps companies to leverage the demand across the enterprise to achieve maximum savings. Moreover, the rise of globalization and growing technological advancements have resulted in the rapid evolution of procurement categories and business models across industries. This has made it obligatory for procurement professionals to leverage category management solutions and adopt a pro-active approach to category planning.
Our Findings
Today, category management entails access to comprehensive and timely insights to devise a precise category plan. Additionally, appropriate updates on category developments are essential to identify the early warning signals and curtail supply chain disruptions across business units. Furthermore, it is important to keep track of indirect procurement categories such as – HR, IT, finance, and logistics, which can lead to significant liabilities for companies.
