In today's highly competitive scenario, the industrial and retail sectors seek alternatives to ensure their continuity in the Brazilian market. To meet consumer expectations, one of the alternatives these sectors have devised is to offer a mix of products tailored to the profile of each group of customers. Within this context, the Category Management (CM) tool and other Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) practices have begun to take hold in the daily routine, culture and strategies of companies. To illustrate how the CM can be an efficiency-optimizing tool in supply chain management, this article discusses the main actions to be developed in the implementation of this tool in small and medium sized supermarkets, its facilitating and limiting characteristics, and criteria for the choice of business partners.
Supply Chain; distribution channels; ECR; Category Management; small and medium sized supermarkets
