ABSTRACT
Creating a category profile requires in-depth research of the organisational expenditure that is incorporated within in each category. This information is normally developed as a precursor to the supply-market profile, as it helps the category team define all of the key internal information relating to the category. A deeper understanding of how a category is bought, managed and consumed across a business will help drive a more effective category strategy. An internal focus means that key stakeholders, users and functions can be identified in order to gauge business-wide coverage. A few category management processes compare the category profiling analysis with current business requirements using Business requirements, which supports the assessment of potential specification gaps. There is general agreement across authors and practitioners alike that completion of the category profile is a worthwhile and useful activity to undertake during the category management process, even if collating the input data can be time-consuming.
