From Category Management to Category Leadership

As the industry prepares to come together for The Future of Category Leadership event on 23 June, one thing is clear: category management, as we have traditionally known it, is no longer enough.

The pressures facing retailers, suppliers and shoppers alike, from cost-of-living challenges and sustainability demands to rapid shifts in shopper behaviour and technology, require a step change in how categories are led.

This is not about discarding the fundamentals of category management. Instead, it is about elevating the role of category teams into true category leadership: broader in scope, more inclusive in mindset, and focused on long-term growth through behaviour change, collaboration and innovation.

Drawing on insights from IGD’s Future of Category Leadership research programme, our webinar and the work IGD has been leading with the industry, this article explores what that shift really means and what the future holds.

Why category leadership, and why now?

At the heart of the evolution from category management to category leadership is a simple but powerful idea: categories exist to change shopper behaviour and unlock growth, not just to optimise short-term performance.

At a previous IGD event, Tim Mason, former CMO of Tesco, captured this perfectly when he challenged the industry to ask whether it is truly changing what people see and do when they shop, in-store and online. In a market where many categories face flat or declining volumes, growth will have to come from influencing behaviour: new missions, new occasions, new needs and new value propositions.

Category leadership responds to this challenge by:

• Shifting focus from executional tasks to strategic impact.

• Moving beyond brand or supplier-centric thinking to a category-first mindset.

• Taking responsibility not just for performance today, but for the future health of the category.

From doing more to doing what matters most

One of the most important insights from IGD’s work is that category teams cannot do everything. Through collaboration with 11 suppliers across a typical supermarket store, IGD has developed a Category Leadership Maturity Model that identifies 39 different category activities.

The data shows a clear mismatch between:

• Where time is spent today, e.g., creating objective recommendations and tactical delivery.

• Where time will need to be spent in future to drive leadership and growth.

The most critical areas for the future include:

• Insight-led innovation.

• Compelling category visions.

• Strategic retailer relationships.

• Category-led business planning.

• Embedding a category-first mindset across organisations.

Category leadership is, therefore, not about adding more tasks, but about re-prioritising effort towards the activities that genuinely inform and drive growth.

Inclusive by design: leadership beyond job titles

A key theme running through the webinar was inclusivity. Category leadership is not confined to category managers, nor is it owned by one function.

True category leadership:

• Brings together category, commercial, marketing, insight and innovation teams.

• Encourages collaboration across suppliers and retailers, without defaulting to commercial negotiations.

• Creates space for both senior leaders and emerging talent to step forward.

This inclusive approach is reflected in IGD’s latest phase of work, which recognises the industry’s growing complexity and the need to develop the next generation of category leaders. The launch of a cross-industry mentoring programme, pairing 18 senior leaders with 18 mentees, underlines that leadership is as much about capability-building and culture as it is about frameworks and tools.

What great category leadership looks like in practice

Insights from the supplier panels brought the concept of category leadership to life, showing how it is already being embedded in leading organisations.

Common principles included:

1. Framing category-led thinking as a growth enabler

Category leadership resonates most when it is clearly linked to sustainable growth – for the retailer, the category and the supplier. Growing the category, not just brand share, creates a stronger foundation for long-term success.

2. Embedding category thinking into core processes

From innovation ideation to commercial planning, category leadership works best when it is built into standard decision-making, not treated as an add-on.

3. Making visions actionable and engaging

The strongest category visions balance ambition with practicality. They are:

• Consumer-centric and grounded in long-term trends.

• Clear on the “so what” and “how”, not just the insight.

• Brought to life creatively – through video, visuals, workshops and storytelling – to drive engagement and belief.

4. Treating sustainability as a hygiene factor, not a badge

Environmental, social and economic sustainability must sit at the heart of category thinking. Rather than a standalone growth driver, it is increasingly viewed as an essential foundation for future-proof categories.

Innovation: building tomorrow, not just refreshing today

Innovation emerged as one of the clearest differentiators between category management and category leadership.

While renovation and incremental innovation play an important role, category leadership demands greater focus on unmet and unstated needs, the spaces where shoppers cannot yet articulate what they want, but where future growth lies.

As discussed during the webinar:

• Renovation tends to serve short-term needs and defend the core.

• Category-extending innovation creates new occasions, new missions and new value pools.

Crucially, this kind of innovation does not always score highest in traditional research or deliver immediate scale. It requires bravery, test-and-learn approaches and patience, qualities that category leaders must actively champion.

IGD’s role in driving industry-wide change

What sets IGD’s work on category leadership apart is its collaborative nature. Retailers and suppliers have been brought together not to negotiate, but to co-create the future of the discipline.

So far, this has included:

• Three open-access reports, including Shaping the Future of Category Leadership and Retailer Perspectives on Category Leadership.

• Over 400 survey responses across suppliers and retailers.

• Deep dives into priority topics such as Insight-Led Innovation, with more to come on organisational design and capability gaps.

By grounding this work in data, shared learning and real-world application, IGD is helping the industry move from aspiration to action.

Looking ahead to 23 June

The Future of Category Leadership event on 23 June is a chance to bring this thinking to life, sharing progress, challenging assumptions and exploring what comes next.

The shift from category management to category leadership is not a trend or a rebrand. It is a fundamental change in how the industry thinks about growth, collaboration and value creation.

For those willing to embrace a broader, more inclusive and more future-focused role, category leadership offers a powerful opportunity: to shape not just categories, but the future of the industry itself.