Catching up with Joe Patti, Vice President, Retail Planning & Category Management, National Retail Sales, Anheuser-Busch Inc.

This month CGT Executive Editor Kara Romanow catches up with Joe Patti, Vice President, Retail Planning & Category Management, National Retail Sales, Anheuser-Busch Inc. He reveals the three things he asks himself everyday and what he views as the most consistent opportunity across his customer base.

  

What keeps you up at night? Fortunately, I sleep well at night. That said, at Anheuser-Busch we pride ourselves on three core principles to category management. They are objectivity, being category and shopper-focused and results oriented. Every day our retail customers rely on our category management team to help them develop recommended strategies and tactics to meet their objectives. I don't want to let them or my team down. There are three main questions I ask myself everyday: 1. How can we bring even more valuable recommendations to our retail customers in the area of category management? Our company has worked for many years to develop best practices and offer our retail customers the best processes and solutions to grow their category sales. In the area of category management, it is my responsibility to ensure that we are researching and investing in the right areas to deliver quality ideas to our customers and to the company; 2. What new learnings and experiences should be added to our best practice library? We are constantly looking at the experiences and successes of our customers and determining how they might be able to help others; and 3. Have I done everything possible to empower my team ' which is spread out across the country ' with the tools, technology and training to help our customers develop strategies and tactics to meet their beer category objectives? How can manufacturers and retailers better collaborate? The key to any successful relationship between a manufacturer and a retailer is having open communication and sharing of ideas. It is important for the manufacturer to understand the go-to-market strategy of the retailer and their category goals and objectives. We see the most success when our retailers are willing to

 

share their goals and experiences with us. The relationship has to be built on trust. If either party does not believe that the other is acting in good faith, it becomes a difficult partnership. That's why our mission is to "become the indispensable trusted choice of our customers." It also is important that both parties have open minds and a willingness to experiment with a bias to action.

 

At Anheuser-Busch, we work to understand our retailers' business issues, their business needs and objectives, and how the beer category fits into the retailers' overall strategy across the entire store. We then develop recommended strategies and tactics to help our retailers meet their business objectives, satisfy their consumers and drive sales and profitability for the beer category.

 

 

The most consistent opportunity we see is out-of-stocks. Balancing a variety of SKUs with SKU in-stock conditions is an ongoing opportunity and a challenge. In my view, this is one of the biggest issues facing the industry today. Our research has consistently shown that the shopper impact of out-of-stocks is very large, both in terms of shopper satisfaction and retailer sales and profits. There is nothing more frustrating to a customer than going to the store to purchase a specific product and not being able to find it. Anheuser-Busch and our wholesalers have invested a great amount of resources in both people and technology to help address this issue for our customers and to make sure they have the products their customers are looking for -- the first time.

 

 

We have broadened our portfolio and offer even more choices to our consumers. Our approach to category management has always focused on the entire beer category so much of the transition is transparent to the retailers. The well-known import brands like Becks and Stella Artois appeal to beer drinkers looking for sophisticated imports in their beer choices. They complement our portfolio of domestic and imported beers and enable our company to better compete. In turn, we are able to help our retailers offer a more diverse product selection. The category management tools we've always offered our retailers are easily used for these new brands. CG