Next Generation Category Management: Why Traditional Models No Longer Work

Welcome to Next Generation Category Management, a five-part series exploring how AI and personalized consumer response are transforming the way retailers and manufacturers work together.

In this kickoff episode, Julie Beck, Chief Customer Officer at Intent AI, is joined by Dr. Brian Harris, widely recognized as the father of category management, to examine why the traditional frameworks that once defined the industry are no longer enough.

Dr. Harris reflects on the early days of category management and explains how shifting consumer behavior, intensified competition, and new data technologies are accelerating the need for reinvention. Drawing from decades of hands-on experience and his current work as President of Intent AI, Dr. Harris introduces a modernized approach built for today’s fast-moving, data-rich retail environment.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why category management—once revolutionary—has become too tactical, backward-looking, and inefficient
• How “waves” of retail evolution have shaped the shift from ECR (Efficient Consumer Response) to PCR (Personalized Consumer Response)
• The real reasons joint business planning often fails to deliver mutual value
• Why identifying your “most valuable segments” is the new starting point for growth
• How AI and integrated data systems can reduce planning time from months to weeks
• What’s next: a strategic, AI-powered framework that builds on the classic 8-step process without being limited by it

Key Takeaway:
Traditional category management helped retailers evolve from distributors to marketers. But to stay competitive today, brands and retailers must evolve again—this time through smarter data integration, strategic agility, and shopper-first thinking.

About the Speakers:
Dr. Brian Harris is a retail strategist and educator best known for creating the foundational principles of category management in the 1980s. Today, as President of Intent AI, he’s leading the charge toward an upgraded model that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to drive category performance.

Julie Beck is Chief Customer Officer at Intent AI and a former CPG executive with more than 30 years of experience at Procter & Gamble, J&J, and Kraft. A long-time practitioner of Dr. Harris’s frameworks, she now helps retailers and manufacturers implement AI-powered solutions to unlock smarter, faster decision-making.

Learn more @ intentaitech.com

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