What are the best category analyst qualifications and training to get ahead?

What is the best training for becoming a category analyst? What types of ongoing training or certifications are necessary to be an effective category analyst?

What do non-traditional career paths look like?

Basic qaulifying skills include Excel, Powerpoint, Access, and Word.

Anyone can say they can do Excel, but you must learn to utilize macros, advanced formulas, and in some cases Visual Basic.

A basic category analyst starts out as a data puller on IRI Xlerate or Nielsen Nitro. Reports include UPC or Brand Rankings, Trend Reports, Opportunity Gap, and promotional analysis.

As he or she becomes more experienced, they provide more added value. You create presentations that weave all these reports and resources together to achieve an objective such as brand or UPC consolidation, new product introduction, Business or Category Reviews, and many others.

To get into the business you have to work at a CPG broker like Acosta and Crossmark, which are office sweatshops in my opinion. Start out atleast 33k, but you will learn everything in those environment. After two years you can command twice that salary if you take the initiatives to learn plannogramming, Spectra, Retail Link, and transform yourself from a data puller to a thinker or solutions provider with syndicated data.

The next step is a Category Manager which will start out at 55k-100k, depending on the area of the country and the company.

Look to branching out to marketing analyst if you cannot hang with the demands of the sales folks.

Dear David,

Could you please advice regarding the working conditions and future prospects in the nielsen company as an analytics consultant.