5 signs your category strategy just needs a tune-up 🔧
Your strategy is old. But it might not be obsolete.
A few years ago I spent four months helping a business build their category strategy.
We got deep into the data, workshopped it with a cross functional team and helped them land it with their retailers.
Two years later they invited me back for another project, and nobody was using it. Every team had built their own framework instead. When I asked why, they all said the same thing: "it's out of date".
So we dusted it off. The growth drivers were still right. What had changed was the team around it, not the thinking inside it. A few elements needed a refresh, and that was that.
Strategies rarely go wrong all at once. They drift. And "it's out of date" is what drift feels like from the inside.
Here are five signs your strategy needs a tune-up rather than a rebuild.
(If you haven't got a category strategy yet, I wrote about that one a few weeks ago.)
1. A few things have shifted since you built it
It's normal for things to shift a little over a year or two.
A new brand picking up traction, a segment growing faster than you expected, a channel mattering a bit more than it used to.
On their own, none of these changes break a strategy. Together, they can leave it describing a category from a while ago.
Those bits need a refresh, it doesn’t mean you need to start again.
2. The evidence you built it on is getting a little out of date
Probably the most common one I see. The drivers still sound sensible, which is exactly why nobody questions them.
But sounding sensible isn't the same as still being true. Go back to the assumptions underneath each growth driver and ask what's still holding. Most will stand up fine, but one or two might turn out to rest on a stat nobody's checked since you built the strategy. Revalidate first, and you'll usually find you're keeping more than you're changing.
3. Some of your brand activities don’t align with the growth drivers
Line your next 12 months up against the growth opportunities in your strategy.
Your innovation, execution and marketing plans should connect nicely. But you might have a couple of plans that don't quite fit the strategy you built. Those are worth a conversation.
Sometimes the plan has wandered off. Sometimes the framework never quite covered that bit, and there's an opportunity sitting in the gap.
Either way, it's a gap to close rather than a signal that everything underneath is wrong.
4. Your retailers are asking different questions
Retailer priorities can move pretty quickly. Targets, challenges and competition all move, and the questions your buyers ask move with them.
You don't need a new strategy for them, you just need a different way to frame the one you’ve got.
Work out the biggest problem sitting on your buyer's desk right now, then lead with the part of your strategy that helps solve it. Same drivers, different starting point.
5. Your strategy is gathering dust on SharePoint
When teams build annual plans, customer stories, or innovation briefs - do they open the category strategy, or do they build a new framework from scratch?
If it's the second one, ask why. Too complicated? Too long? Never properly embedded in the first place? A strategy nobody reaches for isn't really a strategy, it's a document.
Once you know why nobody's using it, fix the bits getting in the way, give it a bit of a makeover and launch it with the team again.
The takeaway
So how do you tell a tune-up from a complete rebuild?
One question: are the majority of your growth drivers still the right ones?
If yes, you need a tune-up. Refresh the evidence, reconnect the plans, reframe the story, get it back in front of the team.
And if your team can't tell you what the strategy is, don't assume it's wrong. A strong strategy with a new team around it is an embedding problem, not a content one.
If the drivers themselves no longer hold, that's the bigger job, and you’ll probably need a new strategy.
Not sure which camp you're in? We can help you work that out, then refresh what you've got or work with you to build a new one if that's what it needs. Get in touch to set up a call.
Looking for more Category Vision & Strategy tips?
Check out our previous newsletters on the topic.
October 2026