AI for category management
Ultramarine Work reads the Nielsen, Circana and retailer POS exports in your project folder and writes the line review story, the promo post-event analysis and the funding reconciliation. Every number names its source file.
Westbrook-line-review-story.pptxExampleAsk it for
“Reconcile the Nielsen export to the Westbrook POS file and decompose our share change into distribution, velocity and price, then build the line review story.”
Westbrook-line-review-story.pptx“Run the post-event audit on the four-week March feature and give me lift against baseline, pantry loading, pull-forward and ROI on the $84,000 we funded.”
Mar-feature-post-event.xlsx“Match the $23,650 scan-down deduction and 60 open claims from the last 90 days to the promo calendar and flag every one we can dispute.”
Open-claims-disputes.xlsx“Justify the 6% price increase effective February 9 with a cost bridge weighted by cost share, and check the notice period in each trade terms letter.”
FY26-price-increase.docx“For the 24-item natural channel modular, size the facings so every item carries 21 days of supply against a 4-deep shelf and a case pack of 12.”
Natural-modular-facings.xlsx“I need the club account’s list-to-pocket waterfall with the leakage split by deduction type, and a ranking of the SKUs under 12% pocket margin.”
Club-price-waterfall.xlsx
How it works
- 1
Drop in the account folder
Pull together the Nielsen and Circana exports, the Retail Link and Stratum downloads, the TPM promo calendar, the deduction reports, the trade terms letters and last year’s line review deck, wherever they live on the laptop or SharePoint.
- 2
Ask for the piece of work
It maps the item codes and calendars of every source onto a single SKU-by-week grain, then runs velocity per TDP, promo lift and fair share. A note in the workbook flags anything it could not tie out.
- 3
Check it before the buyer does
You can tie any figure back to the file it came from, so you check the story against the data instead of rebuilding the pivots. Then you take it into the line review and decide what to fund, list and defend.
Inside the CPG Key Accounts & Category Management mode
Syndicated and POS data analysis
Turns Nielsen, Circana and retailer POS exports into fair share, velocity per TDP, lift and volume sourcing, the numbers a line review story is built on.
Trade promotion and vendor funding
Forecasts lift and ROI per event and audits what happened against baseline. It matches funding claims to proof of performance before deductions clear.
Assortment and space planning
Facings on each modular are sized to days of supply and case pack, and the assortment’s SKU counts and depth by cluster reconcile to the merchandise plan.
Price elasticity and benchmarking
Separates price response from promo, seasonality and distribution. It also updates a volume-weighted competitor price index by banner each week.
Price increase rollout
Assembles the cost bridge account by account, checks each contract’s notice and pass-through terms and shows the net-price gaps Robinson-Patman would question.
Product and customer profitability
Builds the list-to-pocket waterfall by account and splits leakage across markdown money, scan-downs and co-op, then weighs cost to serve against drop size.
Customer segmentation
Clusters the shopper panel into segments that survive a split-half check, and writes the rule that sorts every new shopper into one.
- Office skills
- Excel, Word, PowerPoint, PDF
- Tools
- Read, edit and write files, Search files, Run code, Search and read the web, View images
- Connectors
- SharePoint, Google Drive, Gmail, and additional custom connectors
- House style
- Your fonts, layouts and rules, on every file
Who it’s for
Consumer goods key account, national account, category, trade marketing and sales planning staff who sell to and plan with retailers and distributors.
Questions
Can we put Nielsen and Circana exports into an AI tool?
Your syndicated data license decides that before any tool does. NielsenIQ’s terms bar AI alongside NIQ content and confine generative AI use to secure, private environments that prevent data leakage, and Circana restricts its data to internal use. Ultramarine Work sends the content it works on to Paper Instruments’ servers to be processed, so the data does leave your machine. Your compliance team owns the call, and they may need to put the question to the data provider.
Can it calculate promo lift and ROI the way our analysts do?
Yes, and it shows its work. It calculates lift from the data in the folder and lays out the baseline, the incremental split and the ROI arithmetic, with the file each number came from. Where the data supports it, the analysis separates pull-forward, pantry loading and cannibalization from real incremental volume, and it notes what it could not reconcile instead of guessing. You review every file it touched before the buyer sees one.
Will it pick which SKUs to cut before a line review?
No, it ranks the set on velocity, fair share of distribution, margin and days of supply so the argument is on the table, and you make the call. The proposal to the buyer, the funding commitment and the cut list stay with you and your leadership.
Does AI change the Robinson-Patman risk when we price accounts differently?
No, the Robinson-Patman risk is unchanged, and the tool does not give legal advice. The mode documents each customer’s net price and why it differs, and it flags the gaps that competing buyers or counsel would question. Whether the pricing is defensible is your legal team’s call.
Where does our retailer and syndicated data go?
Ultramarine Work changes files only in the project’s folder. When a request needs it, it can read files elsewhere on your computer, never passwords, keys or app data, and you can turn that off in settings. The model runs on Paper Instruments’ servers, so the content it works on is sent there to be processed. Paper Instruments is SOC 2 Type II, and our security and compliance details are on our compliance page.