Implementing Category Management Across United States Operations Command

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to implement category management (CM) in the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) enterprise. It also examines, classifies, and analyzes expenditures and spending trends for SOCOM. A spend analysis was conducted to identify spending trends and provide opportunity analysis to leverage buying power. Our methodology includes analyzing spend reports for SOCOM as a whole and conducting a gap analysis between the current CM state and the two future states: initial desired state and future ideal state. These analyses provide visibility and insight into SOCOM’s expenditures and facilitate recommendations to close the gap and effectively implement CM. Our recommendations include spend-related actionable items for SOCOM to consider when implementing CM, immediate actionable items for SOCOM to stand its initial small-scale CM function to operate at initial operating capability (IOC), and future actionable items for SOCOM to implement CM at full operating capability (FOC).