Category Management: Key Insights for 2026 From Beroe

We recently launched a research campaign on the discipline of category management (CatMan), exploring how businesses implement it, its role in procurement and the benefits it can deliver. To provide a well-rounded perspective, we have published articles, interviews and podcasts with industry experts. As the campaign draws to an end, we have also invited some category management and related solution providers to answer a few targeted questions about category management and how their solution supports it.

Read our definition of CatMan as a central procurement discipline, which includes a list of the potential benefits its deployment can afford.

Today we hear from Valekumar Krishnan, Chief Content Officer at Beroe, s SaaS-based procurement intelligence and analytics provider.

Given the proliferation of AI-driven content sources, how do you ensure that intelligence remains validated, timely and actionable for sourcing decisions rather than simply descriptive?

“It is a very real challenge today. AI-generated content has exploded, but much of it is unvalidated or purely narrative. At Beroe, we have taken a very deliberate stance: AI accelerates intelligence, but it does not replace verification. Everything begins with Beroe’s DataHub, a curated and deeply triangulated foundation that pulls insights from Beroe’s own home-grown data, public filings, price-reporting partners, subscription specialist datasets, regulatory bodies and, most importantly, direct conversations with suppliers, distributors and other value-chain participants.

“AI handles the real-time ingestion, anomaly detection and pattern spotting – if there is an unexpected price spike or risk surge, our models catch it instantly. Time is of the essence, so highly critical alerts go to users immediately. More in-depth recommendations around mitigation and building resilient supply chains are provided by our category specialists, adding context and judging practical relevance. This hybrid approach of AI + ‘human-in-the-loop’ ensures our output is not just descriptive, but immediately actionable. Every insight includes a recommended lever: rebalancing supply, renegotiating indexation, diversifying risk or adjusting contract strategy. Each action maps to a measurable business outcome, so users know what the insight enables.

“Lastly, the system is transparent and configurable. It is important that human experts can override assumptions, adjust thresholds or feed in proprietary data, and these inputs work together with AI to improve accuracy over time.”

How do clients typically operationalize your aggregated supplier and market insights within their sourcing or category strategy workflows?

“The most successful clients are the ones who make intelligence part of their day-to-day execution rather than something they check occasionally. We designed our platform Beroe Live.ai specifically to support that.

“First, real-time data feeds plug directly into sourcing workflows. When users run an RFx process, renew a contract or review supplier performance, the relevant benchmarks, cost models, inflation curves and risk signals populate automatically within the tools they use – be it S2P platforms, digital category strategy builders, negotiation bots or internal tools. This removes manual effort and ensures decisions are grounded in the latest intelligence.

“Category managers depend heavily on our dynamic dashboards, which consolidate price trends, volatility forecasts, supplier concentration, ESG data, macroeconomic factors, as well as category health and supplier risk indicators. These dashboards refresh continuously, helping teams adjust strategy on the fly. On the negotiation side, clients use our supplier discovery, price curves and cost model outputs to build negotiation packs. They walk into negotiations with facts, not assumptions, around walk-away points, alternative suppliers and cost drivers. For supplier management, our alerts and performance signals enable proactive engagement – if a supplier’s risk profile shifts or market dynamics change, category managers know immediately.

“A key differentiator is our analyst interaction model. Users can ask for a clarification, request a deeper dive or challenge an algorithmic suggestion. These interactions refine the recommendations and ensure the output matches each client’s procurement context. Ultimately, operationalizing insights is about turning intelligence into muscle memory, something that influences decisions continuously.”

How do you integrate or interoperate with platforms that manage category strategy execution?

“Integration has been a major focus because procurement teams need intelligence available directly within their existing workflows. Beroe’s DataHub is the API twin of our Beroe Live.ai platform. For many years we have been making market insights, supplier intelligence, risk indicators and cost benchmarks available through REST APIs, with data structured cleanly in JSON (a text-based data format), making it easy to embed into S2P platforms, and CLM and BI tools.

“The advantage is that intelligence is seamless and practical. For example, in a sourcing event, benchmark pricing and risk alerts appear automatically, while in a contract workflow, category-specific pricing logic or risk flags feed directly into clauses. In MS Teams or Copilot, users can pull Beroe insights conversationally within chat.

“With the growing use of AI agents and LLMs, our data is machine-ready – DataHub is now also integrated with the Model Context Protocol (MCP). MCP is a new standard that provides AI systems with a consistent method for securely accessing enterprise data. By connecting DataHub through the MCP, we are adding an intelligence layer to AI systems – providing even faster access to consumable data products with governance built in. Everything operates under strong security controls like field-level encryption, role-based access, token rotation and alignment with ISO 27001/SOC 2.

“Procurement teams should never have to leave their ecosystem for intelligence – intelligence should flow into their ecosystem automatically.”

How do you embed predictive or prescriptive analytics into your solution?

“We are moving fast toward a future where procurement teams can see around corners and respond with precision. Our current Category Health Score already provides forward-looking risk insights by combining macroeconomic data with micro factors (price driver movement, supplier solvency, ESG incidents, capacity changes), but our roadmap extends much further.

“Procurement teams are looking to us for ways to model different kinds of potential disruptions, whether that’s a port slowdown, supplier stress signals or unexpected commodity swings, and to gain an understanding of how such events could influence cost, continuity or lead times. At the same time, the system surfaces mitigation paths, such as dual sourcing, volume shifts or adjustments to inventory or contract structures.

“We’re building in learnings from historical outcomes, performance data and market dynamics to highlight negotiation levers, walkaway ranges, volume allocation scenarios or contract indexation options. The intent is not to replace human judgment, but to offer teams an analytical partner during negotiations.

“The roadmap includes giving procurement teams the ability to set their own thresholds or alerts, for example, sustained changes in supplier health and have the system support appropriate next steps. What that looks like in practice will vary by organization, depending on governance models, risk tolerance and how much automation they are comfortable with. These capabilities draw on continued advances in AI, particularly in detecting patterns such as emerging price movements, risk signals and compliance concerns. Nonetheless, transparency, human judgement and expert interpretation will remain essential, because procurement decisions rarely hinge on data alone.

“The vision is simple: from predicting risk to prescribing actions and eventually automating routine decisions, while keeping humans firmly in control.”

Many thanks to Beroe for being part of this series.

You may find this handy, free-to-download Guide to Spend Analytics useful.