The entire category management process facilitates fact-based selling by providing analytics from a retailer’s as well as a manufacturer’s perspective so that the mutual value of the business proposition can be known. Considerations include product assortment, pricing, promotion, placement, timing and, to some degree, packaging. The IT component is the automation of data loads and data manipulation, as well as the presentation of results in a compelling way, following an agreed-on business process. The IT enablement is typically a demand signal management repository.