Executive Summary

Vinícius Andrade de Carvalho; Ewerton Mauro Visotto Faria

Summary prepared by the ResumeAI tool, an artificial intelligence solution developed by the Pecege Institute focused on synthesis and writing.

The demand for outsourcing services has experienced notable growth both in Brazil and globally, driving companies to expand their outsourced operations. Reports such as Deloitte’s “Global Outsourcing Survey 2024” indicate that over 70% of Brazilian companies plan to increase their use of these services in the coming years, with 60% already considering them a central strategy for efficiency and cost reduction. Sectors like category management, trade marketing, and sales anticipate an annual growth of 5% to 7% in outsourcing adoption, reflecting a continuous pursuit of agility and optimization. This expansion scenario creates a significant challenge for service provider companies, which need to scale their teams to meet the growing market demand.

In this context of a heated market, the company in question, specialized in category management consulting and outsourcing for over eight years, faces a crucial dilemma. With a client portfolio composed of large consumer goods industries and a service model that can be exclusive per client, the organization has grown organically, registering gross revenue with double-digit annual increases. Starting with just two founders, the company now has over 50 employees, divided into five internal and six external squads, demonstrating a trajectory of success and continuous expansion.

The company’s growth strategy has been based on hiring younger professionals, investing in internal development instead of seeking experienced talents in the market, which would imply higher costs and longer recruitment times. However, this approach has created a gap: the growing demand for professionals with more experience in category management. Whether to serve new clients or to fill vacancies, the scarcity of fully qualified analysts overloads the co-founders and squad leaders, who need to dedicate time to operational and supervisory activities, diverting themselves from more strategic and business development functions.

Despite an organizational culture that values knowledge sharing and continuous learning, the company lacked a formal and structured program for the development of category analysts. This absence directly impacts the organization’s ability to scale its operations sustainably and maintain the quality of services provided. The difficulty in finding qualified professionals in the market, coupled with the lack of a robust internal training process, highlights the urgent need for a solution that prepares internal talent to assume more complex and strategic responsibilities.

The diagnosis of the current situation was deepened through internal organizational climate surveys, conducted in September 2024 and August 2025. The 2024 survey, with 24 respondents, revealed that more than 11 employees cited the need for more training and improvements in initial programs, including development opportunities for onboarding and leadership mentoring. The 2025 survey, with 34 respondents, although showing general satisfaction in recognition and growth opportunities, indicated that professional development and training still represent areas with significant opportunities for improvement, especially when compared to other fronts.

Specifically, the analysis of the September 2025 climate survey responses, focused on career development and planning, highlighted that the greatest opportunities for improvement lie in employees’ perception of access to the resources and training necessary for their development, and in the feeling that the company invests in their professional growth. These perceptions indicate a gap in the offering of structured programs, such as mentoring, which could strengthen employees’ skill development and career progression, aligning individual expectations with the company’s strategic needs.

Deepening the diagnosis, an Ishikawa diagram revealed the underlying causes of the central problem: the shortage of category management analysts with full development and customer service skills. The causes were categorized into People, Processes, Recruitment and Selection, and Training and Development. In the People category, the low seniority of the internal team and the lack of experienced professionals were identified as critical factors. In Processes, the insufficiency or ineffectiveness of onboarding and the absence of development programs with continuous evaluations were pointed out as deficiencies.

Regarding Recruitment and Selection, the market presents a significant challenge in finding category management professionals, resulting in hiring processes that can extend for months. The absence of formal training and mentoring programs was highlighted as a primary cause in the Training and Development front. These combined factors generate negative impacts, such as the excessive dedication of co-founders and more experienced analysts to operational activities and the training of assistants without prior planning, compromising the time that should be allocated to more strategic functions.

The company’s current situation, with over 10 clients in the food industry and eight professionals in internal category management squads (including analysts, assistants, and interns), reveals that only one analyst is fully allocated to category analysis, assortment review, and customer service functions. This limitation becomes critical when a new client is prospected or a higher-experience vacancy needs to be filled, forcing the company to resort to the market, which is scarce in talent, or to train new analysts on short notice. This generates an unplanned overload for the co-founders and squad leaders, impacting operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Assigning analysts to roles for which they are not prepared results in frustration for both the client and the employee, with risks of negative perception of the company brand and demotivation. In an ideal scenario, it is projected that, of the eight internal category management employees, at least four are capable of meeting demands that require a deep understanding of the execution of activities such as category analysis, assortment review, and display design. This goal underscores the urgency of a structured development program that prepares internal talent to assume these responsibilities.

The recommended solution for the problem of insufficient qualified analysts is the implementation of a Mentoring program in category management, aimed at assistants, interns, and junior analysts with development potential. Complementarily, a review and relaunch of the Onboarding program for new employees is proposed. The central objective of mentoring is to train fully capable analysts, maintaining the quality of more experienced professionals, strengthening the company culture, and increasing employee motivation. Onboarding, in turn, aims to provide direction and faster adaptation of new employees to the organizational culture, purpose, and structure.

A pilot mentoring program was executed to test the proposal, involving two female collaborators in the assistant position, with one of the co-founders and a squad leader acting as mentors. The project, initiated in September 2025 and scheduled for completion in March 2026, consisted of fourteen meetings that addressed topics such as marketing structure, development of Excel indicator dashboards, macro assortment analysis, and practical exercises with real clients. The application of a questionnaire at the end of the project sought to evaluate the gains in engagement and aptitude for category management activities, such as analysis and planogram design.

The results observed in the pilot program were satisfactory. The mentee demonstrated a better understanding of the category management process and development, in addition to improving the quality of treatment of sell-out database data, an activity attached to SKU classification. The activities developed during mentoring also resulted in real deliveries for the company’s clients, contributing to a reduction in the workload of other analysts. However, difficulties were identified in the connection between results analysis and business insight generation, a gap that is expected to be closed with more time and analytical practice.

The pilot mentoring program will be renewed for another seven months to consolidate learning and complete the category management activity flow for the analyst. In addition, new mentoring programs have been initiated, with six focused on training analysts in category analysis and management activities, and another five on leadership and business intelligence topics. The monitoring of these mentoring sessions will be carried out by the company’s human resources and communication department, in conjunction with the managing partners, ensuring integration and alignment with the organization’s strategic objectives.

The main cost associated with running the mentoring program lies in the work time of squad leaders and co-founders who act as mentors. The premise is that the mentor is an expert employee of the company itself, ensuring the sharing of learnings and behaviors aligned with the organizational culture, preserving the company’s DNA in younger professionals. This approach avoids the costs of hiring external professionals, optimizing internal resources and strengthening the expertise of the existing team, while developing new leadership and capabilities.

In parallel with mentoring, the proposal includes the relaunch of the onboarding program for new employees, with an official schedule and materials aligned with all responsible parties. The onboarding agenda will cover the general structure and services offered, company history, category management activity flow, assortment review, shelf exposure and planograms, image catalog, cube, dashboards and PBI, application development and machine learning, culture, benefits and human resources, general IT integration and communication – brand and culture guide. This program aims for a faster and more effective integration of new employees.

With the restructuring of the onboarding program, new employees are expected to gain a broader view of the services and functions of each squad in the first weeks of work, promoting social integration and internal networking. A more structured onboarding will allow the employee to get to know the stakeholders and the company’s workflow, accelerating collaboration and avoiding organizational silos. This should result in a shorter ramp-up time, a faster understanding of tools and processes, and greater initial autonomy, contributing to a stronger sense of belonging and reducing the risk of early turnover, which incurs recruitment and training costs.

Among the risks highlighted for the implementation of the mentoring program, the loss of a skilled employee to the market, whether to competing companies or not, represents the loss of mentors’ time investment and generates negative impacts on the routine of service. Another risk is the non-compliance with the schedule between mentor and mentee, or the suspension of the program for other reasons, which can generate frustration in the mentee. However, mentoring also trains leading professionals as mentors, allowing the development of more efficient and higher quality mentoring models in future interactions.

The non-implementation of mentoring as a fixed process in the company can lead to significant negative impacts, such as the allocation of professionals without a proper understanding of category management in complex clients, generating frustration and negative perceptions about the company. According to Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman (1988), the employee’s behavior, attitude, and knowledge are fundamental to the customer’s perception of the company. Unprepared professionals can generate negative experiences, harming the company’s reputation. Furthermore, the Harvard Business Review (2016) points out that low maturity or insufficient training leads to frustration, low self-esteem, and stress, increasing the risk of turnover and absenteeism.

Daniel Goleman, in his works “Emotional Intelligence” (1995, 1998), highlights that poorly prepared professionals tend to suffer from stress and dissatisfaction, affecting self-esteem and engagement. The absence of internally trained analysts would force the company to resort to a scarce market of professionals or to overload the most experienced analysts and co-founders, generating extra work and inefficiency. The non-implementation of the suggested onboarding program can also lead to low initial productivity, with new employees depending on colleagues’ availability to understand processes, requiring more time to reach full performance and increasing the risk of operational errors.

The measurement of the mentoring program’s results will be carried out by evaluating the number of category management analysts trained, considering the quality in the execution of activities and the assistance to customer service. David Clutterbuck (2001, 2005) emphasizes that mentoring is a powerful tool to accelerate development and promote a learning culture. Jean Rhodes (2002) and the report “The Mentoring Effect” (2014) corroborate that effective mentoring programs increase self-confidence, technical skills, engagement, retention, and motivation of young talents, which is crucial for the company’s sustainable growth.

In summary, the mentoring and onboarding proposal aims to train qualified analysts in category management, aligned with the company’s culture and purpose. In addition to solving the problem of internal talent scarcity, the mentoring program opens an opportunity to develop the mentors themselves, who can become a new business model, offering their knowledge to external clients for the development of their own professionals. This initiative not only strengthens the company’s internal capacity but can also generate new revenue streams and position the organization as a benchmark in talent development in the market.

The mentoring and onboarding programs, suggested and implemented throughout the study, reinforce the company’s good perception in the job market regarding the latent concern for the development and well-being of its employees. The implementation of these initiatives represents a strategic investment in human capital, ensuring that the company can continue to grow sustainably, maintaining excellence in service delivery and the satisfaction of both clients and collaborators. This proactive approach to talent management is fundamental for the organization’s competitiveness and longevity in the dynamic outsourcing market.

The central managerial contribution of this business case lies in the formulation of a robust strategy for internal talent development, mitigating dependence on a scarce labor market and optimizing resource allocation. By investing in mentoring and structured onboarding, the company not only resolves an immediate operational problem of overload and lack of qualification but also builds a solid foundation for future growth. This initiative strengthens organizational culture, improves talent retention, and positions the company to explore new business opportunities, transforming a challenge into a lasting and strategic competitive advantage.

Bibliographic References:

CLUTTERBUCK, David. Creating a Mentoring Culture. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2005.

CLUTTERBUCK, David. Mentoring Organizations: Learning Alliances for the Twenty-First Century. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2001.

DELOITTE. Global Outsourcing Survey 2024. Deloitte Insights, 2024. Disponível em: https://www2.deloitte.com. Acesso em: 21 agosto. 2025.

GOLEMAN, Daniel. Inteligência Emocional: A teoria revolucionária que redefine o que é ser inteligente. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 1995.

GOLEMAN, Daniel. Trabalhando com Inteligência Emocional. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 1998.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW. The Cost of Poor Performance. Harvard Business Review, 2016. Disponível em: https://hbr.org. Acesso em: 21 agosto. 2025.

RHODES, Jean E. A Longitudinal Study of Youth Mentoring. Boston: University of Massachusetts, 2002.

THE MENTORING EFFECT. Young People’s Perspectives on the Outcomes and Availability of Mentoring. Boston: MENTOR – The National Mentoring Partnership, 2014.

ZEITHAML, Valarie A.; BERRY, Leonard L.; PARASURAMAN, A. The Role of Employee Behavior in Customer Perceptions of Service Quality. Journal of Marketing, v. 52, n. 2, p. 35-48, 1988.

Executive summary from the Final Course Work of the Specialization in Executive Leadership and Management of the MBA USP/Esalq

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