The Importance of Data in Tariff Management

After 29 years in distribution, I've never seen tariff complexity like this. Here's what's keeping distributors up at night 🧵 In our recent workshop, I shared something that shocked attendees: "90% of distributors don't use vendor quote data, which is gold." Think about it - every price announcement, every quote request contains valuable intelligence about: ▶️ Cost trends by supplier ▶️ Timing of market shifts ▶️ Geographic sourcing patterns ▶️ Category-specific volatility Yet most distributors file these away and forget them. Here's why this matters now: The distributor facing potential $612K losses? They had all the data needed to prevent those losses sitting in their email folders and filing cabinets. Their vendor notifications showed clear patterns: ⚠️ 15% increases from Asian suppliers (tariff-driven) ⚠️ 8% increases from domestic suppliers (material costs) ⚠️ Mixed timing across categories But they treated each notification as an isolated event instead of strategic intelligence. The uncomfortable truth: Most distributors are sitting on goldmines of pricing intelligence but don't know how to mine it. Three questions for you: 1. How do you currently store and analyze vendor price notifications? 2. What patterns have you noticed in your supplier communications? 3. Are you treating each price change as isolated, or part of a bigger trend? I'd love to hear your experience in the comments. What vendor data has surprised you recently? #Distribution #TariffManagement #PricingStrategy #VendorRelations

Why Product-Level P&Ls Are Critical Product-level P&Ls have long been a strategic tool for CFOs seeking to drive profitable growth and improve operational efficiency. However, in today’s volatile trade environment, where tariffs can shift rapidly and unpredictably, they are no longer just useful; they are essential. Tariff changes rarely impact all products equally. Costs can spike overnight depending on a product’s category, country of origin, or material composition. Without product-level visibility, these shifts are often lost in aggregate reporting, making it difficult to pinpoint where margin erosion is happening or which portfolio parts are at risk. With product-level granularity, finance leaders are empowered to make faster, more informed decisions. They can work cross-functionally to adjust pricing strategies, reconfigure product bundles, or fine-tune discounting, protecting margin. On the operations side, this insight allows for more strategic supply chain responses, such as renegotiating supplier contracts or shifting production to lower-cost regions in response to new tariff structures. More importantly, product-level P&Ls enable forward-looking planning. CFOs can model the financial impact of various tariff scenarios at the product level and build more resilient, adaptable forecasts. This is no longer just about reacting to proactively managing risk and uncovering new paths to profitability. But How Many Organizations Are Truly Ready? Despite their importance, many organizations have yet to invest in the infrastructure and processes needed to support robust product-level P&Ls. Building this capability requires clean data, an agreed-upon cost allocation methodology, and cross-functional alignment. 

With renewed tariff initiatives sending ripples (sometimes even tsunamis) through global supply chains, effective data governance makes the critical difference between companies ready to respond immediately and those left scrambling for answers. In practice, here’s what I've observed: → Supply‑chain teams immediately identify what’s impacted. → Finance teams quickly assess the financial implications. → Legal teams instantly start filing exemption paperwork. Companies with unified, governed data respond swiftly - not because they’re perfect, but because their data gives them instant clarity. Leading data and AI teams don’t just see governance as a compliance checkbox; they use it as a competitive edge. It lets them make strategic moves before others have even processed the news. Is your team experiencing this advantage firsthand? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Question for business leaders: How quickly does your data team help you to respond to daily (hourly?) tariff changes? There isn’t an industry or a business that has not been impacted. It is during times like these when a robust data strategy and competent leadership pays off. Investments in Data & Analytics should help you answer critical questions in a timely manner: ✅ How will my supply chain be impacted? ✅ What will be the impact on revenue? By region? ✅ How much inventory do I have and where? ✅ Which products are most at risk? ✅ What percentage of raw materials come from impacted countries? Data leaders this is your opportunity to shine - be that strategic partner your business leaders need. One way to do this is by helping increase decision velocity in your organization by removing friction when working with data. Here is JP Morgan’s take on how this might play out: https://lnkd.in/gKyCdQQD Either way, your ability to respond to changes will define whether you perish, survive, or thrive in these turbulent times.