Tariffs are no longer a passing political headline – they’re a direct hit to your margins. In the past six months alone, the cost of doing business with the U.S. has jumped from 2% to 17%. And with more trade deals on the horizon, the companies that survive will be those who can reprice at the speed of change.

Read also: U.S. Customs Busts $400 Million Tariff Evasion Scheme

Understandably, businesses are scrambling to manage this cost impact through cost-cutting, early stockpiling, and supply chain reconfiguration. While supply chain restructuring would deliver a long-term solution, it comes at a major cost, takes years to implement, and often delivers no net financial gain due to higher reshoring costs.

For most businesses, pricing offers the most immediate, cost-effective and impactful response. Our research among 1,500 businesses reveals that 76% of organizations have already experienced margin compression due to tariffs, and 93% believe their current pricing responsiveness will lead to profit erosion as tariff changes take effect.

Pricing teams are still shackled by quarterly or half-yearly update cycles and systems that take weeks to implement changes – a symptom of years of underinvestment and slow digitalization. Our research shows system limitations are the second biggest barrier to pricing agility, beaten only by fear of customer pushback. Many businesses are still working with tools that simply can’t keep pace with the demands of today’s market.

Most of the businesses we surveyed plan to raise prices in response to tariffs, but few companies have the brand power to make sweeping price increases. Instead, most are working on strategies to adjust prices based on market, customer and product price elasticity. 

There’s a shift happening towards smarter, more nuanced pricing strategies, making the right changes at the right time, in the right segment. But for any business with a price catalogue in the thousands, the complexity of managing sophisticated price adjustments across channels, customers, products and markets is easier said than done.

Businesses need the tools to be able to calculate precise cost impacts, model price change scenarios and implement surgical price adjustments instantly to protect margins, maintain competitiveness, and preserve customer relationships simultaneously. When market conditions change again, as they inevitably will, having the agility to pivot prices fast and accurately will be the difference between profit and loss.

Tariffs aren’t a short-term disruption. They’re a wake-up call to digitally transform one of your most powerful levers of profit: pricing. The businesses that invest now in true pricing agility will not only withstand today’s cost shocks, they’ll also seize the advantage in every market shift to come. 

Author Bio

Andrew Butt is the Co-founder and CEO of Enable, a global leader in rebate management—an often underestimated yet vital component of the $80 trillion supply chain. Since founding Enable in 2016, Andrew has led the company through transformative growth, scaling it more than 40x, raising $291 million in series A-D funding, and reaching unicorn status with a global team of over 600. A visionary in leveraging technology to unlock business potential, Andrew brings deep expertise in applying AI and automation to streamline supply chain operations, enhance profitability, and empower trading relationships. His mission is to redefine how companies use rebates as a strategic tool for collaboration and growth across industries.