STRATEGY

Oscar Wong/Getty Images

Those who don’t learn from history…well, you know the line. And those who can’t learn from pricing challenges of recent years? They’re definitely doomed to repeat it.

As material costs and inflation rose in recent years, many companies hiked their prices, but some eventually rolled back those increases as input costs stabilized, Ellen Kan, partner at Simon-Kucher who focuses on fast-moving consumer goods, pointed out.

Now, we’re seeing “a shift to a different type of [cost] landscape…that is actually even more challenging,” she continued. “What we’re hearing from a lot of our clients is that the freight cost increases are starting to hit the P&L, and it’s actually pretty substantial and pretty real.”

All the while, the consumer environment continues to pose problems, she said. “You have increasing signs in the marketplace that it’s a more price-sensitive consumer, that [consumers are] demonstrating more value-oriented shopping behavior, and then also retailers are increasingly concerned about affordability, and less willing to accept price increases from manufacturers.”

Amid this landscape, new pricing tactics, including those involving tariff refunds from a Supreme Court decision, have come to the fore. But if companies forget the lessons gleaned from recent pricing challenges, tariff-related tactics could easily fall flat, pricing experts caution. In other words: Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Swear we’ve heard that one somewhere…

Don’t just set one pricing plan for 2027, Bain expert says.—NP

      

Sponsored By J.P.Morgan

Grant Lee, founder and CEO of Gamma, compares life as a founder to a roller coaster—full of ups and downs. The unpredictability of building and scaling a successful startup requires a reliable banking team like J.P. Morgan.

With the stability and support J.P. Morgan provides, Grant and his team have the confidence to keep dreaming, building, and growing as Gamma reimagines how people present and share their ideas with the world.

As the Bank of the Innovation Economy, J.P. Morgan supports founders at every stage of their journey. More than 11,000 companies trust J.P. Morgan for personalized guidance, sector-specific expertise, and the support they need to scale with confidence and maximize their impact.

Learn more about how J.P. Morgan helps founders.

GROWTH

Chicken Salad Chick

“You have leaks, you have power outages, you have trucks that don’t show up, you have employees that don’t show up, you have technology that breaks. But your customers don’t know that. Every day you open the doors, and the customers want to come in and have a great experience, and so whatever challenges you’re having, you have to find a way to get through them,” CFO Drew Travis told CFO Brew.

On top of that: “It is a highly saturated market. There are endless amounts of choices for restaurants. There is a very low barrier to entry,” he added.

Welcome to the restaurant business! Travis joined fast-casual chain Chicken Salad Chick this summer, but he’s been in this challenging, fast-paced restaurant industry long enough to see what works and what doesn’t. (As well as why people stay: “Once you get in, it kind of hooks you and has a hold on you.”)

Travis has joined at an “inflection point” for Chicken Salad Chick, “with the growth trajectory [it’s] on,” he said. Founded in 2008, with roughly 350 locations and serving “Southern-style chicken salad made from scratch,” the chain has doubled in size in the past five to six years.

“What makes certain organizations successful or unsuccessful around this time in their lifecycle is not just how fast you grow, but who you grow with, who you partner with, and how you grow,” he said. Travis told us how he makes some of those choices.

What the research told Chicken Salad Chick about the New York market.—AZ

      

AI PROJECTS

Morning Brew Design

You can’t win them all—advice that applies to lottery tickets, national sweepstakes, and, lately, AI initiatives.

Let’s say you’ve finally charged ahead with a long-awaited and highly anticipated AI project at your organization. The hope is that the initiative goes as expected, paving the way for other AI projects down the line. But how do you recover if those efforts fail, burning lots of time and resources in the process?

Red flags. According to Rimini Street Global CIO Joe Locandro, you can consider an AI project failing if it isn’t delivering an expected outcome. There are usually signs that an AI project is floundering. For example, you might spot employees spending too much time fixing results “due to poor data quality,” he said.

“What you find is that a lot of the engineers keep spending time and getting delayed because the data wasn’t right,” Locandro said. “The second thing that you find is the results are hallucinating, and what I mean by that is they’re not generating very good and accurate results—and those two things are what causes the time and cost to blow out.”

“You [should] have a defined window for how long a project rescue attempt is going to be,” one executive tells IT Brew.—BM

      

Sponsored By Hyphenate

Finance’s new model. You don’t need a new stack to adopt autonomous finance. It layers on top of your ERP, CRM, payroll, and banking systems, helping AI agents apply your team’s rules and carry work across them. We teamed up with Hyphenate to explore how it works. Here’s what we learned.

market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: $8 billion. That’s how much Albertsons is seeking in damages after its failed merger with Kroger. (And you thought your last breakup was costly.) (Wall Street Journal)

Quote: “Refined products like diesel are still barely half of prewar levels. So, even if there were to be some follow-through from the Russians to put a little extra diesel into the world markets, it might take the edge off of prices, but it will not substantially lower them.”—Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow at the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy, on Trump’s diesel deal with Russia ⛽ (AP)

Read: Companies ranging from Lululemon to Dollar General are seeking an edge by cutting SKUs. ✂️ (CNBC)

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

Accounting and finance skill needs are evolving fast. Finance leaders explain how the changes have altered hiring cycles, talent evaluation, and employee development.