Navigating Tariffs with NetSuite Analytics Warehouse

If you’ve opened LinkedIn or a news site lately, you’ve probably seen headline after headline about tariffs. The uncertainty can feel overwhelming. No one knows exactly what rates will be set, when they’ll change, or how long they’ll last. For many companies, this creates a stressful “what’s going to happen next?” environment.

So, where does NetSuite Analytics Warehouse (NSAW) fit into all this? The short answer is that analytics is one of the best tools you have for navigating uncertainty. Even when new variables like tariffs are introduced, you can still use NSAW to model different scenarios, stress test your business, and prepare for what’s ahead.

Playing the “What If” Game with Parameters

NSAW doesn’t come with prebuilt tariff scenarios, but it does give you the flexibility to create parameters. With parameters, you can plug in different assumptions and instantly see how those assumptions ripple through your dashboards.

For example, you might build parameters for a low, medium, and high tariff rate such as 25 percent, 37 percent, and 50 percent. Each parameter can be applied to your historical sales and cost data to estimate how margins would change. By adjusting these values, you’re effectively running side-by-side “what if” scenarios to see where your business would land under different conditions.

Turning Data Into Decisions

Once you see how tariffs affect your margins, you can start thinking about your response. You might decide to raise prices to offset tariffs, or you may find that you still have enough margin to absorb the cost and stay competitive. In other cases, it could make more sense to look at suppliers who aren’t affected by the tariffs.

NSAW won’t make the decision for you, but it gives you the clarity to make informed choices quickly.

Considering Customer Impact

Raising prices might feel like the most obvious move, but what will that do to demand? With NSAW, you can build a supplemental dashboard that shows how past price increases have correlated with sales volume. If higher prices historically led to a sales dip, you may also want to adjust your ordering or inventory levels to prevent overstock.

Looking at pricing analytics side by side with sales behavior is an important way to navigate tariff-driven changes without introducing new risks.

The Bottom Line

Tariffs create uncertainty, but uncertainty doesn’t have to mean guesswork. With NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, you can use parameters to simulate “what if” scenarios, forecast margins under different tariff rates, explore the trade-offs between pricing, costs, and suppliers, and anticipate customer responses to price adjustments.

Analytics won’t remove the unknowns, but it will give you a clearer map of the possible paths ahead. And when the future feels uncertain, that clarity can make all the difference.

For a tutorial on how to use parameters in NetSuite Analytics Warehouse (NSAW),  see our article on using dashboard parameters.