Revenue Growth Management (RGM) has never been more vital—or more complex. In 2025, consumer goods companies (CPG) find themselves navigating a perfect storm of challenges: surging costs, shifting consumer preferences, intensifying retailer pressures, and global uncertainties. In fact, recent industry insights reveal that over 70% of companies rank these issues as their top obstacles to growth this year.
To thrive in this dynamic landscape, incremental changes are no longer enough. Businesses need bold, customer-centric strategies powered by advanced data and technology to stay ahead.
In this guide, we dive into six critical RGM challenges that CPG leaders are facing in 2025 and share actionable strategies to transform these hurdles into opportunities for long-term success.
Figure 1: Current Trends & Challenges in RGM. To discover how these challenges may affect your pricing strategy for 2025, watch our webinar.
The cost of raw materials continues to fluctuate unpredictably, driven by geopolitical conflicts, inflation, and supply chain disruptions. For example, the war in Ukraine has significantly impacted the global supply of critical commodities, creating ripple effects across industries (IMF). Another example is cocoa, a key ingredient in chocolate, in which data revealed a price surge to almost $9,500 per metric ton in 2024, marking a nearly 50% increase within three months and more than doubling compared to the previous year (ICCO).
This rapid escalation in costs exemplifies the broader challenges companies face in balancing pricing consistency with the need to protect margins—a dilemma that risks undermining customer trust and profitability.
Figure 2: The Recent Price Surge in Chocolate Production Costs. Source: U.S. Federal Reserve of St. Louis.
1. Scenario-Based Planning
Leverage predictive analytics to model multiple cost scenarios and assess their impact on your product portfolio. By anticipating potential cost fluctuations, you can create contingency plans and identify opportunities to safeguard margins without alienating consumers.
2. Agile Pricing Adjustments
Use readily available market data to proactively adapt your pricing strategies. This approach allows you to respond quickly to cost changes while maintaining competitiveness. For example, adjusting prices gradually across SKUs or regions can reduce shock to customers and protect revenue streams.
3. Use Advanced Shopper Simulations
Tools like the Buynomics platform enable RGM leaders to understand how price changes influence consumer behavior. For instance, RGM departments can simulate shopper reactions to price increases, ensuring the right balance between profitability and market share.
In saturated markets like butter and milk, growth opportunities are increasingly limited. For instance, the global butter market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.26% from 2024 to 2032, reaching USD 58.16 billion by 2032. (Fortune Business Insights). Established players face a zero-sum game where gains often come at the expense of competitors, potentially leading to intense price wars that erode margins. As organic expansion slows, brands must innovate and differentiate to stay competitive while avoiding strategies that dilute profitability.
1. Differentiate
Improve your portfolio, e.g., via Price Pack Architecture (PPA) or specific product variants that meet the needs of specific relevant segments. Differentiating with PPA allows you to explore diverse pack sizes and configurations that cater to evolving consumer preferences. Offering smaller, premium or value-sized options can help brands capture new segments or meet specific occasions without compromising overall profitability.
2. Leverage Cross-Category Insights
Analyze how changes in one category influence others within your portfolio. By identifying complementary opportunities—such as pairing snacks with beverages—you can create synergies that drive incremental growth across categories.
Consumers are becoming increasingly price-conscious due to inflation and economic uncertainty. A recent Deloitte survey found that 65% of retail shoppers are willing to switch brands if prices are too high (Deloitte). This shift has driven significant growth for private labels and discounter channels.
In Western Europe, private label products accounted for 36% of fast-moving consumer goods sales during the second quarter of 2022, with the overall private label value share growing from 31.4% in 2018 to over 38% in 2024 (Statista, 2024). Established brands are now fighting harder to maintain market share as traditional brand loyalty weakens and shoppers prioritize affordability and perceived value over-familiarity. This trend is evident in various sectors, including cleaning products, paper goods, and food ingredients, where brands have seen a 20% decline in value spurred by inflation and competition from lower-cost alternatives (Financial Times).
1. Specific Promotions
Design targeted campaigns that resonate with specific consumer segments. Use data to understand shopper preferences and create promotions that balance value and brand loyalty. For instance, offering loyalty discounts or bundle deals can attract price-sensitive consumers while strengthening relationships with existing customers.
2. Optimize Product Mix
Leverage AI tools to simulate how different product offerings and price points impact consumer behavior. This helps ensure your portfolio remains relevant and appealing, especially during periods of economic uncertainty. Adjusting product sizes, features, or packaging can address emerging shopper needs.
Retailer consolidation and the rise of powerful buyer groups are reshaping the dynamics between manufacturers and retailers. These large players are exerting greater pricing pressure, demanding tighter trade terms, and expecting unprecedented levels of transparency.
For manufacturers, this means navigating increasingly complex pricing negotiations while protecting margins and maintaining strong retailer relationships. An increasing tendency for international net price comparisons within buying groups further intensifies the pressure on manufacturers.
Buying groups such as Everest (incl., Edeka, PicNic, Ahold Delhaize, and Metro), Epic (incl., Auchan, Casino, and Intermarche), and Coopernic (incl., E. Leclerc, Conad, and Coop Italia) have become dominant forces in the retail landscape. These powerful alliances not only standardize pricing expectations across markets but also challenge manufacturers to align their strategies globally, further complicating the negotiation landscape.
1. Align Pricing Across Markets
Use advanced analytics to ensure consistency in pricing across regions while adapting to local market conditions. This approach prevents misalignment that could lead to conflict with retailers and ensures a unified strategy for managing margins globally.
2. Build Retailer Partnerships
Collaborate with retailers by offering data-backed insights that demonstrate mutual benefits. Position yourself as a strategic partner by highlighting how pricing strategies can drive volume, profitability, or category growth for both parties. Through these partnerships, you can balance the benefits for manufacturers, retailers, and shoppers—ultimately achieving a Triple Win. To learn more about the Triple Win, you can download our guide.
In an increasingly volatile world, external shocks like pandemics, political conflicts, and natural disasters are becoming more frequent and unpredictable.
The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, significantly disrupted global supply chains, with approximately 59% of businesses reporting substantial operational impacts (Statista, 2022). Additionally, recent geopolitical developments have introduced new challenges. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has announced plans to impose tariffs of 25% on all products from Canada and Mexico, and additional tariffs on China, aiming to address trade imbalances and other concerns (US News).
These events can disrupt supply chains, pricing strategies, and demand forecasts, forcing companies to adapt quickly or risk losing competitive ground. The ability to respond with agility has become essential for long-term resilience and success.
1. Invest in Resilience
Develop robust contingency plans that address key vulnerabilities across your supply chain, production, and distribution networks. This includes diversifying suppliers, building inventory buffers, and creating alternative logistics options to ensure business continuity during disruptions.
2. Proactive Risk Management
Leverage advanced scenario planning tools to prepare for a wide range of potential disruptions. Model various “what if” scenarios to identify the best responses to sudden changes in market conditions, from commodity price spikes to shifts in consumer demand. To support these actions, you must use the right AI tools that offer precise, fast, and flexible analyses. You can learn more about different AI pricing tools through our blog.
Despite rapid advancements in AI and analytics, many companies still rely on outdated, manual methods to manage RGM. These traditional approaches slow decision-making and fail to capture the complexity of today’s dynamic markets. Without the right tools, businesses risk significant revenue loss as they struggle to compete with companies leveraging cutting-edge technology.
1. Adopt Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics
Move beyond basic descriptive tools that only provide historical insights. Predictive analytics forecast future trends, while prescriptive analytics recommend specific, actionable strategies to address challenges and seize opportunities. These advanced analytics empower teams to make smarter, faster decisions. You can learn more about the movement to predictive and prescriptive analytics in our webinar.
2. Leverage AI for Portfolio Optimization
Use AI-driven solutions to evaluate key RGM levers—pricing, PPA, and promotions—holistically rather than in isolation. This ensures that decisions are informed by the interconnected dynamics of your portfolio, market competition, and consumer behavior.
Navigating the complex challenges of 2025 requires a reimagined approach to Revenue Growth Management (RGM). Concluding, to stay ahead, companies must:
1. Adopt a Holistic Approach
Align all RGM levers—pricing, promotions, PPA, mix, and trade terms—into a cohesive strategy. This ensures that decisions are not made in silos, maximizing profitability and market impact.
2. Embrace Advanced Technology
Move beyond traditional tools and leverage AI and machine learning. These technologies enable scalable, data-driven decisions that account for the complexity of modern markets.
3. Invest in Agility
Implement technologies that allow you to make changes to your RGM strategy swiftly if an unexpected event happens. Agility is the key to turning challenges into opportunities.
At Buynomics, we empower leading CPG companies to overcome these and more challenges to achieve their KPIs.
Our cutting-edge Virtual Shopper AI technology provides unparalleled predictive and prescriptive accuracy, simulating real-world shopper behavior to guide faster, data-driven decisions that drive profitability. Whether optimizing pricing, promotions, or your product portfolio, our platform ensures your RGM strategy aligns with market dynamics and shopper needs.
Stay ahead of your competition and start transforming your RGM sgrategy today!
With Buynomics, it only takes weeks for RGM leaders to transform their departments from descriptive to prescriptive. Our team is here to support and guide RGM teams through every step.
To start fill in our RGM maturity assessment to receive a personalized report in minutes. In this report, we will benchmark your performance in key categories and provide you with best practices and actionable next steps!
Request a demo today to see how Buynomics supports your RGM team and helps you make data-driven decisions.
IMF, "How War in Ukraine is Reverberating Across World's Regions."
ICCO, "Statistics, Cocoa Daily Prices."
Deloitte, "2022 Deloitte holiday retail survey."
Statista 2024, "Private label in Europe - statistics & facts."
Financial Times, "Brand loyalty ain't what it used to be."
Statista 2022, "How has the coronavirus impacted your operations?"