What I do

I’m Tom Larsen, an independent consultant in data, mathematics, and AI based in Melbourne. I help Australian companies improve how their products, prices, promotions, and customers work together as one coherent commercial system.

Over the past decade, I’ve worked with more than 100 brands across retail, ecommerce, telecommunications, banking, property, and subscription businesses — including GAP, Brand Collective, Rip Curl, Country Road Group, Optus, Singtel, Amaysim, BMW, GPT Group, ISPT, Village Cinemas, and Marshall White.

I optimise products, prices, and promotions to increase profit and reduce risk.

The problems I solve

Many companies see gradual changes in performance that are difficult to diagnose and even harder to correct. These are not isolated issues. You might recognise patterns such as:

  • You start discounts early November but competitors wait until Black Friday
  • You run 30–40% promotions but can’t tell if they actually drive profit
  • You depend on a small set of products but worry about risk
  • You get plenty of new customers but can’t see whether they ever come back
  • You sell a steady number of units but can’t explain falling profit
  • You discount often but aren’t sure if you’re simply training customers to wait
  • You release new products regularly but suspect it has little impact on profit
  • You increase prices slightly and lose a lot of frustrated customers overnight
  • Your best customers start buying less but you’re unsure what caused the shift

These are signals from the same commercial system — a system most organisations can see only in fragments. I explain what is happening, why it is happening, and which changes will most improve profit with acceptable risk, with three perspectives.

Three lenses on your commercial system

I provide three complementary perspectives that make your commercial system visible and measurable:

  1. Space — competitive position in the market: I track daily data from more than 3,000 Australian companies and brands. This shows how your prices, discounts, ranges, and policies compare to the broader market — and where you are exposed.
  2. Time — performance over 3–5 years: I analyse how categories, customers, and promotions have shifted over 3–5 years or more. This distinguishes long-term structural change (the signal) from short-term variation (the noise).
  3. Portfolio — interactions with multiple components: Products, prices, promotions, presentation, and customers influence one another. By treating them as a connected system, we can see where profit is created, where it is lost, and why.

Together, these lenses shift the discussion from “something is wrong” to “we know what is happening, what it is worth, and what to change first.”

Your commercial system as a portfolio

Commercial results come from the combined effect of products, prices, promotions, presentations, and customers. But most organisations — and most SaaS providers, agencies, and consultants — try to optimise these parts separately. Profit and risk, however, come from how they interact. If you ignore those interactions, performance becomes unstable and hard to manage.

I take a portfolio approach: treating your commercial world as a single, connected system made up of at least five interacting components:

  • Products — what you sell and how each item contributes to revenue, margin, mix, and customer behaviour.
  • Prices — what you charge, how this compares across channels and competitors, and how customers respond to movement.
  • Promotions — when and how you discount or add value, and whether this generates true incremental profit or simply shifts timing or mix.
  • Presentations — how products are grouped, described, and found online or in-store, including categories, tags, and page structure.
  • People — your customers: who buys, how often, how much, and how their behaviour changes over time.

Seen together, these components reveal two things that are otherwise invisible:

  • Profitability — the true return each part of the system creates, not just the revenue it generates.
  • Predictability — how stable and understandable the system is, and how reliably you can forecast the effect of changes.

When you see these elements together, the symptoms make sense — and you can adjust products, prices, and promotions with a clearer view of upside and risk.

How I find profit and risk opportunities

Each engagement begins by understanding how your commercial system works today and how it diverges from your goals or from market conditions.

Common areas of exploration include:

  • Categories where profit declines despite stable or growing volume
  • Price points misaligned with demand or competition
  • Promotions that drive real incremental value vs. shifting timing or mix
  • Products that attract high-value customers vs. discount-only buyers
  • Range decisions that affect conversion, margin, and exposure

For each area, you get a clear explanation of what is happening, what it means, and which actions are worth testing.

What you get

At the end of the first engagement, you typically get:

  • A detailed diagnostic across products, prices, promotions, and customers
  • Specific recommended adjustments to increase profit, reduce risk, or both
  • Scenario modelling to quantify effects under different options
  • Decision rules for pricing, promotions, and product choices
  • Structured data, models, or tools for ongoing monitoring and optimisation

These outputs support commercial, finance, and data teams and remain useful beyond the initial project.

How we work together

We begin with a short discussion to clarify your objectives, constraints, and available data. If there is clear potential value, the first project typically runs for 2–8 weeks, during which you gain:

  • A clear view of the main issues in your portfolio
  • A ranked list of opportunities to improve profit or reduce risk
  • Recommended changes that can be tested and scaled

I work independently with commercial, finance, and data leaders. The process is designed to require limited internal time: structured access to data and a small number of focused discussions.

Pricing is fixed and value-based. Fees reflect scope and expected impact, and projects are structured so the expected commercial value clearly exceeds the cost.

What your company gains

By the end of our work, your company will understand:

  • Where profit is created, where it is lost, and why
  • How your prices and promotions compare to the market
  • How much you rely on specific categories, products, or customer segments
  • How pricing and promotions influence behaviour and mix
  • Which changes offer the greatest upside — and which carry more risk

This supports sharper pricing, stronger product ranges, more effective promotions, and more confident planning.

Is this relevant for you?

If you are responsible for profit and risk in a business with meaningful product, pricing, promotional, or customer complexity, my role is to help you understand your commercial system and improve it.

To discuss whether this is relevant for you, email tom@tomlarsen.org.