Unless you are finding data sharing – possibly through a third-party company and elaborated through a Redwood of a decision tree – interesting, you should skip this post.
Most big companies nowadays are to a big extent data driven i.e., giving insight in some of this data implies huge amount of bureaucracy, top management’s attention, thorough evaluation and if any secrets may be revealed because of it etc.
This is a request coming from the bigger players in the market. The players with the power and presence to change any current procedure, and if need be; pay a little bit more to those companies complying to their demands. Transportation of a product is very marginal part of the entire supply-chain, so it would not be a huge cost for these bigger players. This is a demand that is coming up more frequently and furthermore something that, inter alia, a vendor to these companies needs to now consider quickly but also get accurately. Reason for why I believe the decision would need to be taken rather swiftly, is because that could allow a vendor to, more possibly, take lead and influence the format and the conditions of the data shared – swaying it in the vendor’s favour(?).
Framing:
Reflecting upon what framing to be chosen, I leaned towards a framing clearly being risk averse. Not entirely sure why, but possibly because that is a framing that does not hint towards nor push any management to go through with a riskier solution, and possibly makes me less guilty if it goes wrong, on the paper at least. However, realized that this is only preventing me to discover all the opportunities that are there, some that clearly needs to take part in the decision-making process. Consequently, I ended up with a more open and generous framing of the challenge, I think:
- Chosen framing: How to sustain the relationship with customers asking to access your data?
- Alternative framing A (Risk taking): How to sustain, improve and gain increased revenue from our relationship with customers asking for access to our data.
- Alternative framing B (Risk averse): How to avoid decreasing our revenue and harming our data control from customers asking to access our data.
Sunk Cost:
Appreciate that there might be a few sunk cost to this challenge that I have not yet explored. The most evident ones, if allowing them access to the data is:
- Customers asking for access to more and more data, on a later stage.
- Customers using the data to achieve a competitive advantage over their vendors.
- Customers using the data to improve their own internal service (eventually a potential competitor).
- Less control of our own data.
- Potential consultancy costs.
- Potential costs for creating new CRM system.
Moreover, making a decision now, or a decision to postpone making a decision will also potentially influence the outcome.
Make the decision now:
- Get an advantage over our competitors, through being adaptable, cooperative, and willing to act.
- Potentially be early enough to be involved in defining the process.
- Reduce workload on the long term as sharing this data will automate some of the daily work for certain departments, for both companies.
Postpone the decision:
- Time and opportunity to launch our own system guarding our self-interest.
- Time for consultants to evaluate the challenge and come up with a game plan.
- Time to see what our competitors are doing.
Decision tree:
This was much more time consuming but also more helpful than I initially thought. Creating the decision tree helped me get an overview of the various paths that some of the decisions lead to. Betting analysis is not done properly, so the numbers elaborated in the model is unfinished and inaccurate. However, whilst putting percentages and costs on the various items, it appeared to me, that with accurate numbers, doing such a model might prove to be very valuable. So, I believe you will get somewhat of a hint towards what the intention is.
Here is a link to the decision tree.
A good suggestion:
Lastly, and something not included in the tree, but a vital point; share the data for a limited period, a trial. That could potentially allow us to be the first of the vendors to act and show willingness to cooperate, whilst we are buying some time to evaluate any potential consequence.
Revelation:
The narrative of any given discussion is what influence the outcome most. So, be aware of as many narratives as possible beforehand, to adjust the path and if need be, take a step back and move it into a path where you are more in favour and comfortable about the outcome.