For which situation: knowing which vendors you are truly captive to
Your company depends on several vendors and a handful of individuals. You do not know which ones carry the most weight, nor what it would take to change them. The person best placed to answer is usually the one who made those choices — which undermines the objectivity of their view.
A contract renews without anyone monitoring its deadline. A setting can only be changed by the vendor. An installation is truly known by a single person. Each situation, taken in isolation, is manageable. It is their accumulation that traps you — and it only becomes visible once everything is laid flat.
What a Dependency Assessment contains
You receive a dependency map that positions your company across six axes: your contracts, your technical dependency, your data, the people who hold the knowledge, the financial weight of your vendors, and the law governing your data.
Each axis carries a lock-in level, established from the documents you provide rather than from impressions. That level reflects expert judgement, not automated scoring — and you can challenge it.
The map then details the three or four dependencies that expose you most. We do not simply select the tightest locks: we select those that combine lock-in with business importance. A severe lock on a peripheral tool carries less weight than a moderate lock on what drives your core activity.
Each retained dependency is described by its mechanism, an order-of-magnitude exit cost, and the levers you hold today.
The map also names the axes on which you are already free. Locating them helps measure the rest.
How a Dependency Assessment unfolds
We first send you a questionnaire written for a non-technical executive. It asks for facts and documents rather than impressions. Each axis ends with an open field where you can add any context you consider relevant.
We analyse your answers and attachments, then build the map.
The debrief is held as a session. We walk through the findings, you discuss them, and the map is finalised. Any element we had not seen — a clause negotiated verbally, a backup already tested — makes it into the final version.
A confidentiality clause is included in the proposal. We sign a separate NDA on request, before you transmit any document.
How long it takes
Three weeks from receiving your completed questionnaire to the debrief session.
For which executives
Company directors who carry a question about their IT dependencies and have no internal counterpart able to assess them objectively.
Frequently asked questions
Which of our vendors are we actually locked into?
That is the question this format answers. The answer is built across six axes, because a vendor can be easy to replace technically and impossible to exit contractually. Only the intersection of all axes gives a reliable picture.
What would a vendor change actually cost?
We establish an order of magnitude for your specific case. The calculation adds up what needs to be rebuilt elsewhere, data migration, the period when you pay two vendors simultaneously, the learning curve, and the contractual commitments still to be settled. We give a range and name what makes it uncertain.
Do you propose replacements for the vendors you assess?
No. We sell no technology solution and receive no commission from any vendor. What you do with the map is entirely your decision.