Public Sector Decision Support

Public Tech Pilot Exit & Procurement Assessor

Evaluate multi-year enterprise and law-enforcement data software trials. Quantify vendor lock-in, data sovereignty, integration friction, and projected 5-year TCO to reach a defensible decision: renew, renegotiate, or execute an orderly migration.

Case Presets:

Pilot Parameters

24 Months Evaluated

Pilot Elapsed Duration 24 mo

Time organization has run test datasets and frontline workflows.

Yearly Pilot Fee (£k)

Quoted Full Prod (£k/yr)

Frontline User Adoption 38%

Percentage of target detectives, staff, or analysts routinely querying system.

Proprietary Format & Lock-in 82 / 100

Degree of closed data pipelines, proprietary ontology, and egress friction.

Demonstrated Operational Lift 44 / 100

Measurable clearance rate improvement, time saved vs legacy workflows.

Alternative Readiness (Open Standards) 68 / 100

Availability of in-house or open-source SQL/vector data mesh alternatives.

Data Sensitivity Classification

Retention Index

ORDERLY PILOT TERMINATION RECOMMENDED

Execute 6-Month Structured Exit & Data Egress

Two years of pilot data indicates low operational adoption (38%) paired with steep lock-in risk (82/100) and an unsustainable 150% cost escalation upon full procurement. Migrating to open schema data mesh preserves sovereignty and avoids sunk-cost escalation.

5-Yr Prod TCO £24.8M Software + internal overhead

Open Alt 5-Yr TCO £8.4M Saved: £16.4M

Exit Cost / Friction £620k Est. 4.5 months egress

Cost-per-Active User £11.8k/yr 3.2x benchmark baseline

Dimension Breakdown (Audited Scores)

Frontline Adoption

38%

Measurable Efficacy

44/100

Vendor Lock-in Threat

82/100

Cost Sustainability

28/100

Data Sovereignty Readiness

68/100

Audit completed. Ready for procurement board distribution.

Recommended 4-Phase Transition Roadmap

Phase 1 (Days 1–45)

Data Ingestion Freeze & Parquet Egress

Enforce contractual data extraction rights. Dump graph entities, ontology edges, and audit logs into client-owned AWS S3/Azure Gen2 storage.

Phase 2 (Days 46–100)

Open Mesh Schema Mapping

Standardize entity-relationship layers on open standards (DuckDB/PostgreSQL/Vector stores) without recurring external proprietary license seats.

Phase 3 (Days 101–180)

Frontline Cutover & Contract Closeout

Retrain analysts on native cross-force search interface. Decommission pilot connectors and verify full cryptographic purging from vendor infrastructure.

Why Multi-Year Tech Pilots Fail in Public Safety

Large enterprise data vendors often offer discounted or subsidized multi-year trial licenses to marquee government bodies (such as regional police forces or national healthcare trusts). As documented when five UK police forces terminated their Palantir trial after two years, several structural pitfalls recur:

1. Escalation Clifts: Pilot pricing is typically 30% to 50% lower than full production rollouts. Moving from testing to frontline mandate triggers massive budgetary shocks.

2. Frontline Rejection: Complex analytical suites built for military intelligence require specialized data wranglers, frustrating sworn officers who need rapid, friction-free case updates.

3. Ontology Capture: If entity-relationship logic is saved in a proprietary vendor format rather than standardized databases, the public authority becomes trapped.

Procurement & Evaluation FAQs

What is a safe "Retention Viability Index"?

A score above 65 indicates that operational gains justify continued licensing. Scores between 45 and 64 warrant scope reduction and price renegotiation. A score below 45 indicates that termination and in-house data sovereignty migration is the fiduciary course of action.

How is the 5-Year TCO difference computed?

The calculation combines vendor quoted software licenses, mandatory forward-deployed engineering (FDE) retainers, cloud data egress tariffs, and ongoing staff training overhead against modular open-source or commoditized cloud data services.

Can this model be applied beyond law enforcement?

Yes. The presets include healthcare data platforms, municipal smart infrastructure, and commercial enterprise ERP workflows where vendor lock-in threatens long-term agility.