Independence & conflict-of-interest policy.

The four hard rules.

These are the structural commitments behind every TRACIO engagement, applied without exception across the consulting, build-integration, programme-rescue and managed-services lines. They are designed to be auditable by your procurement, legal and security teams.

Disclosures we make proactively.

Even with the four rules above, certain situations create the appearance of conflict. We disclose them, in writing, before they affect a recommendation:

• Supplier familiarity. Our advisers have, earlier in their careers, worked inside RFID and RTLS suppliers. We name the suppliers and the years to you in writing on request. Where prior employment creates familiarity that could bias an evaluation, we flag it explicitly in the discovery report.
• Concurrent engagements. If we are advising another client in the same vertical at the same time, we disclose the fact (without breaking confidentiality on either side) and let you decide whether to proceed.
• Delivery partners are disclosed and agreed in writing. We do the work ourselves, including RF site surveys and on-site installation. On some projects we may bring in a delivery partner, only with your written agreement and under a written contract with confidentiality, data protection and security terms. Where a project needs hands-on work that TRACIO does not do, such as ATEX-certified electrical work, you contract those providers directly, and we specify and check the work under the same independence terms. We do MES and WMS integration, MES interlocks and OPC UA connections ourselves, working with your IT and OT team and under your change control, but we don’t run your production systems day to day.
• Speaking and analyst relationships. Conferences, podcasts and analyst briefings sometimes involve sponsorship from suppliers. We accept invitations on editorial terms only. We do not accept payment to recommend a supplier or product.

How this policy is auditable.

The independence policy is designed to be testable, not just stated. Procurement, internal audit or your CISO can verify it through any of the following means, on request and under appropriate NDA:

What this means commercially for you.

Three practical consequences flow from the policy, and they show up in every engagement:

Supplier shortlists are defensible. Because we have no stake in the choice, the shortlist we produce can be audited by procurement and accepted by the board without an asterisk. The evaluation framework is yours to re-use on later procurements.

Pilots are designed to surface problems. A supplier-led pilot is structured to win the deal. An independent pilot is structured to expose the edge cases before the spend scales. The economic incentive points in opposite directions, and the deliverables look different as a result.

Programme exits are clean. Every stage of the TRACIO Programme Method ends with a written gate criterion you can act on. If the gate fails, you exit without the sunk-cost pressure a single-supplier delivery would create.