Dependency tier
Where Flow ranks a supplier, customer or intermediary of a company (the Tier column of the Network's table): Critical, Major, Notable or Listed, by what the documents say about the relationship.
Each party a company is identified as buying from, selling to or shipping through goes into one tier, decided by the strongest thing the documents state about it, and is ordered inside the tier by that figure. There is no score: every row names the statement that put it there. A Critical row is exactly a relationship Flow already counts as critical in the company's header.
Inputs
- Critical. A stated single source; 50% or more of the company's identified supply of an input; or a customer at 10% or more of its revenue.
- Major. 25% or more of an input; 10% or more of everything the company is identified as buying; a customer at 5% or more of revenue; or a port or carrier on half or more of the company's identified routes, when it has at least two.
- Notable. Any smaller stated or estimated share.
- Listed. Named in the documents, with no figure.
- Behind the suppliers. A party further up is Critical when a disclosed critical link lies on its path to the company and the supplier it stands behind is Critical or Major. It is Major when a critical link lies on its path (an inferred one counts here) or it supplies three or more of the company's suppliers, Notable at two, and Listed otherwise. Up to four tiers are walked.
How to read it
Beside each supplier are its alternatives: first the company's other identified sources of the same input, then the other producers of it named anywhere in the network. "None identified" means none in what has been read, not none in the world. Each row carries how sure its link is (disclosed, inferred or uncertain) and the date it was last verified.
How to use it
Start with the Critical rows that have no alternative identified. Those are where one counterparty's trouble reaches the company most directly.
Limitations
Shares are of identified supply or of reported revenue, never dollar amounts. Contract terms, qualification times and switching costs are not in the documents read. An annual report need not name a customer under 10% of revenue, so the customers listed are the large ones. Beyond the first tier, the network holds only what suppliers' own reports state.
In Kereon
Flow · Network table and Exposure. Read from the relationships the store holds each time the view opens. A statement not verified again within fifteen months is marked.
Also called: dependency tiers, critical dependency, major dependency, dependencies tab, supplier dependence, customer dependence, alternatives identified, behind the suppliers.