Fable
The dock used an exclusive knot, and only on the day of departure did they discover that none of the ships could be untied
The bay's docks switched to a new stevedoring crew. Their hoists were fast, their ledgers looked sharp, and they brought a proprietary knot that supposedly tied cargo boxes more securely. For the first few months, efficiency really did improve. The manager was pleased, so he had every warehouse adopt the knot, and even rewrote the cargo tags, route signs, and settlement ledgers to match the crew's methods. Later, the crew raised their prices. The manager wanted to switch, only to find that other crews couldn't read the knot, the old ledgers wouldn't export, and the cargo box numbers only mapped within that one integrated setup.
Some said it was better to endure for now, since retraining is too expensive. Others wanted to hire a second team at the same time, but the two sets of knots got mixed together and the cargo boxes became even more chaotic.
An old sailor broke the problem apart: which cargo tags could be exported, which processes existed only in the other party's accounting office, which knots had universal substitutes, which historical records had to be kept for seven years.
The dock began remediation. New contracts required standard cargo tags, regular exports, interface documentation, migration assistance, and price adjustment caps; key cargo lines were first switched back to general-purpose knots.
Leaving that loading crew was still not easy, but at least it no longer felt like cutting off the entire dock. The steward also learned to ask an uncomfortable question before purchasing: if we have to leave in three years, what will it cost us?
From then on, when the dock measured suppliers, it did not only look at how many people were saved today, but also at whether goods, accounts, experience, and control could be taken away when people were replaced tomorrow.
The old sailor also had the manager run a departure drill. Only a small batch of cargo tags was exported and handed to another temporary team to try binding and shipping. The drill was ugly, and many numbers did not match, but precisely because they had not yet fallen out, both sides had time to fix the contract and process.
When it came time to negotiate the price again the following year, the dock finally had leverage. It did not have to leave immediately, but it knew where the road out was. Suppliers also began to serve it seriously, because an exclusive knot no longer meant permanent control of the entire dock. Dependence would still exist, but the initiative was no longer entirely staked on the other party's single rope. Asking this question during procurement is far cheaper than asking it after a price increase. Whether you can leave should be part of whether you can buy.