Lock-in
The condition of being unable to leave a vendor at acceptable cost. It comes in technical (proprietary interfaces, trapped data), economic (prepaid commitments, reset discounts, migration cost), and organizational (skills and processes shaped around one vendor) forms.
Defined in 2 GAGE programs, which carry 3 distinct definitions of it. The wording above is taught in Business AI Transformation.
How each discipline defines it
The same term does different work depending on who is using it. These are the definitions as each program teaches them, unedited.
The condition of being unable to leave a vendor at acceptable cost. It comes in technical (proprietary interfaces, trapped data), economic (prepaid commitments, reset discounts, migration cost), and organizational (skills and processes shaped around one vendor) forms.
The degree to which an option ties you to something, a vendor, a specific model version, or your own maintenance burden and team knowledge, and how costly and possible it is to leave. An option you cannot exit is a decision you cannot reverse.
The cost and difficulty of switching away from a system once you depend on it, especially a bought one. High lock-in raises the true cost of a buy verdict and should be weighed at the decision, before the dependence exists.
Where it is taught
The exact lessons this term appears in. The first 7 topics of every program are free with a free account.
- Build, buy, or wrap: the decision framework with your organization's real budget · Shipping AI and Surviving the Incident, AI Governance: Applied Mastery
- Build, buy, or kill: the quarterly portfolio review with real numbers · The Money: Budgets, ROI, and Risk, AI Governance: Applied Mastery
- Vendor Management and Contracts · Technology, Platforms and Vendors, Business AI Transformation
Terms it appears with
Not an alphabetical neighbourhood: these are the terms taught in the same lessons, ranked by how often they appear together.