Associations and data providers hold complementary roles, not competing ones. The association ascertains what its membership wants and chooses a trusted vendor; the provider delivers the programme and stays out of membership and data-access decisions, which remain the association's alone. How visible the provider is - branded into the association's offering or held at arm's length - is a positioning choice each association makes for itself.
When an association first considers bringing in an outside provider to run its data programme, a fair question surfaces: does handing the programme to a specialist diminish the association's own role? The concern deserves a direct answer rather than a deflection, because getting the division of roles right is one of the foundations of a successful industry data sharing programme. The answer starts with recognising that the fear usually has a history behind it.
The fear behind the question
Associations that worry about control have often been burned before. We see the pattern in associations that once worked with a provider that went too far with members' data - using it for conflicted purposes such as selling reports, enriching other commercial offerings or, in the worst imagined case, selling data to the very third parties the association exists to protect its members from. An association carrying that history naturally reaches for mechanisms that restrict the next provider.
The instinct is understandable, and providers should be understanding of it. But the mechanisms it produces can hurt the members they are meant to protect, which is why the positioning choice below matters so much.
Three ways associations position a programme
In our experience associations approach a data programme in one of three modes:
- The association owns the brand. Roughly forty-five percent of the time, the association wants to be seen as the entity offering the programme. Its logo leads the communications, its administrator is the first point of contact and the programme is perceived as an internal membership benefit. The association grows its brand equity through the service.
- The association stays at arm's length. Another roughly forty-five percent want to facilitate the programme - and may fund it - but position it as delivered by an independent third party. The communications carry the provider's branding, the programme runs on the provider's domain and the provider's team supports the users.
- Control without responsibility. A rare third mode, where the association wants full control over the programme while staying at arm's length from it - all the power, none of the liability. The provider is bound to the association through a heads of agreement, yet contracts and invoices every participant directly, so the association transacts neither data nor money while still directing the project.
The first two modes both work well; they are simply different answers to the optics an association wants its members to perceive. In mode one the credit for the programme flows to the association; in mode two the credibility sits visibly with the provider. Neither is more correct - it is a positioning decision.
Why the third mode makes everyone worse off
Mode three is the one we try to avoid, because almost everybody loses. The provider cannot use its standard documentation - which is purpose-built for these programmes - so the arrangement falls back on the association's own contracts. Those are often thirty or forty years old and silent on the privacy and security considerations modern contracts provide for, which leaves the members contractually worse off. And because the provider must take additional legal advice to work under unfamiliar documents, costs rise, and those costs pass through to participants.
Where an association arrives at mode three because of history, we accept the psychology rather than fight it. It is better to start the relationship on a less-than-ideal contractual basis than not to start it at all. As trust builds over a few years, associations usually become open to moving onto the provider's standard contracts. The argument that lands is not cost - it is member protection: current, thorough documentation that protects members better is itself a membership benefit.
Where the association's role ends and the provider's begins
The association's role in a data programme is essentially two things. First, understand the demands and preferences of the membership - through the board, the statistics committee or the chairperson - and document them as a common set of goals. Second, find a suitable, trusted vendor to deliver the service the membership requires.
From there, it is like going to a dentist. You do not question the tools or the fillings; you trust a professional to look after your teeth. An association choosing a provider makes the same judgement - we trust your competence, your systems, your history and your pedigree - and then hands over the keys. The trust chain is one every CEO already lives with: members trust the board they elected, the board trusts the CEO, the CEO trusts the team. Handing a specialist function to a specialist is not a surrender of authority; it is how organisations already work. External certification helps a provider earn that trust quickly - in our case, ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certification means independent third parties confirm our security and quality rather than members taking it on faith.
Fifteen years of operation have not produced a single case of members returning a vote of no confidence in the provider to one of our associations. Providers that made critical mistakes, supported their members poorly or priced beyond their service have largely left this market - the market itself enforces the professionalism these programmes require.
The decisions a data provider must never make
Some decisions always stay with the association, whatever the mode. We believe a provider must never involve itself in membership criteria or membership admission - who is admitted is governed by the association's constitution. And a provider must never decide what data to accept from members or what data to reveal back to them.
That second boundary covers more ground than it first appears. It includes the give-and-take questions every programme eventually faces: if a new member contributes historical data, do they receive historical data back? If a member contributes two months, do they see only two months? Does a participant entering a new market gain access to history they never contributed to? The provider's professionalism shows in knowing which of these questions to ask - and in refusing to action any of them without specific written instruction from the association.
The provider's neutrality on these questions is not a limitation; it is the point. A provider with opinions about who should be admitted or who should see what would be a participant in association politics rather than a supplier to it. Those politics are real - a dominant market player on the board can stall a programme through a straightforward conflict of interest, a dynamic we cover in a membership benefit money can't buy elsewhere - and the provider serves everyone best by staying entirely outside them.
The dataset should outlive the provider
A well-governed programme plans for its provider disappearing. Wherever an association has a paid secretariat - a general manager, secretary or CEO who is employed by the association and does not work for any member - we advise that secretariat to hold in trust a complete, full-resolution backup of all the data from all the members. If the provider vanishes, the secretariat hands that dataset to the next provider and the programme continues. Without it, the historical data can vanish with the provider, and regenerating five, ten or twenty years of submissions from members is nearly impossible. That dataset is a valuable piece of intellectual property, and it should reside with the association as a business-continuity safeguard.
The safeguard only works with a neutral custodian. Where an association is run by volunteers - a chairperson or board members who themselves sell the equipment the programme measures - nobody on the board or statistics committee can be trusted with the full raw dataset, because the conflict of interest is direct. Even in open reporting projects, where participants see each other's brand-level results, the full-resolution dataset is a different matter and members most often must not hold it.
Continuity planning matters because these programmes can become the glue holding a membership together. We have seen a market data project end - two big participants withdrew for political reasons - and the association nearly closed its doors with it, because the programme was the key reason members stayed. Whether a programme runs is often politically loaded; keeping the dataset safe is the one part of that risk an association can control technically.
Why building an in-house platform rarely serves members
Some associations, usually after a bad provider experience, decide to build their own platform and manage the dataset internally. We should be upfront that an in-house build is a competitor to us, so we have an interest here - but the reasons it is usually a bad idea are structural, not commercial:
- Cost. Software capable of collecting market data on an ongoing basis, to a high standard of quality, security and timeliness, costs a great deal to develop. We know, because we have spent fifteen years investing in ours.
- Key-person risk. An in-house build needs a specialist team, and when the architect who holds the intellectual property steps away, the project stops growing - or a bug stops it entirely and nobody can restart it.
- Attention. A data platform is one of many initiatives an association runs, so it rarely gets the sustained focus it needs to develop.
- Labour and error. In-house programmes usually lean on human intervention, which adds cost to membership fees and introduces the data-quality risk that well-tuned software avoids.
- Time and stranded-asset risk. A build takes months at best, more likely two to three years, during which members get no benefit - and if legislation or the competitive landscape changes mid-build, the investment can become a stranded asset.
Licensing a specialist platform addresses each of these. The comparison we use: rather than buying a car from a dealership, the association decides to build a factory to produce one family wagon. You can drive a car off a lot within the hour; the factory takes years and delivers one vehicle. Full internal control is the single advantage of building, and it is outweighed many times over.
Where no association exists at all
There are markets where an association is impractical - jurisdictions where competitors are perceived to have no ability to speak to each other at all. In those markets the choice is a data sharing project through a decentralised, neutral channel like PowerStats, or nothing. Acting as the neutral hub there is a fallback that fills a gap, not a step towards displacing anyone.
Sometimes it runs the other way: participants in a decentralised project tell us they would like an association, because they see other topics worth addressing together - training, health and safety, engineering standards, representing the industry to government. Our job in that situation is to stay carefully compliant with the antitrust considerations around bringing competitors together, but where the desire is the participants' own, we welcome it and assist where we lawfully can. If the programme ends up under an association umbrella, we are happy to become one of the membership benefits the association offers. That is the exception that proves the rule: where an association exists, we work under it; where none can exist, we serve the market that would otherwise have nothing.
Key takeaways
- The association's role is to ascertain what its members want and choose a trusted vendor; the provider delivers the programme underneath that mandate.
- How visible the provider is - association-branded or arm's length - is a positioning choice, and both common modes work well.
- Demanding full control with no contractual responsibility leaves members on outdated documents and paying more - the one mode worth talking an association out of.
- Membership admission and every decision about what data is accepted or revealed stay with the association; a professional provider acts only on written instruction.
- A neutral, employed secretariat should hold a full-resolution backup of the dataset in trust, so the programme can outlive any provider.
- Building an in-house platform trades years of member value and heavy cost for a single advantage - control - that a well-governed provider relationship already delivers.
Frequently asked questions
Does bringing in a data provider mean the association loses control of its programme?
No - control and delivery are different things. The association decides who can join, what data is collected, what is revealed back to members and how the programme is positioned; the provider operates the platform and acts on the association's written instructions. A professional provider refuses to make membership or data-access decisions even when asked informally.
Should an association build its own data collection platform instead of using a provider?
Building in-house is usually the more expensive and riskier path: development cost, key-person risk, divided attention, human error and a two-to-three year wait while members receive nothing, plus the stranded-asset risk if circumstances change mid-build. Its single advantage is full internal control. Licensing a specialist platform delivers the programme in a fraction of the time, with the association keeping every governance decision.
What happens to the data if the provider disappears?
A well-governed programme keeps a complete, full-resolution backup of the dataset in trust with the association's employed secretariat - someone who does not work for any member. If the provider ceases to exist, that backup moves to the next provider and the programme continues. Without it, years or decades of historical data can be nearly impossible to regenerate from members.
Why should board members not hold the association's raw dataset?
Because most board members are drawn from member companies that compete in the market the data measures, holding the full-resolution dataset would be a direct conflict of interest. Even in open reporting projects, where brand-level results are visible to participants, the raw dataset needs a neutral custodian - the employed secretariat or the provider.
Two roles, one programme
A data programme works best when each party does what it is built for: the association convenes, decides and represents its members; the provider collects, protects and delivers the data. If your association is weighing up how the roles would divide in practice, our guide to setting up an industry data sharing programme covers the model end to end, and our approach explains how we work alongside associations - or talk to us and we will map the boundaries with you before any commitment.
