Offering Update: Fìrinn’s Trust Wrapper
Co-Authors: Jamie Gray and Jamie Blackport, Co-Founders of Fìrinn Data Services
If you’ve been following our Fìrinn journey so far, you’ll know that we’re creating trust solutions to enable data and AI use. If you want to know “why trust?” see this previous article.
But how do we actually know “trust” is the answer?
With any idea, or vision, deep knowledge of the space and experience working in the space goes a long way. Combining this experience with discovery discussions and research is key. We compiled a list of the major pain points and market challenges we saw and we drafted proposed solutions (as well as considering high level feasibility of solutions).
We then took these initial challenges and designs to leaders and stakeholders in the space to cross reference with their experiences and tighten up our thinking.
Along the way, as with any discussion, we got into pain points these people are feeling right now, some of them common across entities and some unique. We were happy to give feedback on these. There’s nothing better than a fresh perspective and some experienced outside thoughts to tackle a problem. And for us, it’s great to deliver some value back as we build.
Beyond offering perspective, we actually are pretty well positioned as an organization to take that support a step further and build solutions to ease these pain points.
Trust was always a higher order that people strive to build and create (whatever their industry), but we’ve recently witnessed a huge uptick in the “importance of trust”; on social media, at conferences, in podcasts, in the news, talking to potential partners, etc. And if it’s not already being tackled, entities should be quickly considering how they can implement trust measures into their businesses.
Even though we’re early in our own development, we are keen to help, and know we can make a positive impact from day one. We want to grow relationships with our partners from the outset, alleviate their headaches, and design systems that scale with them. Our previous startup experience tells us that early involvement benefits customers greatly.
And this is where our “Trust Wrapper” offering started to form…
What is it? How Does it work?
Designed to minimize friction, our “Wrapper” is layered into solutions to increase trust and stakeholder confidence in data use, exchange, and management. Needs are assessed and wrappers are tailored to clients’ offerings to provide best-fit options.
The build stages of our wrapper include; review/assessment, design stages, client and partner collaboration, tech and documentation builds, and customer implementation.
Wrapper outputs include an optimal combination of deliverables such as; software development, technological implementations, guidance documentation, assessments, and strategic recommendations.
How builds and outputs look will vary depending on scope and need, however, what will remain consistent is delivering increased trust in your systems and maximized utility of your data assets.
How does a trust wrapper alleviate friction? What value does it add?
A trust wrapper alleviates friction by using layers of solutioning that minimize impact on tool functionality while maximising confidence within that tool. Which in turn maximises data use, utility, and exchange. Layering allows us to be sensitive to the customer workflow and painpoints.
Going a bit deeper…
In theory, an organization could build a tool with only its core function in mind to maximise efficiency and effectiveness of the solution.
In reality, there are a whole host of factors that need to be considered (where you can’t rely on the perfect workflow every time); regulatory restrictions, potential bad actors, user experience, contractual limitations, conflicting stakeholder interests, the list goes on…
When solving these additional factors, organizations should aim to minimize friction, and if possible add value to the tool.
One way to mitigate risks associated with additional factors of consideration, is to take trust beyond a handshake or a contract.
You can create layers of trust through methods such as; stakeholder transparency/user awareness, through technological measures, or by introducing a neutral third party. How you position these layers is also important to maximise value and minimize friction.
The optimal approach is to wrap all these around your solution, because each layer tackles a different area of friction.
Combining layers of trust into a “wrapper” adds value because;
Holistically, trust enables deeper relationships between partners
Awareness, transparency, and clarity enable more granular data exchange
Trust orientated technological measures build consistency in data sent and data received which allows for fewer “checks” which increases frequency of exchange and use.
Upstream evaluations and verifications create a “buy right, buy once” approach that lowers cost and makes for more effective outcomes.
Neutral parties supporting collaborations allows any “need to have” difficult conversations to take place objectively and efficiently and avoids complicating the workflow. All round enhancing relationships and challenging the fragmented data that exists today.
Key to Fìrinn’s ability, to build the wrapper, is our knowledge and experience. Which allows us to optimise “what layers?” and “in what order?”. Our experience ensures layers are value add, and not a bloat or blocker on your system.
We anticipate our trust wrapper solutions will validate our thinking on many of the needs and challenges in the market around data use and exchange. Our work in the layers of trust will also inform the basis for our long term builds. And with that, early adopters and users of trust wrapper solutions will see solutions that scale well with their own offerings.
And our other offerings?
I plan to share more on things such as our development in Use Rights management, vision, and anticipated impact of this offering as we scale.
How can I learn more about Trust wrapper and other Fìrinn offerings?
We’ll be building more detail into our website and company materials
Keep following our linkedin and medium pages for early access updates
Get involved and talk to us! We’re in a great position to hear your pain points and help you with your journey in trust. See how we can support you by reaching out via Linkedin or our website.
