Start with an observation.
A vendor mention is an observation. Adoption, removal, and switching are interpretations. Keeping those layers separate makes it possible to revisit a conclusion without rewriting the original evidence.
A useful record pairs a company and vendor with a source URL, a dated observation, the underlying signal, and an explanation of the inference.
A second source should add a second perspective.
A careers page and a copied version of the same job posting are not independent evidence. Corroboration should account for where a claim originated, not simply how many pages repeat it.
Public disclosures, career-site integrations, and technical documentation can contribute different kinds of context. Contradictory observations belong in the record too.
Describe the change precisely.
- Adoption signal: new evidence that a company uses or has a relationship with a vendor.
- Removal signal: a previously observed reference is no longer present. Removal alone does not establish cancellation.
- Co-adoption: evidence of two vendors in use, without a demonstrated replacement.
- Switch signal: evidence consistent with movement from one vendor to another, with remaining uncertainty made explicit.
Keep two clocks.
Event time describes when a change is reported to have happened. Observation time describes when we first learned about it. Those dates can differ substantially.
When the event date is unknown, it should stay unknown. A collection timestamp should never be silently presented as a contract start or cancellation date.
Make uncertainty usable.
A source may cover a subsidiary, a trial, a business unit, or a specific workflow. Entity matching and scope matter as much as vendor detection.
Confidence should reflect source quality, recency, corroboration, and unresolved conflicts. Those judgments are not a guarantee of spend, renewal timing, or customer churn.