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Can't see this email properly? View Online   This newsletter is being resent due to a technical issue. We regret the delay. Six takeaways from Ontario's spending watchdog on how the province's cannabis business is doing  Ontario's auditor general published her annual report on Wednesday, devoting one section of their analysis to the efficiencies of the province's spending on its cannabis operations. The audit of the Ontario Cannabis Retail Corporation (OCRC) came with a total of 16 recommendations on how the business should improve its operations going forward. Here's a snapshot of some of the key takeaways contained within that report.  Inventory struggles: The OCRC frequently ran out of products that should have been made available through its wholesale division, which Ontario's brick-and-mortar retailers are supplied with. According to a survey the auditor general conducted in July, two-thirds of respondents said they weren't satisfied with product availability from the OCRC. As well, on any given day, about 19 per cent of all wholesale cannabis products listed by OCRC were not in stock or available for retailers to order. The OCRC also was found to have inaccurate inventory forecasting data, which wound up leading to higher costs and missed sales in the first six months of the year.  Executive calls: Some industry executives were able to reverse decisions made by the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) to delist underperforming products by ringing up top OCS staff directly. While the auditor general said that she didn't come across any examples of preferential treatment awarded to licensed producers, these "informal escalations" can create a perceived lack of fairness, and the watchdog recommended the OCS conduct a formal appeal process to mitigate any further issues.  Too many products?: There are nearly 1,800 cannabis products available for sale in the province, an eye-popping figure that highlights how increasingly fragmented the state of the legal marijuana industry in Canada has become. The Ontario auditor general found that there are 1,774 cannabis products available for sale in the province, nearly half of which (793) are dried flower offerings sold by 186 licensed producers. The sheer number of products on the market is a leading reason why so many Canadian cannabis players have struggled to reach profitability. Pricing decisions: The auditor general found that the way the OCRC priced its recreational cannabis products wasn't made with a formal analysis before it was implemented. The so-called "value-based pricing approach" aimed to price products based on a customers’ perceptions and willingness to pay for a certain product, but was not set out in a way that justified moving to that particular pricing model. That resulted in some confusion from a handful of licensed producers who were found to not have a clear understanding of how product prices are determined, the report said. Poor customer service: The OCRC opted to bring in-house its customer care staffing from a third-party earlier this year, but that move resulted in longer wait times for inquiries, claims, and complaints, the auditor general found. While getting rid of outsourcing would save the OCRC about $550,000, it saw significant delays in resolving customer claims and complaints. That has led to a majority of retailers polled by the auditor general to describe themselves as dissatisfied with the OCRC's ability to deal with customer complaints.  Weak data management: The auditor general found that the OCRC doesn't have an effective way to oversee the customer data that it - and its third-party logistics provider Domain Logistics that manages its warehousing - collects from every sale. While the OCRC developed a data strategy in May, at the time of the auditor general's audit, it lacked a governance component, that includes what data it has, where it resides, how it's used and what compliance it needs to adhere to. While the data itself may not be entirely germane to its business, journalist Patrick Cain tweets that Canadians have no Fourth Amendment protections over their data stored on servers in the U.S., which is where Domain Logistics is based and could have further implications for Ontario pot consumers given the current U.S. federal laws on cannabis.