Reference to Busch being blinded by familiarity and the decline of the old guard leads to a few interesting questions over the weekend

Last week’s commentary surrounding the post in the Strategic Sourcer Blog regarding Spend Matters Jason Busch’s condescending dismissal of WhyAbe while touting Ariba within the context of free e-Sourcing solution viability has caused quite a stir.

In fact I received an e-mail over the weekend that asked about the decline of the old guard and how one could go about becoming part of the industry’s new pundits whose focus is on getting it right as opposed to succoring vendors based on familiar and cozy relationships.

Well I would write, here is what you don’t do . . .

The issue with Jason is that he seems to routinely discount those vendors with whom he has not had a strong or long-standing relationship until there is no logical way to ignore or deny their market presence (refer to the posts referenced in my article).

For example, and what started my original contending exchange with Jason was his post on Coupa when compared with Ariba – which ironically was somewhat similar to his response to WhyAbe . . . read “Jason Busch’s Rant part of another interesting week in the world of procurement.”

This closed mindedness of thinking also extended to his comment that Spend Intelligence and related applications were nothing more than madison avenue hype, which of course we all now know isn’t true; see Spend Intelligence and Botox.

Based on the above, when someone makes statements that draw into question their research methods and resulting conclusions, one has to challenge them for it is this freedom to call into question the status quo that keeps our industry moving forward.

As always, I indicated that they could quote me on the above and include the corresponding article links to reach their own conclusions.

To take a line from our Monday segments featuring Buyers Meeting Point’s Kelly Barner . . . “carpe diem folks, it’s going to be another busy (make that interesting) week!”

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