“It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” is a song by the rock band R.E.M.
No, this hasn’t become a music blog – especially given the fact that I can’t carry a tune to save my life! However, the above referenced lyrics are more than appropriate in terms of my interview this afternoon with Source One’s Joe Payne and Bill Dorn.
In what was the third and final segment of a 3-Part series (that will air next week), which focused on the company’s announcement that they had earlier this year created a Supply Chain Center of Excellence, both Payne and Dorn shared their belief that traditional analyst firms’ and industry pundits’ creditability in the market is waning. Specifically, and being caught between serving cross-purposed agendas, firms such has Gartner continue to fail in terms of delivering sound and unbiased insight into industry trends and vendor capabilities.
While I would recommend that you listen to the interview – which is just over 30 minutes in length – for the complete in depth reasoning behind this conclusion, I have to say that I am neither surprised nor dismayed by the revelation. After all, relying primarily on paying vendor clients to provide the critical case references that contribute to an analyst’s or blogger’s assessment of capabilities is tantamount to the fox guarding the hen house.
Of course, the end user client must bear some responsibility for the historic failings that continue to plague the industry. After all beyond the challenges of perhaps having limited resources, Payne and Dorn suggested that clients either do not know the right questions to ask or, are just not willing to pose the questions they have. Instead they appear to choose to blindly follow the lead of analysts and bloggers whose interests are to a certain extent influenced by the very companies about whom they are supposed to be providing objective and meaningful coverage.
Client abdication issues notwithstanding, this does not absolve the analysts and the vendors they cover from shouldering the lion’s share of the responsibility for failed initiatives such as the ones involving SciQuest and the states of Oregon and Colorado. Unlike the end client, these sources of purported industry knowledge have for the most part compromised the creditability of their findings for the sake of relationships and bottom line realizations.
Perhaps our balanced, well researched coverage of the SciQuest story is the reason why we have seen our list of subscribers/followers increase by more than 4,000 and counting over the past week. Maybe, just maybe the market is now ready to acknowledge and accept the unpolished reality that all vendors likely have their shortcomings, and that the recognition of said issues will ultimately lead to a better alignment of stakeholder interest and capabilities.
Or perhaps of even greater significance is that the days to which IACCM’s Tim Cummins referred in a 2010 Commitment Matters blog post regarding “the ‘conspiracy’ that leads executives on both sides of the table to ‘lie’ to their trading partners and to create a combined version of ‘the truth’ that leads to mutual delusion over what they can achieve, by when and for how much,” have finally come to an end. I certainly hope so.
In the meantime, let me know your thoughts. Can traditional analyst firms and industry pundits such as bloggers be relied upon for sound advice and, are their days really numbered?
Just follow the money . . .
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Procurement Insights 
thevendorchronicles
October 3, 2013
Reblogged this on the vendor chronicles and commented:
This is a great post by Jon Hansen on his Procurement Insights blog regarding the waning use of traditional analyst firms and bloggers.
thevendorchronicles
October 3, 2013
Great post! I’ve reblogged it on the vendor chronicles as well, http://thevendorchronicles.wordpress.com/
piblogger
October 3, 2013
Thank you, Darcy. Much appreciated.
On a side note, would you be open to providing a guest post on the Procurement Insights Blog as a means of introducing your blog to my readers?
thevendorchronicles
October 4, 2013
Thanks Jon, I’d love to! Feel free to direct message me and we can work out next steps! Appreciate it :)!
Pete
October 8, 2013
It’s not the end of the world as we know it by any means but it does serve a useful purpose for analysts and bloggers, including myself, to be reminded of the downside of becoming less objective.
We all have an agenda and we can all become deluded into thinking ours is the only right POV. I think it’s wise to acknowledge this weakness and even to point it out when we see it in others but I don’t think it’s wise to rubbish each or to claim that, because no-one’s perfect, the world is about to end.
piblogger
October 8, 2013
What a wonderful and balanced sentiment Pete. The term “an unexamined life . . .” immediately comes to mind relative to the importance of a regular objectivity check-up. In short I agree with your thinking, however the intruding realities of an industry that on many fronts continues to struggle from the standpoint of delivering promised results is difficult to ignore. The problem, besides the fact that so many eProcurement initiatives continue to fail, is that nothing really changes in terms of industry coverage.
While we all make mistakes – for me my initial enthusiasm for NASA’s Shared Services program that was headed by Richard Arbuthnot is a less than stellar moment (you can read my post via this link; http://wp.me/p4HrB-2qE) – I find that there is less than adequate disclosure as it relates to informing the market of both past and present failings. You simply have to look at the recent coverage of SciQuest and the absence of any reference to the lost Colorado and Oregon contracts as a case in point. As I had indicated in an earlier post, I think that the market and in particular prospective customers might find this kind of information useful. What do you think?
As demonstrated by my 2-Part guest post series on the Buyers Meeting Point blog (http://www.buyersmeetingpoint.com/blogs/bmps-qthe-pointq/entry/sciquest-comes-full-circle-with-combinenet-acquisition-part-2-of-2), the subject matter of my articles are thoroughly researched with links to the corresponding reference material. If the facts of a particular story cause discomfort for some, then that is a good thing.
The response from our readers to posts such as the one on Gartner (http://wp.me/p4HrB-1Z3), would tend to support the market’s interest in a more transparent view of the industry.
As for the end of the world as we know it . . . I believe that it is the beginning of a new world for those who understand the changing realities of an industry that wants facts instead of fiction, results instead of unfulfilled expectations.
Lori Witzel (@loriaustex)
December 16, 2013
Hi Jon – found you via Darcy’s blog, and I am glad I did. I am on one side on the vendor side of things (I work for Scalable as their Director of Corp Communications and such), and on the other on the end user side of things (Scalable helps enable IT Finance and IT Asset Management to optimize IT spending).
I think re: bloggers and industry analysts, it’s the end of the world for self-interest. Social media fosters clarity and transparency (whether one wants it to or not!)
What’s challenging – we all run the risk of our perspectives being skewed by conflicts of interest, from the known (analyst groups attempting to keep the “church” of research and advisement separate from the “state” of vendor relations) to the unknown or even unconscious (a blogger who may be interested in becoming a consultant, an end user whose work blog activity demands a less personal POV.)
Since our value to each other in blog-post-and-comment threads hinges on our keeping it real, how much transparency is enough, and how much is too much? How do we reconcile ourselves to what may be unconscious bias?
Dang – no answers, just more questions!
piblogger
December 16, 2013
Interesting questions to ponder Lori. Bias, whether we would like to admit it or not, is part of our human nature. Like absolute power, absolute certainty re speaking as an authority or expert, corrupts absolutely. This is why the transparency to which you referred is so critical, as it provides the necessary checks and balances (at least it should) to examine everyone’s commentary with a discerning eye.