Is DPW falling into the same Gartner trap of leading with technology and supporting practitioner initiative abdication?

Use this link to watch the 23-second video associated with the above post.

The following is my response:

Here is a post from 2023 titled “Why it’s time for service provider leadership to step out from behind their organizations’ logos” – https://bit.ly/3R2SdT9

I agree with you about going deep into ProcureTech leaders’ backgrounds.

However, the following excerpt from the 2007 “Yes Virginia” post raises serious questions regarding your 10x more experience reference. – https://bit.ly/3SUWxml

“Most e-procurement initiatives are championed by senior-level managers who recognize the potential of a technology-centric program, but lack a firm understanding of operational challenges, and, therefore, underestimate the impact of a proposed strategy at the department level.”

However, Virginia avoided the trap of a technology-centric program, which is detailed in the post, by taking full ownership of the initiative’s design, implementation, and ultimate success. In short, they didn’t defer or abdicate their experience and control in favor of the vendor’s purported 10x expertise. While the SAP Ariba solution did what it was supposed to, Virginia would have succeeded with any other vendor’s solution because they were the “focal point and constant” driving the initiative. The solution provider leadership followed Virginia’s lead.

TODAY’S TAKEAWAY

I ran out of character space but wanted to end with the following two crucial points for laying the foundation for a successful ProcureTech development and implementation initiative:

• As a practitioner, you must know and understand better than anyone the individual and collective workings of both internal and external human and agentic AI agents.
• As a practitioner, you must know as much, if not more, about the technology that is shaping the industry – and yes, even more than the leaders behind the solution provider logos.

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