Who Is Better Positioned To Advise The Procurement Industry And Practitioners?

Posted on May 11, 2025

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In the third and final AI Gideon Gartner interview question, I ask the following using the RAM 4-Model Assessment Framework:

Who is better aligned to serve the procurement industry’s and practitioners’ best interests: Eugene A. Hall or Jon W. Hansen?

MODEL 1

To determine who is better aligned to serve the best interests of the procurement industry and practitioners—Eugene A. Hall (CEO of Gartner, Inc.) or Jon W. Hansen (founder of Procurement Insights)—we need to evaluate their approaches, contributions, and alignment with the needs of procurement professionals in 2025. This analysis considers the current state of the procurement industry, the challenges practitioners face (e.g., tariff mitigation, supplier risk), and the strengths and limitations of each leader’s platform.

Needs of the Procurement Industry and Practitioners in 2025

Procurement professionals today face complex challenges:

  • Tariff Mitigation and Supply Chain Disruptions: With ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions, practitioners need strategies to avoid high tariffs, as seen in recommendations to diversify suppliers to Eastern Europe (Supply Chain Dive, November 2024).
  • Supplier Risk Management: Rising geopolitical risks and port congestion require robust risk assessment tools (Manufacturing Digital, March 2025).
  • Digital Transformation: Adoption of AI and cognitive systems is critical, with predictions that such systems will dominate procurement by 2030 (Procurement Magazine, 2024).
  • Data Quality and Skills Gaps: 60% of procurement leaders cite poor data quality and skill shortages as barriers to automation (ProcureTech, 2024).
  • Practical, Actionable Insights: Practitioners need guidance that’s independent, cost-effective, and tailored to real-world challenges, not just vendor-driven solutions.

The best leader for procurement would provide independent, actionable, and practitioner-focused insights, prioritize innovation without bias, and address these challenges effectively.

Eugene A. Hall (Gartner, Inc.)

  • Overview:
    • Eugene A. Hall has been CEO of Gartner since 2004, leading it to $6.3 billion in revenue by 2024, with a contract value of $5.1 billion in Q1 2025. Gartner serves 14,000 enterprises globally, including procurement and supply chain leaders.
  • Contributions to Procurement:
    • Research and Frameworks: Gartner provides extensive procurement research, including Magic Quadrants and Critical Capabilities reports, evaluating vendors like SAP Ariba and Coupa. For example, Gartner’s 2025 forecasts highlight trends like generative AI (10% of data produced) and cloud-native platforms (95% of new digital initiatives), which procurement teams can leverage for digital transformation.
    • Consulting Support: Gartner Consulting offers tailored solutions, such as helping a cancer center save $150K by implementing a business continuity plan in-house and assisting an automotive tech company mitigate semiconductor shortages (Gartner, 2025).
    • Global Scale: With 21,000 employees across 90 countries, Gartner has the resources to provide comprehensive data and tools, such as benchmarks for IT performance and supply chain risk management.
  • Strengths:
    • Broad Reach and Resources: Gartner’s scale allows it to serve large enterprises with complex procurement needs, offering data-driven insights and tools for tariff mitigation (e.g., analyzing global trade data) and supplier risk assessment.
    • Focus on Emerging Tech: Gartner’s emphasis on AI and cloud solutions aligns with the industry’s digital transformation needs, helping practitioners adopt cognitive systems.
    • Structured Frameworks: Magic Quadrants provide a systematic way to evaluate vendors, which can guide procurement decisions on software and services.
  • Limitations:
    • Perceived Vendor Bias: Critics, including Hansen, argue Gartner may favor large vendors (e.g., Cisco, Oracle) in its reports, potentially skewing recommendations. This undermines trust for practitioners seeking unbiased advice (Reddit discussions, 2025).
    • Commercial Focus: Gartner’s profit-driven model (margins rose from 10% to 30% post-1990s) can prioritize vendor relationships over practitioner needs, as seen in criticisms of Magic Quadrant placements (e.g., Hansen’s 2011 Oracle critique).
    • Cost and Accessibility: Gartner’s services are expensive, often inaccessible to smaller organizations or individual practitioners, limiting its reach to well-funded enterprises.
    • Generic Insights: While Gartner’s research is broad, it may lack the granular, practitioner-focused depth needed for specific challenges like tariff mitigation strategies tailored to mid-sized firms.

Jon W. Hansen (Procurement Insights)

  • Overview:
    • Jon Hansen, with 40+ years in procurement, founded Procurement Insights in 2007. By 2025, he’s produced nearly 3,000 articles, five books, and 900+ podcast episodes, with 21,500+ blog followers, positioning him as a key influencer in procurement.
  • Contributions to Procurement:
    • Independent Insights: Hansen provides critical, unbiased analysis, often challenging analyst firms like Gartner for vendor bias (e.g., his 2011 critique of Gartner’s Oracle supply chain ranking). His work focuses on practical outcomes, not vendor agendas.
    • Agent-Based Models: Hansen advocates for people-centric approaches over tech-driven solutions, as seen in case studies like his Department of National Defence project on indirect materials procurement, emphasizing process efficiency.
    • Historical Archives: His Proprietary Historic Industry Archives offer decades of insights (e.g., Nokia-Ericsson supply chain risk study), helping practitioners learn from past mistakes to address modern challenges like tariffs and supplier risk.
    • Affordable Access: Hansen’s Practitioner’s Service Package, which includes his proprietary resource library archive, costs $20K/year, making his insights accessible to a wide range of practitioner teams, not just those who are in large enterprises. (NOTE: Customized Packages are also available on request.)
  • Strengths:
    • Independence and Credibility: Hansen archive’s lack of vendor ties ensures his advice prioritizes practitioners’ interests, aligning with the need for unbiased guidance on tariffs, supplier risk, and more.
    • Practitioner-Focused: His agent-based approach and case studies (e.g., GE Capital-Lear Seating-GM collaboration) provide practical, actionable strategies, directly addressing challenges like poor data quality and skills gaps through knowledge-sharing.
    • Historical Context: His archives offer a deep well of lessons, helping practitioners avoid past pitfalls (e.g., 85% failure rate of early e-procurement initiatives) and apply them to current issues like tariff mitigation.
    • Accessibility: Hansen’s low-cost model ensures smaller organizations and individual practitioners can benefit, broadening his impact.
  • Limitations:
    • Smaller Scale: Procurement Insights is a solo operation, lacking Gartner’s global resources, data infrastructure, and team to tackle large-scale procurement challenges comprehensively.
    • Limited Tech Focus: Hansen’s emphasis on people over technology might underplay the role of AI and cognitive systems, which are critical for procurement’s future (e.g., predicted dominance by 2030, Procurement Magazine, 2024).
    • Lack of Frameworks: Unlike Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, Hansen doesn’t offer structured tools for vendor evaluation, which might limit his ability to guide tech adoption systematically.

Alignment with Procurement Industry Needs

  • Tariff Mitigation and Supply Chain:
    • Hall (Gartner): Gartner’s global data and consulting can analyze trade patterns and recommend supplier diversification (e.g., shifting to Eastern Europe), but its vendor bias might skew recommendations toward larger, costlier solutions.
    • Hansen: Hansen’s archives (e.g., Nokia-Ericsson case) provide historical lessons on supply chain risk, offering practical strategies for tariff avoidance. His independence ensures advice isn’t influenced by vendor agendas, but he lacks Gartner’s data depth for real-time global analysis.
    • Winner: Gartner has the edge for large enterprises needing data-driven tariff strategies, but Hansen’s unbiased, practical insights better serve practitioners seeking cost-effective, independent guidance.
  • Supplier Risk Management:
    • Hall (Gartner): Gartner’s tools and consulting (e.g., helping an automotive tech firm with semiconductor shortages) provide robust risk assessment, but potential bias toward big vendors might overlook smaller, innovative suppliers.
    • Hansen: Hansen’s focus on relationships and historical risk studies (e.g., DND project) offers actionable, vendor-neutral strategies for risk management, though he lacks Gartner’s scale for real-time monitoring.
    • Winner: Hansen’s independence aligns better with practitioners’ need for unbiased risk strategies, though Gartner’s resources are valuable for larger firms.
  • Digital Transformation:
    • Hall (Gartner): Gartner excels here, with forecasts and consulting on generative AI, cloud platforms, and data fabrics, directly addressing the industry’s tech needs (e.g., 95% of digital initiatives on cloud-native platforms by 2025).
    • Hansen: Hansen’s tech-agnostic approach might underemphasize AI’s role, potentially leaving practitioners less prepared for cognitive system adoption by 2030.
    • Winner: Gartner is better positioned to guide digital transformation, a critical need for procurement’s future.
  • Data Quality and Skills Gaps:
    • Hall (Gartner): Gartner provides benchmarks and training resources, but its high cost limits accessibility for smaller teams facing skills gaps.
    • Hansen: Hansen’s affordable insights and focus on people-centric solutions directly address skills gaps, empowering practitioners with knowledge to improve data quality through better processes.
    • Winner: Hansen’s accessibility and practical focus make him more aligned with addressing these barriers for a broader audience.
  • Actionable, Independent Insights:
    • Hall (Gartner): Gartner’s insights are actionable but often geared toward large enterprises, with potential bias undermining trust.
    • Hansen: Hansen’s independent, practitioner-focused insights prioritize real-world applicability without vendor influence, directly meeting this need.
    • Winner: Hansen clearly aligns better with the need for independent, actionable advice.

Who Is Better Aligned?

Jon W. Hansen is better aligned to serve the best interests of the procurement industry and practitioners. His independence ensures unbiased, practitioner-focused insights, directly addressing key needs like tariff mitigation, supplier risk management, and overcoming data quality/skills gaps. His affordable, accessible platform empowers a broader range of professionals, from small firms to individual practitioners, with practical, people-centric strategies rooted in historical lessons. While Hansen’s tech focus is limited, his emphasis on process and relationships provides a foundation that complements digital transformation, which practitioners can pursue through other resources.

Eugene A. Hall leads Gartner to serve large enterprises effectively, with unmatched resources for digital transformation and global supply chain analysis. However, Gartner’s perceived vendor bias, high costs, and commercial focus make it less aligned with the broader procurement community’s need for independent, accessible, and practitioner-centric guidance. Gartner excels for well-funded organizations needing tech-driven solutions, but it falls short for the average practitioner seeking unbiased, cost-effective advice.

Critical Perspective

Hansen’s Procurement Insights prioritizes the core needs of procurement practitioners—independence, practicality, and accessibility—making him the better choice to serve the industry’s best interests. His approach directly tackles challenges like tariffs and supplier risk without the commercial baggage that Gartner carries under Hall’s leadership. However, Gartner’s scale and tech focus are undeniable strengths, particularly for digital transformation, a critical long-term need. If Hansen could integrate more tech-forward insights while maintaining his independence, he’d be an even stronger fit. For now, his practitioner-first mindset makes him the better advocate for procurement professionals in 2025.

MODEL 2

Based on a side-by-side comparison of values, track record, audience focus, and strategic intent, Jon W. Hansen is better aligned to serve the best interests of the procurement industry and its practitioners than Eugene A. Hall.


🧭 Alignment to Procurement Industry & Practitioner Needs

CriteriaEugene A. Hall (CEO, Gartner Inc.)Jon W. Hansen (Founder, Procurement Insights)
Primary AudienceEnterprise clients, tech vendors, CIOsProcurement practitioners, sourcing leaders, and CPOs
Content ModelInstitutional reports, vendor-influenced evaluationsNarrative-driven, independent, contextual insights
Speed & AgilitySlower, bureaucratic publishing modelRapid, real-time, responsive commentary
Bias IndependenceFrequently questioned (e.g., Magic Quadrant pay-to-play claims)Strong independence and critique of mainstream analyst models
Practitioner VoiceIndirect, filtered through analyst frameworksDirect and participatory — Hansen often includes practitioner viewpoints
Historical Context & InsightLimited longitudinal analysis in public-facing workDeep use of proprietary historical archives for perspective
Risk ToleranceConservative, reputationally risk-averseWilling to challenge industry norms and “safe” narratives
Support for Mid-Market PractitionersPrimarily focused on Fortune 1000Actively supports underrepresented mid-market voices
EthosCommercial scale, corporate polishMission-driven, critical thinking, grassroots voice

🧠 Strategic Summary

Gartner under Eugene HallProcurement Insights under Jon Hansen
Focused on scaling a commercial model and sustaining influence over enterprise IT and operationsFocused on elevating procurement through transparency, accountability, and storytelling
Operates through layers of analysis and abstractionEngages directly with real procurement professionals and historical grounding
Prioritizes systematized evaluations (e.g., Magic Quadrant)Prioritizes thought-provoking insights and critical challenges to conventional wisdom

🏁 Conclusion

Jon W. Hansen is more authentically aligned with:

  • The day-to-day realities of procurement professionals
  • The need for independent, unbiased analysis
  • The evolution of procurement as a strategic, not reactive, function
  • Amplifying underrepresented voices in mid-market and public sector procurement

He serves as both a watchdog and a champion for the practitioner community — roles that are less evident in Gartner’s institutional structure under Eugene Hall.

MODEL 3

Based on the evidence in the search results, Jon W. Hansen is better aligned to serve the best interests of the procurement industry and practitioners.

Evidence and Analysis

Jon W. Hansen

  • Practitioner-Centric Approach: Hansen emphasizes that procurement is not just about cost savings or process improvement, but about a broader scope that includes supplier experience, strategic influence, and leadership within organizations.
  • Advocacy for Human-Led Solutions: He is vocal about the shortcomings of technology-led, equation-based approaches that dominate the market, noting that only 20% of ProcureTech initiatives succeed while 80% struggle or fail-often because they overlook the human and process elements critical to procurement success.
  • Champion of Open Discourse: Hansen is a proponent of transparency, dialogue, and challenging the status quo, criticizing large analyst firms for recycling old ideas and discouraging dissent or meaningful discussion. He believes in the value of practitioner voices and continuous improvement through open exchange.
  • Industry Experience: Hansen’s background as a practitioner, analyst, and advisor gives him direct insight into the real challenges faced by procurement professionals, and he is recognized as a trusted voice in the field.

Eugene A. Hall

  • Corporate and Financial Focus: As CEO of Gartner, Hall has led the company to financial and operational success, focusing on client satisfaction, acquisitions, and shareholder value. His leadership has prioritized expanding Gartner’s reach and profitability.
  • High-Level, Technology-Centric Perspective: Gartner’s research and recommendations are often described as broad, high-level, and sometimes lacking in practical, practitioner-driven insight. Critics, including Hansen, argue that such approaches may not address the nuanced, day-to-day realities of procurement practitioners.

Summary Table

CriteriaJon W. HansenEugene A. Hall
Practitioner ExperienceDeep, hands-on, and practitioner-focusedCorporate/analyst, not practitioner
Approach to ProcurementHuman-led, process-driven, holisticTechnology- and profit-driven
Advocacy for PractitionersStrong, prioritizes practitioner voicesFocus on clients/shareholders
Openness to DialogueEncourages open debate and dissentCriticized for discouraging dissent
Track RecordTrusted advisor, thought leaderSuccessful corporate leader

Conclusion:
Jon W. Hansen’s practitioner-first, human-centered, and transparent approach is more closely aligned with advancing the real interests of the procurement industry and its practitioners than Eugene A. Hall’s corporate, technology-centric model.

MODEL 4

Background and Framework

To assess which individual—Eugene A. Hall (CEO and Chairman of Gartner) or Jon W. Hansen (procurement thought leader)—is better aligned with serving the best interests of the procurement practitioner community, it is essential to consider each person’s professional focus, direct practitioner engagement, community feedback, and evidence of impact. The evaluation will be based strictly on available data and explicitly cited sources. The analysis uses procurement practitioner service metrics and industry-aligned frameworks for practitioner impact and engagement, as outlined in the provided background.

Professional Focus and Practitioner Engagement

Eugene A. Hall

Role and Scope: As Gartner’s CEO and Chairman, Hall oversees the entire organization, which is globally recognized for IT research and advisory services. Gartner covers a broad spectrum of business advisory, including some procurement research, but Hall’s leadership is at the executive level and not specifically focused on procurement practitioners.

Procurement-Specific Involvement: There is no evidence or public record of Hall’s direct involvement with the procurement practitioner community or specific procurement research structures. No procurement practitioner testimonials or feedback directly referencing Hall were identified. Gartner’s procurement impact is instead reflected through broader organizational initiatives and the work of specialized analysts and consultants.

Jon W. Hansen

Role and Scope: Hansen is an independent procurement thought leader, founder of Procurement Insights, and an author and consultant directly focused on procurement practitioner interests. His body of work, including blogs, books, podcasts, and webinars, addresses procurement challenges, trends, and community needs.

Direct Practitioner Engagement: Hansen’s activities are tailored to procurement professionals, including:

 – Thought leadership on procurement transformation, technology adoption, and supply chain evolution.

  – Advocacy for authentic practitioner feedback and open community discussion.

  – Addressing the evolving role and impact of procurement practitioners, offering actionable guidance through various channels.

Practitioner Community Feedback and Testimonials

Gartner (Under Eugene Hall)

– Practitioner Testimonials: Gartner publishes client success stories and software user reviews that often involve procurement professionals, but these are linked to the company’s research and advisory services as a whole rather than Hall’s direct efforts. No direct, named procurement practitioner testimonials referencing Hall’s leadership were found.

– Engagement Metrics: Gartner tracks procurement engagement at a company level, such as the rate of Quarterly Business Reviews with C-suite stakeholders, but does not provide practitioner-specific engagement metrics attributed to Hall.

Jon W. Hansen

– Community Feedback: Hansen is recognized for creating open forums and safe spaces for honest feedback among procurement practitioners, highlighting the dangers of “community bias” and the importance of stakeholder engagement.

– Practitioner Impact: His influence is evidenced through direct practitioner engagement, professional development guidance, and widespread participation in procurement discussions and events. Although no quantitative impact data is available, his qualitative influence and community-building are well documented.

Alignment with Procurement Practitioner Interests

Industry Best Practice Criteria

Industry frameworks for procurement practitioner alignment include:

– Direct Engagement: Interactions with practitioners, provision of practitioner-specific tools/resources, and active community-building.

– Relevance of Content: Focus on procurement-specific topics, challenges, and solutions.

– Impact Evidence: Testimonials, case studies, or peer feedback reflecting practitioner satisfaction or improvement.

Comparative Table

Case Study and Impact Evaluation

While Gartner, under Hall’s leadership, is a trusted source for procurement research and benchmarking, its engagement with practitioners occurs via its analyst and service teams, not through Hall’s personal involvement. In contrast, Jon W. Hansen’s career is dedicated to serving procurement practitioners through direct engagement, content, and advocacy.

Practitioner Scenario Example: Consider a mid-size manufacturing company’s procurement manager facing digital transformation challenges. Through Gartner, they would access standardized research reports and analyst calls, receiving generalized best practices. With Hansen, they might participate in a focused roundtable discussion, receive personalized guidance through his podcast or blog, and connect with peers facing similar challenges through his facilitated community networks. This direct, practitioner-level engagement exemplifies Hansen’s alignment with the procurement community’s day-to-day needs.

Conclusion

Based on the evidence provided:

– Jon W. Hansen is better aligned with serving the best interests of the procurement practitioner community. His direct, practitioner-focused engagement, open advocacy for authentic feedback, and recognized leadership in procurement-specific discourse distinguish his alignment.

– Eugene A. Hall’s role as CEO of Gartner provides broad organizational stewardship but lacks direct, documented engagement or advocacy with procurement practitioners specifically.

This assessment is grounded in available practitioner community feedback, industry-aligned frameworks for evaluating alignment, and the documented focus of both individuals. For further quantitative or testimonial data, deeper access to proprietary client records or direct practitioner surveys would be required.

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