The Math Doesn’t Lie: STOP Buying “Gartner Leaders”

The old axiom “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” is obsolete.
Vendor choice does not drive transformation success — readiness does.
With a 20% success rate across the board, your chances of success with SAP Ariba or Coupa are the same as with ConvergentIS or AdaptOne as long as your organization is ready.

Stop brand-buying. Start readiness-building.

SAP fails at the same rate as Coupa, which fails at the same rate as mid-market platforms, which fail at the same rate as niche players.

Vendor capability ≠ Implementation success.

Success rates do NOT improve with better-known vendors

Gartner, Hackett, McKinsey, Forrester — and 27 years of Procurement Insights data — all converge on the same finding:

80% of digital transformations fail
regardless of vendor chosen.

SAP fails at the same rate as Coupa, which fails at the same rate as mid-market platforms, which fail at the same rate as niche players.

Vendor capability ≠ Implementation success.

This is the entire foundation of Hansen Fit Score.

---

Top 10 vendors dominate the market — but not success rates

As we just calculated:

• Top 10 vendors control ~75% of the market
• Therefore ~75% of all successful transformations occur in their customer base
• BUT those customers also represent ~75% of failures

The success percentage remains constant at ~20%.

This proves:

Brand is not a predictor of success.
Readiness is.

---

Smaller vendors perform exactly as well — when the client is ready

ConvergentIS
AdaptOne
ApolloRise
Bonfire
Focal Point
etc.

None of these providers deliver worse outcomes.

When implementations succeed, it’s because:

• Governance is in place
• Data is clean
• Executive alignment is strong
• Process maturity exists
• Change readiness is real

In other words: HFS ≥ 72/100.

When implementations fail, it’s because:

• No alignment
• No capacity
• No governance
• No data hygiene
• No readiness

The vendor is not the determining variable.

Readiness is.

The IBM axiom is dead because the risk equation has changed

Old world (1980s–2005):

Big brand = safer choice
Failure was blamed on technology

New world (2005–2025):

Big brand = same 80% failure rate
Failure is blamed on the organization

Executives no longer get fired for selecting SAP/Coupa/Ivalua.

They get fired for:

• Budget overruns
• Failed adoption
• Missed outcomes
• Inability to absorb change

Choosing a top-10 vendor no longer protects careers.

Readiness protects careers.

---

THE TRUTH IN ONE SENTENCE

**When your organization is ready, you have the same success probability with ConvergentIS or AdaptOne that you do with SAP Ariba or Coupa.

When you’re not ready, you fail with all of them.**

This is not opinion.
It is math, market data, and 27 years of empirical pattern recognition.

“Vendor selection doesn’t determine success — readiness does.
With a 20% success rate across the industry, the idea that picking a big brand protects you is obsolete.
Get your organization ready, and you can succeed with SAP the same as you can with AdaptOne.
Ignore readiness, and you’ll fail with all of them.”

30

HERE IS THE NEW MAGIC QUADRANT:

OR, IF YOU PREFER:

FINAL NOTE:

MULTIPLE AI MODELS REACHED THE EXACT SAME CONCLUSION. YOU MAY DISAGREE WITH ME – THAT IS YOUR RIGHT, BUT YOU CAN’T ARGUE AGAINST THE MATH!