The structural conflict nobody dares to name out loud
By Jon Hansen | November 2025 | Procurement Insights
Earlier this week I asked a simple question: “Why does the ProcureTech solution side of the table make billions, while the practitioner side loses trillions (and more)?”
The responses were telling. Vendors went quiet. Practitioners shared it privately with notes like “finally someone said it.” Analysts ignored it entirely.
That silence is the story.
The Perfect Circle of Validation
GEP just published a beautiful vision of “AI-Driven Total Procurement Orchestration.” Hackett says readiness is the only thing that separates the 2% who succeed from the 98% who stall. Gartner warns that 84% of organizations don’t measure AI accuracy and 91% aren’t tracking the skill shifts AI triggers.
Both are right. And that’s exactly the problem.
Here’s what the ecosystem actually looks like:
- Hackett publishes research saying “readiness is everything”
- Gartner publishes research saying “human readiness is the bottleneck”
- GEP (and Coupa, and Ivalua, and SAP Ariba) publish content saying “orchestration is the solution”
- The analysts get paid by the vendors who sell the orchestration
- The vendors sponsor the research that identifies the problems their products claim to solve
- Everyone quotes everyone else in a perfect circle of validation
Result: the same 80% failure rate we’ve seen since 1998 — just with prettier slides.
That is the “why we are stuck” that almost no one dares to name out loud.
The Doom Loop, Illustrated
Jim Collins identified the Doom Loop in Good to Great: organizations that lurch from initiative to initiative, never building cumulative momentum, always reacting to the latest trend without foundational discipline.
The procurement technology industry has institutionalized it:
1998: “ERP will transform procurement.” Result: 80% failure rate.
2005: “E-sourcing will transform procurement.” Result: 80% failure rate.
2012: “Cloud suites will transform procurement.” Result: 80% failure rate.
2018: “AI will transform procurement.” Result: 80% failure rate.
2025: “Orchestration will transform procurement.” Predicted result: …
The technology changes. The vendors change. The buzzwords change. The failure rate doesn’t.
Why?
Because nobody measures whether organizations are ready for the transformation before selling them the technology to execute it.
The GEP Post: A Case Study in Missing the Point
GEP’s article on “AI-Driven Orchestration” is well-written, technically sound, and strategically positioned. It correctly identifies fragmentation as costly. It accurately describes orchestration as the evolution beyond automation. It even cites academic research from NC State.
Here’s what it doesn’t mention — not once:
- Organizational readiness — zero methodology for measuring it
- Behavioral alignment — not a single reference
- Change absorption capacity — absent
- The 80% failure rate — unacknowledged
- The human readiness bottleneck — invisible
Instead, the prescription is:
- Establish a Unified Data Layer
- Map the Intersections
- Codify Thresholds
That’s a technology implementation checklist, not a transformation framework.
It assumes readiness exists. The data says it doesn’t.
The Hackett Irony
The same week GEP publishes “orchestration is the new operating model,” Hackett’s research confirms that only 2% of organizations exceed transformation expectations. The other 98% stall — not on technology, but on six readiness dimensions that have nothing to do with platforms.
Hackett knows this. They published it.
And yet: Hackett partners with the same vendors whose technology-first approach their own research contradicts.
Gartner knows this too. Gabriela Vogel just published that human readiness is the bottleneck to AI value. In the same breath, Gartner validates vendors through Magic Quadrants and partnership programs that ensure the technology-first message dominates.
This isn’t hypocrisy. It’s economics.
The analysts sell research and advisory services. The vendors buy sponsorships and pay for access. The consultants sell implementation services for the platforms the analysts validated. Everyone gets paid.
Except the practitioners. They get the 80% failure rate.
The Structural Conflict Nobody Will Name
Let me be direct:
The analyst-vendor partnership model is structurally incapable of solving the readiness problem.
Not because the analysts are corrupt. Not because the vendors are malicious. But because nobody in the ecosystem gets paid to measure readiness.
- Analysts get paid to publish research and advise on vendor selection
- Vendors get paid to sell and implement technology
- Consultants get paid to manage implementations
- System integrators get paid when projects are complex
Who gets paid to say “you’re not ready — don’t proceed”?
Nobody.
That’s why the cycle continues. That’s why we’re stuck. That’s why 80% failure has been the norm for 27 years.
The Proof: 58/100
Here’s what readiness actually looks like when you measure it instead of assume it:
58/100 — DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT REMEDIATION
That’s a real Hansen Fit Score from a real client assessment, November 2025.
Below 72/100, the probability of transformation success collapses to 15-25% — regardless of the vendor, the technology, or the budget.
This organization was about to sign a seven-figure platform contract. They had executive sponsorship. They had budget approval. They had a vendor selected.
What they didn’t have was readiness. The assessment revealed:
- Behavioral alignment gaps across three business units
- Process archaeology showing shadow systems the vendor didn’t know about
- Change absorption capacity already exhausted by two concurrent initiatives
- Data readiness at 40% of what the implementation required
The recommendation: remediate before proceeding, or face near-certain failure.
That conversation doesn’t happen in the analyst-vendor ecosystem. It can’t. Because everyone downstream is waiting to get paid for the implementation.
Why Orchestration Is the New SOA
For those who remember the early 2000s, “Service-Oriented Architecture” was going to transform enterprise IT. The vision was beautiful: modular, interoperable services that could be composed and recomposed to meet any business need.
The reality: billions spent, limited results, and a quiet pivot to the next paradigm.
“Orchestration” is SOA with an AI label. The promise is the same: connect your fragmented systems, align your processes, optimize across the value chain.
The missing piece is the same too: nobody asks whether the organization is capable of operating in an orchestrated model before selling them the orchestration layer.
Technology doesn’t fail because it’s bad technology. It fails because it’s deployed into organizations that aren’t ready to absorb it.
That was true in 1998. It’s true in 2025. It will be true in 2030 unless someone breaks the cycle.
Breaking the Doom Loop
The way out isn’t complicated. It’s just uncomfortable for everyone who benefits from the current model.
Step 1: Insert Phase 0 before Phase 1
Before vendor selection, before RFP, before budget approval — measure readiness. Not with a checklist. Not with a maturity model. With a quantified assessment that produces a score and a probability of success.
Step 2: Establish a Go/No-Go Threshold
Below 72/100, don’t proceed. Remediate first. This will be painful. Vendors will hate it. Consultants will resist it. Executives who already announced the initiative will push back.
But it’s the only way to stop feeding the 80% failure machine.
Step 3: Separate Readiness Assessment from Implementation
The entity measuring readiness cannot be the entity selling the solution. Period. The structural conflict must be broken, not managed.
Step 4: Hold the Ecosystem Accountable
When Hackett publishes that readiness determines success, ask them: which of your vendor partners offers a readiness assessment that can disqualify their own sale?
When Gartner publishes that human readiness is the bottleneck, ask them: does your Magic Quadrant score vendors on their clients’ readiness outcomes, or just on technology capability?
When GEP publishes that orchestration is the future, ask them: what’s your methodology for determining whether a client is ready to be orchestrated?
The questions are simple. The silence will be deafening.
Editor’s Note: Why This Time Is Different
The difference between 2025 and 1998 is this:
In 1998, when I first solved this problem through SR&ED-funded research for Canada’s Department of National Defence — delivering 97.3% accuracy — no one heard.
Today, everyone is hearing. They’re just not doing.
Hackett is publishing about readiness. Gartner is warning about human bottlenecks. Even the vendors are nodding along. The words are everywhere.
But the structural conflict remains intact. The partnerships remain intact. The incentive model remains intact. And the 80% failure rate remains intact.
Here’s what should get your attention:
The RAM 2025 6-Model/5-Level Assessment Tool — six independent AI models analyzing the same problem — reached Level 1 consensus on the diagnosis in this article.
That rarely happens. When six models with different architectures, different training data, and different analytical approaches independently converge on the same conclusion, that’s not opinion.
That’s signal.
The question isn’t whether the industry will eventually recognize that readiness precedes technology. The Hackett and Gartner research proves they already know.
The question is whether practitioners will keep waiting for the analyst-vendor ecosystem to save them — or whether they’ll demand Phase 0 before signing the next contract.
The Doom Loop breaks when buyers stop accepting it.
Not before.
Jon Hansen is the CEO of Hansen Models and creator of the Hansen Fit Score methodology. His work in AI-driven procurement assessment began in 1998 with SR&ED-funded research for Canada’s Department of National Defence and has maintained accuracy rates between 85% and 97.3% across 27 years of successive refinement.
#PhaseZero #HansenFitScore #DoomLoop #ProcureTech #OrganizationalReadiness #TransformationPhysics
Procurement Insights
How The Industry Keeps Repeating Collins’ Doom Loop — And Why
Posted on November 27, 2025
0
The structural conflict nobody dares to name out loud
By Jon Hansen | November 2025 | Procurement Insights
Earlier this week I asked a simple question: “Why does the ProcureTech solution side of the table make billions, while the practitioner side loses trillions (and more)?”
The responses were telling. Vendors went quiet. Practitioners shared it privately with notes like “finally someone said it.” Analysts ignored it entirely.
That silence is the story.
The Perfect Circle of Validation
GEP just published a beautiful vision of “AI-Driven Total Procurement Orchestration.” Hackett says readiness is the only thing that separates the 2% who succeed from the 98% who stall. Gartner warns that 84% of organizations don’t measure AI accuracy and 91% aren’t tracking the skill shifts AI triggers.
Both are right. And that’s exactly the problem.
Here’s what the ecosystem actually looks like:
Result: the same 80% failure rate we’ve seen since 1998 — just with prettier slides.
That is the “why we are stuck” that almost no one dares to name out loud.
The Doom Loop, Illustrated
Jim Collins identified the Doom Loop in Good to Great: organizations that lurch from initiative to initiative, never building cumulative momentum, always reacting to the latest trend without foundational discipline.
The procurement technology industry has institutionalized it:
1998: “ERP will transform procurement.” Result: 80% failure rate.
2005: “E-sourcing will transform procurement.” Result: 80% failure rate.
2012: “Cloud suites will transform procurement.” Result: 80% failure rate.
2018: “AI will transform procurement.” Result: 80% failure rate.
2025: “Orchestration will transform procurement.” Predicted result: …
The technology changes. The vendors change. The buzzwords change. The failure rate doesn’t.
Why?
Because nobody measures whether organizations are ready for the transformation before selling them the technology to execute it.
The GEP Post: A Case Study in Missing the Point
GEP’s article on “AI-Driven Orchestration” is well-written, technically sound, and strategically positioned. It correctly identifies fragmentation as costly. It accurately describes orchestration as the evolution beyond automation. It even cites academic research from NC State.
Here’s what it doesn’t mention — not once:
Instead, the prescription is:
That’s a technology implementation checklist, not a transformation framework.
It assumes readiness exists. The data says it doesn’t.
The Hackett Irony
The same week GEP publishes “orchestration is the new operating model,” Hackett’s research confirms that only 2% of organizations exceed transformation expectations. The other 98% stall — not on technology, but on six readiness dimensions that have nothing to do with platforms.
Hackett knows this. They published it.
And yet: Hackett partners with the same vendors whose technology-first approach their own research contradicts.
Gartner knows this too. Gabriela Vogel just published that human readiness is the bottleneck to AI value. In the same breath, Gartner validates vendors through Magic Quadrants and partnership programs that ensure the technology-first message dominates.
This isn’t hypocrisy. It’s economics.
The analysts sell research and advisory services. The vendors buy sponsorships and pay for access. The consultants sell implementation services for the platforms the analysts validated. Everyone gets paid.
Except the practitioners. They get the 80% failure rate.
The Structural Conflict Nobody Will Name
Let me be direct:
The analyst-vendor partnership model is structurally incapable of solving the readiness problem.
Not because the analysts are corrupt. Not because the vendors are malicious. But because nobody in the ecosystem gets paid to measure readiness.
Who gets paid to say “you’re not ready — don’t proceed”?
Nobody.
That’s why the cycle continues. That’s why we’re stuck. That’s why 80% failure has been the norm for 27 years.
The Proof: 58/100
Here’s what readiness actually looks like when you measure it instead of assume it:
58/100 — DO NOT PROCEED WITHOUT REMEDIATION
That’s a real Hansen Fit Score from a real client assessment, November 2025.
Below 72/100, the probability of transformation success collapses to 15-25% — regardless of the vendor, the technology, or the budget.
This organization was about to sign a seven-figure platform contract. They had executive sponsorship. They had budget approval. They had a vendor selected.
What they didn’t have was readiness. The assessment revealed:
The recommendation: remediate before proceeding, or face near-certain failure.
That conversation doesn’t happen in the analyst-vendor ecosystem. It can’t. Because everyone downstream is waiting to get paid for the implementation.
Why Orchestration Is the New SOA
For those who remember the early 2000s, “Service-Oriented Architecture” was going to transform enterprise IT. The vision was beautiful: modular, interoperable services that could be composed and recomposed to meet any business need.
The reality: billions spent, limited results, and a quiet pivot to the next paradigm.
“Orchestration” is SOA with an AI label. The promise is the same: connect your fragmented systems, align your processes, optimize across the value chain.
The missing piece is the same too: nobody asks whether the organization is capable of operating in an orchestrated model before selling them the orchestration layer.
Technology doesn’t fail because it’s bad technology. It fails because it’s deployed into organizations that aren’t ready to absorb it.
That was true in 1998. It’s true in 2025. It will be true in 2030 unless someone breaks the cycle.
Breaking the Doom Loop
The way out isn’t complicated. It’s just uncomfortable for everyone who benefits from the current model.
Step 1: Insert Phase 0 before Phase 1
Before vendor selection, before RFP, before budget approval — measure readiness. Not with a checklist. Not with a maturity model. With a quantified assessment that produces a score and a probability of success.
Step 2: Establish a Go/No-Go Threshold
Below 72/100, don’t proceed. Remediate first. This will be painful. Vendors will hate it. Consultants will resist it. Executives who already announced the initiative will push back.
But it’s the only way to stop feeding the 80% failure machine.
Step 3: Separate Readiness Assessment from Implementation
The entity measuring readiness cannot be the entity selling the solution. Period. The structural conflict must be broken, not managed.
Step 4: Hold the Ecosystem Accountable
When Hackett publishes that readiness determines success, ask them: which of your vendor partners offers a readiness assessment that can disqualify their own sale?
When Gartner publishes that human readiness is the bottleneck, ask them: does your Magic Quadrant score vendors on their clients’ readiness outcomes, or just on technology capability?
When GEP publishes that orchestration is the future, ask them: what’s your methodology for determining whether a client is ready to be orchestrated?
The questions are simple. The silence will be deafening.
Editor’s Note: Why This Time Is Different
The difference between 2025 and 1998 is this:
In 1998, when I first solved this problem through SR&ED-funded research for Canada’s Department of National Defence — delivering 97.3% accuracy — no one heard.
Today, everyone is hearing. They’re just not doing.
Hackett is publishing about readiness. Gartner is warning about human bottlenecks. Even the vendors are nodding along. The words are everywhere.
But the structural conflict remains intact. The partnerships remain intact. The incentive model remains intact. And the 80% failure rate remains intact.
Here’s what should get your attention:
The RAM 2025 6-Model/5-Level Assessment Tool — six independent AI models analyzing the same problem — reached Level 1 consensus on the diagnosis in this article.
That rarely happens. When six models with different architectures, different training data, and different analytical approaches independently converge on the same conclusion, that’s not opinion.
That’s signal.
The question isn’t whether the industry will eventually recognize that readiness precedes technology. The Hackett and Gartner research proves they already know.
The question is whether practitioners will keep waiting for the analyst-vendor ecosystem to save them — or whether they’ll demand Phase 0 before signing the next contract.
The Doom Loop breaks when buyers stop accepting it.
Not before.
Jon Hansen is the CEO of Hansen Models and creator of the Hansen Fit Score methodology. His work in AI-driven procurement assessment began in 1998 with SR&ED-funded research for Canada’s Department of National Defence and has maintained accuracy rates between 85% and 97.3% across 27 years of successive refinement.
#PhaseZero #HansenFitScore #DoomLoop #ProcureTech #OrganizationalReadiness #TransformationPhysics
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