Over the past few weeks, two visual frameworks crossed my desk.
At first glance, they appear to describe different worlds.
One maps the human, relational, and organizational forces that shape procurement outcomes.
The other maps the AI agent architectures professional services firms are racing to assemble.
But when you place them side by side, a deeper truth emerges:
Both maps describe control.
Neither solves governance.
And that’s the problem.
Map One: The Spider Map – A Mirror of Practitioner Reality
Dr. Elouise Epstein’s spider maps are often mistaken for technology architecture diagrams.
They are not.
They were never intended to prescribe an optimal procurement stack, define a reference architecture, or suggest how platforms should be integrated.
Instead, they serve a very different purpose.
The spider maps reflect the confusion practitioners were already navigating as vendor proliferation accelerated and functional boundaries collapsed. The logos and functional categories are not deliberate design choices — they are interpretive constructs, created to mirror how practitioners were forced to mentally parse an increasingly unruly ecosystem just to make decisions.
In other words, the order appears in the map because practitioners were trying to impose order on chaos, not because the market itself was coherent.
What the spider maps make visible is not technology capability, but cognitive and organizational load:
- Vendors spanning multiple functional domains
- Categories bleeding into one another
- Overlapping claims and indistinct value propositions
- Decision-making driven by fatigue, politics, and risk avoidance rather than clarity
This is why practitioners don’t look at the spider maps and say, “Now I know what to buy.”
They say, “No wonder this is hard.”
The spider map is a mirror — not of the technology market as it wishes to be, but of the human effort required to navigate it.
And that distinction matters.
Because when practitioners are forced to create coherence mentally, it is a signal that governance, readiness, and structural alignment were never established upstream.
That gap — between an ecosystem’s complexity and an organization’s capacity to absorb it — is precisely where transformation failure begins.
Map Two: The AI Orchestration System (CB Insights)
Now contrast that with the CB Insights map of AI agent activity.
This map shows:
- Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG, EY, PwC, McKinsey, BCG, Bain
- Connecting to dozens of model providers, platforms, and tools
- Positioning themselves as the “orchestration brain”
- Embedding into Salesforce, SAP, Workday, ServiceNow, AWS, Azure
The intent is clear:
Control the control layer.
Not the models.
Not the apps.
The decision fabric in between.
This is not a technology play.
It is a power play.
The Illusion Both Maps Reveal
Put the two maps together, and a structural contradiction appears.
The AI map assumes:
- Coherent operating models
- Clear ownership
- Aligned incentives
- Decision discipline
- Readiness for autonomy
The spider map shows:
- Fragmentation
- Politics
- Mistrust
- Incentive misalignment
- Cultural drag
One describes how decisions actually happen.
The other describes how firms wish decisions would happen.
What’s missing between them is Phase 0.
Why Architecture Alone Fails
Professional services firms can — and will — replicate multi-model, multi-agent architectures.
That’s not the constraint.
The constraint is this:
True orchestration requires saying “not yet” to unready systems.
And that is where the financial model breaks.
Phase 0 would:
- Disqualify deals
- Surface unreadiness
- Delay revenue
- Force outcome ownership
- Eliminate plausible deniability
Which is precisely why it is skipped.
The Bezos Parallel (and the Wall Ahead)
Jeff Bezos’ “world model” ambition runs into the same wall.
World models assume:
- Clean signals
- Stable incentives
- Rational agents
- Governed environments
But enterprises don’t behave that way.
They behave like Dr. Epstein’s spider map.
Without Phase 0 discipline, AI doesn’t create intelligence.
It scales incoherence faster.
The Real Achilles’ Heel
The Achilles’ heel is not talent.
It is not ambition.
It is not technology.
It is a financial model that cannot survive the friction of honesty.
The wolf isn’t trapped by lack of strength.
It’s trapped by what it refuses to let go of.
Procurement Insights’ Latest Paper: The $358 Billion Question: Why Consulting Firms Avoid Outcome-Based Pricing
The Bottom Line
These two maps don’t contradict each other.
They expose the same truth from opposite ends:
- One shows the reality of human systems
- The other shows the aspiration of machine control
Phase 0 is the missing layer that determines whether those two ever align.
Until readiness is validated before orchestration begins, AI agents will hit the same wall that procurement, ERP, and digital transformation have hit for decades.
Not because the models aren’t powerful.
But because power without governance is just acceleration toward failure.
Closing
The future of AI in the enterprise won’t be decided by who builds the best agent fabric.
It will be decided by who is willing to slow down long enough to ask:
Are we actually ready for this to work?
That question is Phase 0.
And it’s the question no map can answer — unless you’re willing to look beneath it.
-30-
Procurement Insights
Two Maps. One Missing Layer: Why AI Orchestration Without Phase 0 Hits the Same Wall
Posted on December 18, 2025
0
Over the past few weeks, two visual frameworks crossed my desk.
At first glance, they appear to describe different worlds.
One maps the human, relational, and organizational forces that shape procurement outcomes.
The other maps the AI agent architectures professional services firms are racing to assemble.
But when you place them side by side, a deeper truth emerges:
Both maps describe control.
Neither solves governance.
And that’s the problem.
Map One: The Spider Map – A Mirror of Practitioner Reality
Dr. Elouise Epstein’s spider maps are often mistaken for technology architecture diagrams.
They are not.
They were never intended to prescribe an optimal procurement stack, define a reference architecture, or suggest how platforms should be integrated.
Instead, they serve a very different purpose.
The spider maps reflect the confusion practitioners were already navigating as vendor proliferation accelerated and functional boundaries collapsed. The logos and functional categories are not deliberate design choices — they are interpretive constructs, created to mirror how practitioners were forced to mentally parse an increasingly unruly ecosystem just to make decisions.
In other words, the order appears in the map because practitioners were trying to impose order on chaos, not because the market itself was coherent.
What the spider maps make visible is not technology capability, but cognitive and organizational load:
This is why practitioners don’t look at the spider maps and say, “Now I know what to buy.”
They say, “No wonder this is hard.”
The spider map is a mirror — not of the technology market as it wishes to be, but of the human effort required to navigate it.
And that distinction matters.
Because when practitioners are forced to create coherence mentally, it is a signal that governance, readiness, and structural alignment were never established upstream.
That gap — between an ecosystem’s complexity and an organization’s capacity to absorb it — is precisely where transformation failure begins.
Map Two: The AI Orchestration System (CB Insights)
Now contrast that with the CB Insights map of AI agent activity.
This map shows:
The intent is clear:
Not the models.
Not the apps.
The decision fabric in between.
This is not a technology play.
It is a power play.
The Illusion Both Maps Reveal
Put the two maps together, and a structural contradiction appears.
The AI map assumes:
The spider map shows:
One describes how decisions actually happen.
The other describes how firms wish decisions would happen.
What’s missing between them is Phase 0.
Why Architecture Alone Fails
Professional services firms can — and will — replicate multi-model, multi-agent architectures.
That’s not the constraint.
The constraint is this:
And that is where the financial model breaks.
Phase 0 would:
Which is precisely why it is skipped.
The Bezos Parallel (and the Wall Ahead)
Jeff Bezos’ “world model” ambition runs into the same wall.
World models assume:
But enterprises don’t behave that way.
They behave like Dr. Epstein’s spider map.
Without Phase 0 discipline, AI doesn’t create intelligence.
It scales incoherence faster.
The Real Achilles’ Heel
The Achilles’ heel is not talent.
It is not ambition.
It is not technology.
It is a financial model that cannot survive the friction of honesty.
The wolf isn’t trapped by lack of strength.
It’s trapped by what it refuses to let go of.
Procurement Insights’ Latest Paper: The $358 Billion Question: Why Consulting Firms Avoid Outcome-Based Pricing
The Bottom Line
These two maps don’t contradict each other.
They expose the same truth from opposite ends:
Phase 0 is the missing layer that determines whether those two ever align.
Until readiness is validated before orchestration begins, AI agents will hit the same wall that procurement, ERP, and digital transformation have hit for decades.
Not because the models aren’t powerful.
But because power without governance is just acceleration toward failure.
Closing
The future of AI in the enterprise won’t be decided by who builds the best agent fabric.
It will be decided by who is willing to slow down long enough to ask:
That question is Phase 0.
And it’s the question no map can answer — unless you’re willing to look beneath it.
-30-
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