Hackett’s paper is excellent benchmarking—and weak transformation engineering.
I asked RAM 2025—five AI models working separately—to analyze The Hackett Group’s June 2025 paper “Transform Procurement Performance With Intelligence and Gen AI.”
The question was simple: Rate this paper on three dimensions.
Clarity of Message (1-10)
Likelihood of Reversing the 80% Failure Rate (1-10)
More Promotional Than Insightful (1-10)
Here’s what they found.
The Consolidated Scores
Criteria
Average Score
Clarity of Message
8.2/10
Likelihood of Reversing 80% Failure Rate
3.4/10
More Promotional Than Insightful
7.0/10
The promotional score reflects a logic chain all five models identified:
Benchmarking creates authority
Authority creates urgency
Urgency creates “call us” gravity
And the missing bridge: no readiness gate
What the Paper Gets Right
Every model acknowledged the same strengths:
The data is real. Digital World Class® organizations deliver 2.6x ROI, 31% fewer FTEs, 19% lower functional cost. That’s not hype—that’s 18 years of benchmarking.
Figure 2 is the killer chart. The cost savings gap between Digital World Class® and peers (6-8% vs. 3-4%) has persisted—and widened—from 2007 to 2025. Both groups had access to ERPs, SaaS, Cloud, and now GenAI. The technology was identical. The gap wasn’t.
The four distinguishing characteristics are human-centric:
Strategic team built for the business
Value delivery recognized by stakeholders
Continuous talent development
Advanced digital and intelligence capabilities
Three of four are about people. The fourth includes “intelligence”—not just “digital.”
The Buried Lede
Here’s where the models converged on something the paper doesn’t say out loud:
What the paper says: “Gen AI can’t wait. Neither can you.”
What the paper proves: The 2.6x ROI gap has persisted for 18 years across every technology wave. The gap isn’t closing. Technology isn’t the differentiator.
Model 5 put it directly:
“The organizations that outperform don’t have better technology. They have better alignment, better talent retention, better stakeholder engagement, and better integration.”
Model 3 called it “Path A dressed as strategy”:
“Start with Digital World Class benchmarks, use them to justify rapid GenAI and agentic AI adoption, then offer a service delivery model where technology and external partners are the primary levers. Nowhere does it ask the five Phase 0 questions.”
Model 1 identified the causal gap:
“The paper describes correlations (high performers use more tech, invest in talent, etc.) but never tackles readiness, incentives, semantics, or governance as explicit preconditions.”
Figure-by-Figure: What Hackett Shows vs. What It Means
Figure 1: ROI by Alignment
What it shows: Organizations with medium/high alignment between procurement and company strategy deliver 3.1x higher ROI.
What it means: Alignment is a proxy for decision-rights clarity, mandate legitimacy, and stakeholder buy-in. You don’t “get” alignment by declaring it—you earn it by fixing the agent landscape first.
Figure 2: Cost Savings Over Time (2007-2025)
What it shows: Digital World Class® organizations deliver 6-8% savings; peers deliver 3-4%. The gap has widened over 18 years.
What it means: This is the most important chart in the paper. Both groups had access to the same technology waves. The technology didn’t create the gap—organizational readiness did.
Figure 3: Retention Plans
What it shows: 100% of Digital World Class® organizations have formal retention plans for senior management and high-potential employees. Peers: 36% and 32%.
What it means: Human capital is the differentiator. The best organizations invest in people, not just technology. Retention plans aren’t the point—incentives and operating model dignity are.
Figure 4: Digital Progression
What it shows: Leaders have 100% electronic PO transmission, $62M spend per FTE (vs. $43M), and 39-day source-to-contract cycles (vs. 51 days).
What it means: The measure can be true while the transformation is false. These metrics can look great while the organization is quietly manufacturing exceptions—electronic POs achieved, but approval logic bypassed; cycle times drop, but supplier onboarding quality collapses.
Figure 5: Stanford AI Index Benchmarks
What it shows: AI is now matching or exceeding human performance on specific benchmarks.
What it means: This is the least actionable graphic for procurement. It creates urgency but doesn’t address the 80% failure rate on enterprise AI deployments that persists despite such benchmarks.
Figure 6: Digital Service Delivery Model
What it shows: Six elements around the customer—Service Design, Technology, Analytics, Organization & Governance, Service Partnering, Human Capital.
What it means: Technology is one of six elements. The model implicitly admits tech alone is insufficient. But there’s no explicit go/no-go readiness gate.
Why the Failure Rate Score Is So Low
Model 6 gave the harshest score: 1/10 on likelihood of reversing the 80% failure rate.
The reasoning was consistent across all five models:
The paper describes what top performers do but doesn’t operationalize how to get there from a misaligned starting point. It tells you Digital World Class® organizations have 3.1x ROI with strategic alignment—but doesn’t provide a diagnostic to assess whether your organization is aligned.
Model 1 summarized it:
“It’s a solid benchmark and direction-of-travel piece, but it doesn’t give a Phase 0-style diagnostic or a ‘stop/go’ mechanism that prevents misfit deployments.”
The closing advice—”Gen AI moves fast. So should you.”—creates urgency without readiness. That’s the exact formula that perpetuates the 80% failure rate.
The Headline Hackett Should Have Written
Based on their own data:
“18 Years of Data Prove Technology Doesn’t Close the Performance Gap—Organizational Readiness Does.”
Instead, they wrote:
“Gen AI moves fast. So should you.”
Why the Message Gets Framed as Urgency
Because “assess your readiness before you buy” doesn’t sell consulting engagements as effectively as “you’re falling behind—act now.”
The buried lede is the same insight I’ve been documenting for 27 years: the human strand determines outcomes, not the technology stack.
Hackett’s data proves it. They just can’t say it out loud without undermining their business model.
Today’s Takeaway
Hackett has the data to explain why the performance gap persists. They show that alignment, talent, and integration—not technology—differentiate top performers. But they frame the paper around Gen AI urgency rather than readiness assessment.
If the paper had asked: “Before you deploy Gen AI, can you answer these questions about your organizational readiness?”—it would score 8-9/10 on reversing the failure rate.
Instead, it asks: “Gen AI moves fast. So should you.”
The paper’s own data proves that speed without readiness is what separates peers from Digital World Class® organizations. But the closing message encourages speed without readiness.
Hackett knows better. Their data shows it. They just didn’t frame it that way.
The question isn’t “How fast can you deploy Gen AI?”
Procurement Insights
The Hackett Group’s AI Paper: What Five AI Models Found When They Read the Data
Posted on December 28, 2025
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A RAM 2025 Multimodel Assessment
Hackett’s paper is excellent benchmarking—and weak transformation engineering.
I asked RAM 2025—five AI models working separately—to analyze The Hackett Group’s June 2025 paper “Transform Procurement Performance With Intelligence and Gen AI.”
The question was simple: Rate this paper on three dimensions.
Here’s what they found.
The Consolidated Scores
The promotional score reflects a logic chain all five models identified:
What the Paper Gets Right
Every model acknowledged the same strengths:
The data is real. Digital World Class® organizations deliver 2.6x ROI, 31% fewer FTEs, 19% lower functional cost. That’s not hype—that’s 18 years of benchmarking.
Figure 2 is the killer chart. The cost savings gap between Digital World Class® and peers (6-8% vs. 3-4%) has persisted—and widened—from 2007 to 2025. Both groups had access to ERPs, SaaS, Cloud, and now GenAI. The technology was identical. The gap wasn’t.
The four distinguishing characteristics are human-centric:
Three of four are about people. The fourth includes “intelligence”—not just “digital.”
The Buried Lede
Here’s where the models converged on something the paper doesn’t say out loud:
What the paper says: “Gen AI can’t wait. Neither can you.”
What the paper proves: The 2.6x ROI gap has persisted for 18 years across every technology wave. The gap isn’t closing. Technology isn’t the differentiator.
Model 5 put it directly:
Model 3 called it “Path A dressed as strategy”:
Model 1 identified the causal gap:
Figure-by-Figure: What Hackett Shows vs. What It Means
Figure 1: ROI by Alignment
What it shows: Organizations with medium/high alignment between procurement and company strategy deliver 3.1x higher ROI.
What it means: Alignment is a proxy for decision-rights clarity, mandate legitimacy, and stakeholder buy-in. You don’t “get” alignment by declaring it—you earn it by fixing the agent landscape first.
Figure 2: Cost Savings Over Time (2007-2025)
What it shows: Digital World Class® organizations deliver 6-8% savings; peers deliver 3-4%. The gap has widened over 18 years.
What it means: This is the most important chart in the paper. Both groups had access to the same technology waves. The technology didn’t create the gap—organizational readiness did.
Figure 3: Retention Plans
What it shows: 100% of Digital World Class® organizations have formal retention plans for senior management and high-potential employees. Peers: 36% and 32%.
What it means: Human capital is the differentiator. The best organizations invest in people, not just technology. Retention plans aren’t the point—incentives and operating model dignity are.
Figure 4: Digital Progression
What it shows: Leaders have 100% electronic PO transmission, $62M spend per FTE (vs. $43M), and 39-day source-to-contract cycles (vs. 51 days).
What it means: The measure can be true while the transformation is false. These metrics can look great while the organization is quietly manufacturing exceptions—electronic POs achieved, but approval logic bypassed; cycle times drop, but supplier onboarding quality collapses.
Figure 5: Stanford AI Index Benchmarks
What it shows: AI is now matching or exceeding human performance on specific benchmarks.
What it means: This is the least actionable graphic for procurement. It creates urgency but doesn’t address the 80% failure rate on enterprise AI deployments that persists despite such benchmarks.
Figure 6: Digital Service Delivery Model
What it shows: Six elements around the customer—Service Design, Technology, Analytics, Organization & Governance, Service Partnering, Human Capital.
What it means: Technology is one of six elements. The model implicitly admits tech alone is insufficient. But there’s no explicit go/no-go readiness gate.
Why the Failure Rate Score Is So Low
Model 6 gave the harshest score: 1/10 on likelihood of reversing the 80% failure rate.
The reasoning was consistent across all five models:
The paper describes what top performers do but doesn’t operationalize how to get there from a misaligned starting point. It tells you Digital World Class® organizations have 3.1x ROI with strategic alignment—but doesn’t provide a diagnostic to assess whether your organization is aligned.
Model 1 summarized it:
The closing advice—”Gen AI moves fast. So should you.”—creates urgency without readiness. That’s the exact formula that perpetuates the 80% failure rate.
The Headline Hackett Should Have Written
Based on their own data:
“18 Years of Data Prove Technology Doesn’t Close the Performance Gap—Organizational Readiness Does.”
Instead, they wrote:
“Gen AI moves fast. So should you.”
Why the Message Gets Framed as Urgency
Because “assess your readiness before you buy” doesn’t sell consulting engagements as effectively as “you’re falling behind—act now.”
The buried lede is the same insight I’ve been documenting for 27 years: the human strand determines outcomes, not the technology stack.
Hackett’s data proves it. They just can’t say it out loud without undermining their business model.
Today’s Takeaway
Hackett has the data to explain why the performance gap persists. They show that alignment, talent, and integration—not technology—differentiate top performers. But they frame the paper around Gen AI urgency rather than readiness assessment.
If the paper had asked: “Before you deploy Gen AI, can you answer these questions about your organizational readiness?”—it would score 8-9/10 on reversing the failure rate.
Instead, it asks: “Gen AI moves fast. So should you.”
The paper’s own data proves that speed without readiness is what separates peers from Digital World Class® organizations. But the closing message encourages speed without readiness.
Hackett knows better. Their data shows it. They just didn’t frame it that way.
The question isn’t “How fast can you deploy Gen AI?”
The question is “Are you ready to absorb it?”
Source: Procurement Insights RAM 2025 Multimodel Assessment Framework
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