The Open OS That Puts Readiness Before Lock-In
Procurement is structurally anti-lock-in. The winning operating system isn’t a tollbooth—it’s an orchestration layer.
Jason Busch made a sharp observation this week: every procurement vendor large enough to build a “domain-specific operating system” has failed at it. Ariba, Coupa, SAP—they all tried. Customers resisted.
The question is: did they learn nothing from the early PC days?
Proprietary I/O cards lost. Open standards won. Every time.
These vendors didn’t fail because the operating system concept was wrong. They failed because they built for lock-in rather than interoperability. Vendors learned “own the bus.” Practitioners learned “never again be trapped on one bus.”
The alternative isn’t “no operating system.” It’s an open, agent-based orchestration layer that the buyer controls—not the vendor.
That’s what the Hansen Fit Score (HFS) and Phase 0 provide.
The Architectural Inversion
Traditional procurement OS models ask: “How do we lock customers into our ecosystem?”
HFS and Phase 0 ask: “How do we make the organization ready to orchestrate any ecosystem?”
That’s not a product difference. It’s an architectural inversion.
The firm that controls the operating system controls the ecosystem—which is precisely why the operating system shouldn’t be controlled by a vendor. It should be controlled by the organization deploying it.
Where Phase 0, HFS, and Strand Commonality Sit in the Stack
Phase 0 doesn’t compete with vendor platforms. It sits upstream of them:
Layer 1: Phase 0 Diagnostic Assesses readiness: incentives, decision rights, semantic alignment, behavioral constraints. This is the pre-boot check that determines whether you can even install an OS that will survive first contact with reality.
Layer 2: Hansen Fit Score (HFS) The plug-compatibility test. HFS evaluates whether a given solution—suite, agentic platform, or niche tool—fits the current organizational state. Like a certified driver model: if a tool passes the fit test, it can plug into the ecosystem. If not, you don’t force it.
Layer 3: Strand Commonality The semantic layer. It gives human and non-human agents a common language for data, constraints, and behaviors—so different “cards” (agents, apps, suites) can interoperate without custom wiring each time.
Layer 4: Orchestration Layer Coordinates human and non-human agents across multiple vendors and systems.
Layer 5: Vendor Applications Ariba, Coupa, SAP, GenAI tools, agentic solutions—interchangeable components that plug into the fabric above. They don’t get to redefine the bus.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Consider a standard procurement workflow: intake → triage → routing → exception handling.
Proprietary OS approach: The suite defines the workflow. Exceptions route to the suite’s logic. When the logic doesn’t fit reality, users build workarounds—shadow processes that the system can’t see or govern.
Open OS approach (Phase 0/HFS): Before deployment, Phase 0 maps how decisions are actually made, who owns exceptions, and what incentives drive behavior. HFS scores whether the proposed tool fits that reality. Strand Commonality ensures agents—human and AI—share the same understanding of “approved,” “exception,” and “escalation.”
The result: the workflow adapts to the organization, not the reverse. Exceptions surface rather than go underground.
The Three Architectural Principles
1. Readiness Before Deployment
Phase 0 diagnoses whether the organization can absorb a solution before the vendor is selected. This inverts the traditional model where vendors assess “fit” based on their own feature set.
2. Human Strand as the Integration Layer
The orchestration logic isn’t API calls between systems—it’s the alignment of incentives, decision rights, and semantic understanding across human and non-human agents. That’s what HFS quantifies.
3. Vendor-Agnostic by Design
Because the orchestration logic lives in Phase 0/HFS/Strand Commonality, not in any vendor’s platform, the organization can swap vendors without re-architecting, run multi-vendor environments without integration complexity, and adopt new technology based on readiness—not vendor pressure.
The Operational Benefits
The Proof Point:
In 1998, a Phase 0–style diagnostic for Canada’s Department of National Defence revealed why technicians were sandbagging orders at 4 PM—a behavioral pattern invisible to the existing system. Encoding that human strand into the orchestration logic delivered 97.3% delivery accuracy for over a decade, reduced staff from 23 to 3 FTEs, and achieved 23% cost savings. The technology was interchangeable; the readiness layer was not.
The Financial Benefits
The Financial Logic:
A proprietary OS is a binary bet: if the vendor’s roadmap diverges from your needs, you pay heavily to exit. An open OS preserves optionality. With AI tools and models changing quarterly, that option value compounds.
Hackett’s 2025 research validates this: Digital World Class® organizations deliver 2.6x ROI with 19% lower functional cost. The performance gap has persisted for 18 years across every technology wave. Both groups had access to the same technology. The gap isn’t the platform—it’s readiness.
The Business Model Difference
Proprietary OS vendors monetize lock-in: implementation fees, switching costs, integration taxes, annual licenses tied to their ecosystem.
HFS/Phase 0 monetizes readiness: diagnostic assessments, fit scoring, orchestration design—all vendor-agnostic. No conflict of interest in vendor recommendations. Scalable across any technology wave. Recurring value as organizations reassess readiness for new deployments.
The Bottom Line
The 80% failure rate in procurement technology implementations persists because vendors build for lock-in while ignoring organizational readiness. The human strand—incentives, decision rights, behavioral alignment—never gets encoded.
HFS and Phase 0 invert the model:
- Readiness before deployment
- Human strand as the integration layer
- Vendor-agnostic by design
The result: technology spend follows absorption capacity, not vendor pressure. The failure rate drops because deployment only occurs when the organization is ready to absorb it.
The operating system that wins isn’t the one that controls the ecosystem. It’s the one that makes the ecosystem controllable.
The question isn’t “How fast can you deploy AI?”
The question is “Are you ready to absorb it?”
We learned this lesson with proprietary I/O cards decades ago. This time, procurement doesn’t have to repeat it.
Source: Procurement Insights | Hansen Models | procureinsights.com
Procurement Insights
Why Proprietary Procurement Operating Systems Failed—and What Replaces Them
Posted on December 28, 2025
0
The Open OS That Puts Readiness Before Lock-In
Procurement is structurally anti-lock-in. The winning operating system isn’t a tollbooth—it’s an orchestration layer.
Jason Busch made a sharp observation this week: every procurement vendor large enough to build a “domain-specific operating system” has failed at it. Ariba, Coupa, SAP—they all tried. Customers resisted.
The question is: did they learn nothing from the early PC days?
Proprietary I/O cards lost. Open standards won. Every time.
These vendors didn’t fail because the operating system concept was wrong. They failed because they built for lock-in rather than interoperability. Vendors learned “own the bus.” Practitioners learned “never again be trapped on one bus.”
The alternative isn’t “no operating system.” It’s an open, agent-based orchestration layer that the buyer controls—not the vendor.
That’s what the Hansen Fit Score (HFS) and Phase 0 provide.
The Architectural Inversion
Traditional procurement OS models ask: “How do we lock customers into our ecosystem?”
HFS and Phase 0 ask: “How do we make the organization ready to orchestrate any ecosystem?”
That’s not a product difference. It’s an architectural inversion.
The firm that controls the operating system controls the ecosystem—which is precisely why the operating system shouldn’t be controlled by a vendor. It should be controlled by the organization deploying it.
Where Phase 0, HFS, and Strand Commonality Sit in the Stack
Phase 0 doesn’t compete with vendor platforms. It sits upstream of them:
Layer 1: Phase 0 Diagnostic Assesses readiness: incentives, decision rights, semantic alignment, behavioral constraints. This is the pre-boot check that determines whether you can even install an OS that will survive first contact with reality.
Layer 2: Hansen Fit Score (HFS) The plug-compatibility test. HFS evaluates whether a given solution—suite, agentic platform, or niche tool—fits the current organizational state. Like a certified driver model: if a tool passes the fit test, it can plug into the ecosystem. If not, you don’t force it.
Layer 3: Strand Commonality The semantic layer. It gives human and non-human agents a common language for data, constraints, and behaviors—so different “cards” (agents, apps, suites) can interoperate without custom wiring each time.
Layer 4: Orchestration Layer Coordinates human and non-human agents across multiple vendors and systems.
Layer 5: Vendor Applications Ariba, Coupa, SAP, GenAI tools, agentic solutions—interchangeable components that plug into the fabric above. They don’t get to redefine the bus.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Consider a standard procurement workflow: intake → triage → routing → exception handling.
Proprietary OS approach: The suite defines the workflow. Exceptions route to the suite’s logic. When the logic doesn’t fit reality, users build workarounds—shadow processes that the system can’t see or govern.
Open OS approach (Phase 0/HFS): Before deployment, Phase 0 maps how decisions are actually made, who owns exceptions, and what incentives drive behavior. HFS scores whether the proposed tool fits that reality. Strand Commonality ensures agents—human and AI—share the same understanding of “approved,” “exception,” and “escalation.”
The result: the workflow adapts to the organization, not the reverse. Exceptions surface rather than go underground.
The Three Architectural Principles
1. Readiness Before Deployment
Phase 0 diagnoses whether the organization can absorb a solution before the vendor is selected. This inverts the traditional model where vendors assess “fit” based on their own feature set.
2. Human Strand as the Integration Layer
The orchestration logic isn’t API calls between systems—it’s the alignment of incentives, decision rights, and semantic understanding across human and non-human agents. That’s what HFS quantifies.
3. Vendor-Agnostic by Design
Because the orchestration logic lives in Phase 0/HFS/Strand Commonality, not in any vendor’s platform, the organization can swap vendors without re-architecting, run multi-vendor environments without integration complexity, and adopt new technology based on readiness—not vendor pressure.
The Operational Benefits
The Proof Point:
In 1998, a Phase 0–style diagnostic for Canada’s Department of National Defence revealed why technicians were sandbagging orders at 4 PM—a behavioral pattern invisible to the existing system. Encoding that human strand into the orchestration logic delivered 97.3% delivery accuracy for over a decade, reduced staff from 23 to 3 FTEs, and achieved 23% cost savings. The technology was interchangeable; the readiness layer was not.
The Financial Benefits
The Financial Logic:
A proprietary OS is a binary bet: if the vendor’s roadmap diverges from your needs, you pay heavily to exit. An open OS preserves optionality. With AI tools and models changing quarterly, that option value compounds.
Hackett’s 2025 research validates this: Digital World Class® organizations deliver 2.6x ROI with 19% lower functional cost. The performance gap has persisted for 18 years across every technology wave. Both groups had access to the same technology. The gap isn’t the platform—it’s readiness.
The Business Model Difference
Proprietary OS vendors monetize lock-in: implementation fees, switching costs, integration taxes, annual licenses tied to their ecosystem.
HFS/Phase 0 monetizes readiness: diagnostic assessments, fit scoring, orchestration design—all vendor-agnostic. No conflict of interest in vendor recommendations. Scalable across any technology wave. Recurring value as organizations reassess readiness for new deployments.
The Bottom Line
The 80% failure rate in procurement technology implementations persists because vendors build for lock-in while ignoring organizational readiness. The human strand—incentives, decision rights, behavioral alignment—never gets encoded.
HFS and Phase 0 invert the model:
The result: technology spend follows absorption capacity, not vendor pressure. The failure rate drops because deployment only occurs when the organization is ready to absorb it.
The operating system that wins isn’t the one that controls the ecosystem. It’s the one that makes the ecosystem controllable.
The question isn’t “How fast can you deploy AI?”
The question is “Are you ready to absorb it?”
We learned this lesson with proprietary I/O cards decades ago. This time, procurement doesn’t have to repeat it.
Source: Procurement Insights | Hansen Models | procureinsights.com
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