Case studies are published at the moment of maximum optimism. No one revisits them. Here’s what that silence costs practitioners — and why the 80% failure rate never moves.
The Comment That Started This
In a recent exchange on Gartner’s “Autonomous Business” post, Vera Rozanova named something the ecosystem never talks about:
“Most initiatives don’t clearly fail — they quietly fade. Something ambitious gets absorbed into BAU with a much smaller scope. Nothing officially ends, it just gets shrunk and relabeled. The unfinished work is left behind, unexamined. With no clear ending, there’s no real learning — and no reason for the next attempt to turn out differently.”
She’s describing the endpoint of a pattern I first documented in 2007.
The question is: How did we get here?
The Year 1 Lie
Every case study tells the same story: transformation, savings, success.
But case studies are snapshots — frozen at the moment of maximum optimism, usually Year 1 or Year 2.
What happens after?
The case study remains on the website. The reality quietly fades into what Vera called “BAU” — Business As Usual.
No one corrects the record.
Why Savings Disappear
In 2007, I wrote about “The Inherent Danger of a Pull-Through Strategy” in my Dangerous Supply Chain Myths series.
The pattern was clear even then:
“The majority of e-procurement initiatives initially tend to focus on the high-dollar, low transactional volume spend… However, after a lengthy implementation, the anticipated and sustainable savings rarely materialize to justify the original and ongoing technology investment.”
A 2003 CAPS study on Reverse Auctions confirmed it: organizations reported that cost savings diminished with each event — by the 3rd or 4th cycle, the gains had largely evaporated.
But here’s the trap: by then, the organization was locked into a long-term contract.
The Contract Trap
The licensing, maintenance, and support fees were calculated based on Year 1 projections. When savings decline but costs remain fixed, the math turns ugly.
What do organizations do?
They extend the platform into areas for which it was never designed — the “Pull-Through Strategy” — hoping to find new savings to justify the sunk cost.
This doesn’t solve the problem. It spreads it.
The Ripple Effect
Pull-through doesn’t stay contained. When you force a misaligned solution into adjacent business areas, you create new problems:
- Processes adapted to fit the tool (instead of the tool fitting the process)
- Workarounds become permanent
- Data integrity degrades
- Users lose trust in the system
- Parallel processes emerge (spreadsheets return – if they ever left)
The initiative that was supposed to transform the organization now constrains it.
And still, the Year 1 case study sits on the vendor’s website, unchanged.
The Best Buy Effect: Losing Market Truth
Shortly after my DND work, I received a call from one of the largest PC retailers in the United States.
They had implemented a vendor rationalization strategy — compressing hundreds of suppliers down to 100. The logic was sound on paper: leverage volume pricing and reduce administrative costs.
It worked in Year 1 and Year 2.
By Year 3, they noticed savings were diminishing. They asked me to assess their competitiveness.
I told them: “You do realize when you compress your supplier base down to 100, that ultimately becomes your source of truth. You’ve lost sight of the rest of the market.“
I ran the analysis.
They were paying 21% over market price.
The ERP systems made broader supplier management “too hard,” so they’d rationalized themselves into a closed ecosystem. They couldn’t see what they couldn’t see.
That’s the terminal stage of Pull-Through: you don’t just lose savings. You lose market reality itself.
The External Damage No One Counts
There’s another cost that never appears in the post-mortem (because there is no post-mortem):
The supplier ecosystem.
When Best Buy compressed to 100 suppliers, what happened to the others?
- Relationships severed
- Trust broken
- Suppliers moved on, found other customers, and adjusted capacity
- Some may have closed or consolidated
When the organization finally realizes the strategy failed, they can’t simply “call back” the suppliers they cut.
Supplier Relationship Management isn’t a module. It’s an ecosystem. When you damage it, the ripple extends far beyond your walls — into their planning, their capacity, their workforce, their trust.
None of this appears in the Year 1 case study.
The Cycle That Never Breaks
Here’s how the 80% failure rate perpetuates itself:
Year 1-2: "Success" declared → Case study published
↓
Contract lock-in → Can't exit without write-off
↓
Savings diminish → Must justify sunk cost
↓
Pull-Through Strategy → Extend into ill-suited areas
↓
Ripple Effect → Misalignment spreads internally
↓
Best Buy Effect → Lose market truth entirely
↓
External Damage → Supplier ecosystem disrupted
↓
BAU Fade → Initiative quietly absorbed, unexamined
↓
Case Study Remains → Frozen in Year 1, still on website
↓
Next Client Signs → Based on false evidence
↓
Cycle Repeats
No one corrects the case study because no one’s job depends on it being true after Year 1.
- The vendor moves on to new sales
- The consultant moves on to new engagements
- The analyst moves on to next year’s quadrant
- The practitioner is too busy managing the BAU version
Who Tracks the Truth?
Vera asked the right question: “With no clear ending, there’s no real learning — and no reason for the next attempt to turn out differently.”
The ecosystem has no mechanism for longitudinal accountability. Case studies are marketing assets, not research documents. They’re designed to close deals, not track outcomes.
That’s why the Archives exist.
Someone has to document what actually happens — not at the moment of maximum optimism, but across Year 1, Year 3, Year 5, and beyond.
Someone has to ask: “Where are they now?”
The Questions That Should Be Asked
Before signing, based on a case study:
- When was this published? (If more than 2 years ago, it’s already decaying)
- Is the initiative still running within the scope described? (Or did it fade to BAU?)
- Are the people quoted still there? (Champions leave; initiatives stall)
- What happened in Year 3, 4, 5? (No one will tell you unless you ask)
- What was the contract structure? (Were they locked in regardless of results?)
- Did they extend into other areas? (Pull-Through is a red flag)
- What’s their current market competitiveness? (Best Buy didn’t know they were 21% over)
If the vendor can’t answer these questions, the case study isn’t evidence. It’s a snapshot of hope.
The Bottom Line
Case studies don’t lie at publication. They lie by omission — by never being updated, never being corrected, never being revisited.
The Year 1 success becomes a Year 5 fiction that no one audits.
And the next practitioner signs based on evidence that stopped being true years ago.
“Most initiatives don’t clearly fail — they quietly fade.”
Vera named the symptom. The cause is an ecosystem that publishes success at the moment of maximum optimism and never looks back.
Until someone starts tracking what actually happens, the 80% failure rate will never move.
When was the last time you saw a case study with a 5-year follow-up?
Related Posts:
-30-
Procurement Insights
Case Study Decay: The Year 1 Lie That Lasts Forever
Posted on January 6, 2026
0
Case studies are published at the moment of maximum optimism. No one revisits them. Here’s what that silence costs practitioners — and why the 80% failure rate never moves.
The Comment That Started This
In a recent exchange on Gartner’s “Autonomous Business” post, Vera Rozanova named something the ecosystem never talks about:
She’s describing the endpoint of a pattern I first documented in 2007.
The question is: How did we get here?
The Year 1 Lie
Every case study tells the same story: transformation, savings, success.
But case studies are snapshots — frozen at the moment of maximum optimism, usually Year 1 or Year 2.
What happens after?
The case study remains on the website. The reality quietly fades into what Vera called “BAU” — Business As Usual.
No one corrects the record.
Why Savings Disappear
In 2007, I wrote about “The Inherent Danger of a Pull-Through Strategy” in my Dangerous Supply Chain Myths series.
The pattern was clear even then:
A 2003 CAPS study on Reverse Auctions confirmed it: organizations reported that cost savings diminished with each event — by the 3rd or 4th cycle, the gains had largely evaporated.
But here’s the trap: by then, the organization was locked into a long-term contract.
The Contract Trap
The licensing, maintenance, and support fees were calculated based on Year 1 projections. When savings decline but costs remain fixed, the math turns ugly.
What do organizations do?
They extend the platform into areas for which it was never designed — the “Pull-Through Strategy” — hoping to find new savings to justify the sunk cost.
This doesn’t solve the problem. It spreads it.
The Ripple Effect
Pull-through doesn’t stay contained. When you force a misaligned solution into adjacent business areas, you create new problems:
The initiative that was supposed to transform the organization now constrains it.
And still, the Year 1 case study sits on the vendor’s website, unchanged.
The Best Buy Effect: Losing Market Truth
Shortly after my DND work, I received a call from one of the largest PC retailers in the United States.
They had implemented a vendor rationalization strategy — compressing hundreds of suppliers down to 100. The logic was sound on paper: leverage volume pricing and reduce administrative costs.
It worked in Year 1 and Year 2.
By Year 3, they noticed savings were diminishing. They asked me to assess their competitiveness.
I told them: “You do realize when you compress your supplier base down to 100, that ultimately becomes your source of truth. You’ve lost sight of the rest of the market.“
I ran the analysis.
They were paying 21% over market price.
The ERP systems made broader supplier management “too hard,” so they’d rationalized themselves into a closed ecosystem. They couldn’t see what they couldn’t see.
That’s the terminal stage of Pull-Through: you don’t just lose savings. You lose market reality itself.
The External Damage No One Counts
There’s another cost that never appears in the post-mortem (because there is no post-mortem):
The supplier ecosystem.
When Best Buy compressed to 100 suppliers, what happened to the others?
When the organization finally realizes the strategy failed, they can’t simply “call back” the suppliers they cut.
Supplier Relationship Management isn’t a module. It’s an ecosystem. When you damage it, the ripple extends far beyond your walls — into their planning, their capacity, their workforce, their trust.
None of this appears in the Year 1 case study.
The Cycle That Never Breaks
Here’s how the 80% failure rate perpetuates itself:
Year 1-2: "Success" declared → Case study published ↓ Contract lock-in → Can't exit without write-off ↓ Savings diminish → Must justify sunk cost ↓ Pull-Through Strategy → Extend into ill-suited areas ↓ Ripple Effect → Misalignment spreads internally ↓ Best Buy Effect → Lose market truth entirely ↓ External Damage → Supplier ecosystem disrupted ↓ BAU Fade → Initiative quietly absorbed, unexamined ↓ Case Study Remains → Frozen in Year 1, still on website ↓ Next Client Signs → Based on false evidence ↓ Cycle RepeatsNo one corrects the case study because no one’s job depends on it being true after Year 1.
Who Tracks the Truth?
Vera asked the right question: “With no clear ending, there’s no real learning — and no reason for the next attempt to turn out differently.”
The ecosystem has no mechanism for longitudinal accountability. Case studies are marketing assets, not research documents. They’re designed to close deals, not track outcomes.
That’s why the Archives exist.
Someone has to document what actually happens — not at the moment of maximum optimism, but across Year 1, Year 3, Year 5, and beyond.
Someone has to ask: “Where are they now?”
The Questions That Should Be Asked
Before signing, based on a case study:
If the vendor can’t answer these questions, the case study isn’t evidence. It’s a snapshot of hope.
The Bottom Line
Case studies don’t lie at publication. They lie by omission — by never being updated, never being corrected, never being revisited.
The Year 1 success becomes a Year 5 fiction that no one audits.
And the next practitioner signs based on evidence that stopped being true years ago.
Vera named the symptom. The cause is an ecosystem that publishes success at the moment of maximum optimism and never looks back.
Until someone starts tracking what actually happens, the 80% failure rate will never move.
When was the last time you saw a case study with a 5-year follow-up?
Related Posts:
-30-
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