Why the DND case proves readiness assessment works at any stage — and what that means for your current SAP Ariba platform
By Jon W. Hansen | February 2026
For the Busy Executive
Phase 0 is typically positioned as something organizations should do before technology deployment. That framing is correct — but incomplete. The DND case study, which took next-day delivery performance from 51% to 97.3% in three months, was not a greenfield implementation. The system was already live. Performance was already failing. Political pressure was already high. The default move would have been to rip and replace the technology. Instead, Phase 0 entered after the fact with one question: “What time of day do orders come in?” That question exposed behavioral dysfunction across four agent boundaries that no system specification had ever captured — and no technology replacement would have fixed. Nothing new was installed. The operating reality was surfaced and re-architected. Phase 0 works before deployment. It also works when momentum has already outrun understanding — which is where most organizations find themselves today.
Read time: 5 minutes
The Exchange That Surfaced This
In a recent LinkedIn discussion about the upcoming SAP Ariba executive briefing, the Director of Procurement Strategies for a large organization — made an observation that reframed how Phase 0 should be understood:
The elastic/agile approach works for those who find themselves in the “after-the-fact” position — whether it’s a matter of re-directing the ship or blowing it up altogether.
The Procurement Director identified something the industry consistently overlooks. Most procurement transformation methodology assumes you haven’t started yet. Most organizations have. They’re mid-implementation, post-go-live, or three years into a platform that isn’t delivering the outcomes the business case promised. They don’t need a pre-deployment framework. They need a diagnostic discipline that can enter a live environment and surface what’s actually happening underneath the technology layer.
That’s what Phase 0 did at DND. And it’s what Phase 0 can do for any organization currently running SAP Ariba — or any other procurement platform — that isn’t producing expected results.
The DND Case: Phase 0 After the Fact
When SHL SystemHouse came to me in the late 1990s, they weren’t planning a new deployment. They were managing a live MRO procurement platform for the Department of National Defence that was delivering 51% next-day against a contractual requirement of 90%. The system was operational. The technology was functional. And performance was catastrophic.
The default response — the one the industry still defaults to in 2026 — was to rip and replace. Upgrade the technology. Automate harder. Throw more capability at the problem.
Instead, I asked one question: “What time of day do orders come in?”
The answer — most orders arrived at 4:00 PM — unraveled the entire failure chain across four agent boundaries:
Service Technicians were incentivized to maximize daily service calls, so they held all parts orders until end of day. They were optimizing for their metric at the expense of every downstream agent.
Procurement was processing those late-day orders at inflated dynamic flux pricing. Parts that cost $100 at 9 AM were $1,000 by 4 PM. The procurement team couldn’t see why — the behavioral cause was invisible from inside their boundary.
SME Suppliers — 23 companies competing on price with no coordination on timing or logistics. The buying group was fragmented, driving cost up and reliability down.
Logistics and Customs — late shipments missed customs windows, compounding delivery failures. By the time parts cleared customs, the service calls they were meant to support had already failed.
No technology upgrade addresses this. No system replacement surfaces it. The dysfunction was cross-boundary, behavioral, and invisible from inside any single department.
Phase 0 surfaced the operating reality. Self-learning algorithms were introduced. UPS was integrated directly into the system. Canada Customs pre-clearance was established. The buying group was compressed from a collective 23 buyers FTE to 3.
Within three months: 51% to 97.3%. Over seven consecutive years: 23% cost reduction. The existing technology that was “failing” was beautifully served by the introduction of RAM in 1998. The technology was never the problem.
What This Means for Your Current Platform
If your organization is running SAP Ariba — or any procurement technology platform — and the outcomes aren’t matching the business case, the instinct is to blame the technology. Upgrade it. Migrate it. Replace it.
The DND case says: before you do any of that, ask the Phase 0 question. What’s actually happening at the behavioral level, across agent boundaries, that the technology can’t see?
The answer might be that your technology is fine. The answer might be that the agents operating within and around it — requestors, procurement, suppliers, finance, logistics — are optimizing for competing metrics that no system configuration can reconcile.
Phase 0 doesn’t require you to stop what you’re doing. It doesn’t require a new platform. It requires a diagnostic lens that crosses the boundaries your current reporting can’t.
The SAP Ariba Briefing: What Steps You Can Take Now
The upcoming executive briefing on the SAP Ariba assessment isn’t a vendor pitch. It’s a diagnostic walkthrough — grounded in 18 years of longitudinal evidence and the Hansen Fit Score™ methodology — that will show practitioners what Phase 0 looks like in practice.
Specifically, the briefing will cover:
How to introduce Phase 0 thinking into your current SAP Ariba environment — not as a replacement for what you have, but as a diagnostic layer that surfaces what your current reporting can’t show you.
What the Hansen Fit Score™ assessment reveals about SAP Ariba’s trajectory across three corporate phases — and what that means for organizations currently on the platform.
What steps you can take to get an initiative back on track — because failed initiatives are not about technology. They are about alignment.
If the Procurement Director’s earlier observation resonates — if you’re in the “after-the-fact” position, whether it’s redirecting the ship or deciding whether to blow it up — this briefing is designed for exactly that moment.
SAP Ariba Executive Briefing (SINGLE SEAT) or SAP Ariba Executive Briefing (3-SEAT)
References
Jon W. Hansen is the founder of Hansen Models™ and creator of the Hansen Method™, a procurement transformation methodology developed over 27 years. The DND case study (RAM 1998™) is the foundational proof point for Phase 0 diagnostic methodology.
-30-
Procurement Insights
Phase 0 Isn’t a Starting Gate — It’s a Diagnostic Discipline
Posted on February 15, 2026
0
Why the DND case proves readiness assessment works at any stage — and what that means for your current SAP Ariba platform
By Jon W. Hansen | February 2026
For the Busy Executive
Phase 0 is typically positioned as something organizations should do before technology deployment. That framing is correct — but incomplete. The DND case study, which took next-day delivery performance from 51% to 97.3% in three months, was not a greenfield implementation. The system was already live. Performance was already failing. Political pressure was already high. The default move would have been to rip and replace the technology. Instead, Phase 0 entered after the fact with one question: “What time of day do orders come in?” That question exposed behavioral dysfunction across four agent boundaries that no system specification had ever captured — and no technology replacement would have fixed. Nothing new was installed. The operating reality was surfaced and re-architected. Phase 0 works before deployment. It also works when momentum has already outrun understanding — which is where most organizations find themselves today.
Read time: 5 minutes
The Exchange That Surfaced This
In a recent LinkedIn discussion about the upcoming SAP Ariba executive briefing, the Director of Procurement Strategies for a large organization — made an observation that reframed how Phase 0 should be understood:
The elastic/agile approach works for those who find themselves in the “after-the-fact” position — whether it’s a matter of re-directing the ship or blowing it up altogether.
The Procurement Director identified something the industry consistently overlooks. Most procurement transformation methodology assumes you haven’t started yet. Most organizations have. They’re mid-implementation, post-go-live, or three years into a platform that isn’t delivering the outcomes the business case promised. They don’t need a pre-deployment framework. They need a diagnostic discipline that can enter a live environment and surface what’s actually happening underneath the technology layer.
That’s what Phase 0 did at DND. And it’s what Phase 0 can do for any organization currently running SAP Ariba — or any other procurement platform — that isn’t producing expected results.
The DND Case: Phase 0 After the Fact
When SHL SystemHouse came to me in the late 1990s, they weren’t planning a new deployment. They were managing a live MRO procurement platform for the Department of National Defence that was delivering 51% next-day against a contractual requirement of 90%. The system was operational. The technology was functional. And performance was catastrophic.
The default response — the one the industry still defaults to in 2026 — was to rip and replace. Upgrade the technology. Automate harder. Throw more capability at the problem.
Instead, I asked one question: “What time of day do orders come in?”
The answer — most orders arrived at 4:00 PM — unraveled the entire failure chain across four agent boundaries:
Service Technicians were incentivized to maximize daily service calls, so they held all parts orders until end of day. They were optimizing for their metric at the expense of every downstream agent.
Procurement was processing those late-day orders at inflated dynamic flux pricing. Parts that cost $100 at 9 AM were $1,000 by 4 PM. The procurement team couldn’t see why — the behavioral cause was invisible from inside their boundary.
SME Suppliers — 23 companies competing on price with no coordination on timing or logistics. The buying group was fragmented, driving cost up and reliability down.
Logistics and Customs — late shipments missed customs windows, compounding delivery failures. By the time parts cleared customs, the service calls they were meant to support had already failed.
No technology upgrade addresses this. No system replacement surfaces it. The dysfunction was cross-boundary, behavioral, and invisible from inside any single department.
Phase 0 surfaced the operating reality. Self-learning algorithms were introduced. UPS was integrated directly into the system. Canada Customs pre-clearance was established. The buying group was compressed from a collective 23 buyers FTE to 3.
Within three months: 51% to 97.3%. Over seven consecutive years: 23% cost reduction. The existing technology that was “failing” was beautifully served by the introduction of RAM in 1998. The technology was never the problem.
What This Means for Your Current Platform
If your organization is running SAP Ariba — or any procurement technology platform — and the outcomes aren’t matching the business case, the instinct is to blame the technology. Upgrade it. Migrate it. Replace it.
The DND case says: before you do any of that, ask the Phase 0 question. What’s actually happening at the behavioral level, across agent boundaries, that the technology can’t see?
The answer might be that your technology is fine. The answer might be that the agents operating within and around it — requestors, procurement, suppliers, finance, logistics — are optimizing for competing metrics that no system configuration can reconcile.
Phase 0 doesn’t require you to stop what you’re doing. It doesn’t require a new platform. It requires a diagnostic lens that crosses the boundaries your current reporting can’t.
The SAP Ariba Briefing: What Steps You Can Take Now
The upcoming executive briefing on the SAP Ariba assessment isn’t a vendor pitch. It’s a diagnostic walkthrough — grounded in 18 years of longitudinal evidence and the Hansen Fit Score™ methodology — that will show practitioners what Phase 0 looks like in practice.
Specifically, the briefing will cover:
How to introduce Phase 0 thinking into your current SAP Ariba environment — not as a replacement for what you have, but as a diagnostic layer that surfaces what your current reporting can’t show you.
What the Hansen Fit Score™ assessment reveals about SAP Ariba’s trajectory across three corporate phases — and what that means for organizations currently on the platform.
What steps you can take to get an initiative back on track — because failed initiatives are not about technology. They are about alignment.
If the Procurement Director’s earlier observation resonates — if you’re in the “after-the-fact” position, whether it’s redirecting the ship or deciding whether to blow it up — this briefing is designed for exactly that moment.
SAP Ariba Executive Briefing (SINGLE SEAT) or SAP Ariba Executive Briefing (3-SEAT)
References
Jon W. Hansen is the founder of Hansen Models™ and creator of the Hansen Method™, a procurement transformation methodology developed over 27 years. The DND case study (RAM 1998™) is the foundational proof point for Phase 0 diagnostic methodology.
-30-
Share this:
Related