The Impact of Shared Outcome Focus

I recently wrote about some signs of better buying approaches . Today, I'll add another sign.

One of the things we explored in our most recent buying study was preferences. Specifically preferences around an approach to finding technology solutions. We asked respondents their which statement they agreed with more:

• Starting with a specification of requirements and pre-determined solution category
• Starting with a statement of desired business outcomes, with willingness to be flexible on the solution approach proposed

We then asked the same question for what they thought their organization's preferred model would be. Initially, we found unity. 56% of respondents preferred an outcome driven approach and 54% percent of respondents said their organization felt the same.

I'd love to see these numbers rise in the coming months and years, but was happy to see it above 50%.

But then I dug a little deeper. I decided to look at situations where the individuals preference matched the organization's and when it didn't.

The numbers for the column headers above tell the story. 41% of the time, the respondent's preference did not match the organization's. Ouch. 25% of respondents who preferred requirements driven approaches matched their organization. And 35% of the outcome preferences were matches.

Not great, but more alignment would be good, I thought.

And then I validated it. Stay with me.

In the same study we asked about a specific, significant technology initiative. For that initiative, we asked about the primary procurement approach with 4 options:

• Traditional RFx driven approaches (think requirements driven)
• Sole Source
• Agile/Lean process (think outcomes led)
• Marketplaces or Purchasing Panels.

For my final step, I looked at situations where the org and respondent were aligned on preferences and where they used that preferred approach or not. (Not the not included the three other choices. To be fair, some of them may have used requirements or outcomes led within these other models, but we'll simplify for this story.

Within this grouping I wanted to look at high-quality deals (HQDs). HQDs occur when respondents feel strongly that their expectations have been met and the either purchased a premium solution or did not settle for something less ambitious than originally planned. HQDs are good for customers and providers.

Well, the worst case scenario for HQDs as when mismatched preferences exists. Only 14% of those met the HQD criteria. Continuing, there was no measurable difference for those with org and individual preferring requirements led, regardless of taking that approach or not. in both cases, there was a 1.4x more likelihood (compared to the mismatched group) of an HQD.

The world of outcomes was better. When the procurement approach did not match the preference, the likelihood factor increased to 1.7x. But when everything aligned, that increased to 3.2x compared to mismatches.

More and more evidence that outcome led approaches are better. Frankly, if you want outcomes, start with them. Change your mindset, break down old ways of doing things. Discover and easier and better path.

The articles in this newsletter do not follow Gartner's standard editorial review. All comments or opinions expressed here are mine and do not represent the views of Gartner, Inc. or its management.