Possible Signs of Hope for Better Buying

I regularly talk about the downside of buying: conflict, regret, delays, and frustrations. But our latest study shows a ray of hope. Research by our procurement team has shown that an approach we call Dynamic Sourcing leads to better results and faster decisions. You can think of this as an agile or lean approach.

The core of the approach is to start with outcomes and ask potential providers to show how they could support achieving those outcomes vs. starting with traditional RFPs and long requirement lists built around a pre-defined solution approach. For clients, we covered this in a recent issue of Gartner Business Quarterly.

With that context, one of the things we asked respondents was what type of procurement approach they preferred-starting with requirements or starting with outcomes. 28% somewhat preferred and objective approach and 29% completely preferred that approach. We then asked what the preferred approach of their organization was. In that case it was slightly, but not significantly lower, at 27% and 26%.

The idea that orgs and individuals are beginning to embrace a different way of buying is a one sign of hope.

But it goes farther. We had respondents focus on one significant technology initiative and one of the things we explored is the specific procurement approach used. We expanded the options to include sole source approaches and marketplaces or purchasing panels (pre-approved lists of products ordered via a portal). 29% of these decisions used Agile/Lean methods--outcome-led. That was much higher than traditional methods at 16%. More good news.

Finally, we also assessed the scenario on high-quality deal(HQD) dimensions. As the graphic above shows, the use of Agile/Lean approaches is statistically significantly more likely to result in an HQD that all other procurement approaches. That is the best sign.

Cumulatively, this gives me hope. There is still much work to do, but as more and more evidence of the value of this approach comes to light, more and more companies should embrace this mode for more and more decisions. That's good for them and good for the vendor community.

Happier times ahead? Maybe, but much more work to be done as I will discuss in upcoming articles.

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.