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Hi {{FIRST_NAME|readers}},

Picture this: You've just implemented a shiny new ProcureTech solution. Within weeks, adoption is through the roof. Usage metrics are off the charts. Your executive dashboard is showing numbers that make you look like a procurement rock star!

Then you get an undesirable $50K invoice (a very expensive reality check…) 😬

Why?

Great adoption of the wrong behaviors can be worse than poor adoption of the right ones.

I’m always hammering home that without adoption, you might as well kiss your ProcureTech business case benefits goodbye…

But tonight, I’ve got a story that highlights HOW you should measure technology adoption...

Onwards!

📰 In this week’s edition:

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👀 In Case You Missed It…
My Best Linkedin post this week:

"Pfff... What's so hard about procurement? I buy stuff every day!"

The same message pinged wildly across the organization... Within minutes, it spread like wildfire. Water cooler conversations. Team calls. Email chains…

"Did you know you can get Apple AirPods through the new procurement system?"

By day three, this "successful" procurement system implementation had processed hundreds of undesirable Apple AirPods orders.

Pre-approved.

Auto-flowing from purchase-to-pay.

No red flags.

The invoice wouldn't arrive until month-end… 😭

This wasn't a system failure.

It was a $50,000 lesson in why great adoption of the wrong behaviors can be worse than poor adoption of the right ones.

Let me rewind for a second. How did this happen?

This company had just rolled out their shiny new procurement platform, complete with a few “punch out” catalogs.

They didn’t want to manage the transactional complexity of the catalog order volume so they created a new purchasing channel for catalog purchases (read: new, separate process). The catalog provider was going to support the end-to-end procure-to-pay process and simply invoice the company once at the end of the month...

Simple!

Result: 85% of requesters had logged in within the first month.

The executive dashboard which showed adoption numbers that made the procurement team look like rock stars… 🎸

What they didn't realize was that they'd accidentally made Apple AirPods available for purchase through their catalog.

And they weren’t just available… They were pre-approved!

(ouch!)

These purchases auto-flowed through the new streamlined purchase-to-pay process supported by the punch out catalog provider.

Surface-level metrics: Amazing adoption
Reality: Procurement nightmare

Given this whole project touted the system’s ability to produce compliant purchases with a great user experience, employees felt justified replacing their headphones…

The problem wasn't the technology. The problem was measuring the wrong thing.

The company celebrated catalog usage without asking: "Are people using it for the right things?"

They optimized for adoption without aligning the specifics (e.g. catalog data & purchasing process) to their actual procurement objectives:

Instead, they created a frictionless path to exactly what they were trying to prevent…

This isn't unique. I see this pattern everywhere…

Let’s take a Source-to-Pay project cliché:

"We want our catalog to be Amazon-like!"

*cringe*

Do you know what Amazon optimizes for?

They optimize for SALES!

In procurement, you literally want the opposite:

When you chase adoption without alignment, you're solving the wrong problem.

Forget adoption rates for a moment. Ask this instead:

"What behaviors is our technology actually driving?"

Because the most "successful" implementation in the world is worthless if it's driving the wrong behaviors.

Here's how to audit your own systems:

Here's a real example of good adoption metrics:

Another company implemented the same catalog platform but measured differently:

They got adoption AND results.

The difference? They designed their system to drive the behaviors they actually wanted.

So, before you launch your next piece of procurement technology, ask yourself:

And the hard part? Figuring out how you’ll correctly measure adoption when the system goes live… Some systems don’t provide great usage metrics…

The hack? Think about this at the outset when selecting a system. Being able to measure correct system usage is almost as important as being able to support the process itself…

The most dangerous technology implementations aren't the ones nobody uses… They're the ones everybody uses wrong!

Have you ever had something like this happen to you?

Hit reply in the email to tell me your story or comment below.