aPriori: 59% cite IT coordination

Procurement software stories usually sound like product stories — better analytics, faster quotes, cleaner supplier comparisons. But the thing that kills a lot of these projects is much less glamorous. It is coordination. aPriori put that friction back on the table by highlighting a ProcureCon survey result: 59% of procurement, supply chain, and risk management professionals said weak procurement-and-IT coordination is a barrier to technology adoption. That is the real story here — not a shiny new tool, but the organizational gap that keeps digital sourcing from sticking. ### What is the actual claim here? The number did not come from a brand-new aPriori survey. It comes from a ProcureCon survey that aPriori cited in a blog post about strategic sourcing best practices. The wording matters. The barrier is not “digital transformation” in the abstract. It is procurement and IT failing to coordinate well enough for technology adoption to work in practice. That is a narrower claim, but also a more useful one. (apriori.com) ### Why does IT coordination break sourcing projects? Because sourcing systems do not live alone. They have to connect to ERP data, supplier records, cost models, workflows, approvals, and often engineering or manufacturing inputs too. If procurement wants speed but IT is guarding standards, integrations, data quality, and security, the project stalls in the middle. aPriori’s broader pitch is basically that fragmented handoffs and spreadsheet-heavy processes break the digital thread and force teams to re-key or reconcile information manually. (apriori.com) ### Why is this more than a software-install problem? Because the value sits in shared data, not just in the application itself. aPriori keeps coming back to the same idea across its sourcing material — data is the new currency, and most procurement organizations still do not use their available data in a fully integrated, real-time way. If the data model, ownership, and process rules are fuzzy, adding another platform just gives the mess a nicer interface. (apriori.com) ### What were the fixes aPriori pushed? The company’s strategic sourcing piece frames five broad moves: digitize outdated sourcing processes, use strategic sourcing to improve supplier relationships, make sourcing more data-driven, strengthen collaboration, and build more resilient supply-chain decision-making. None of that is magical. The through-line is that procurement, IT, and adjacent teams need a common workflow and common source of truth instead of parallel systems and manual workarounds. (apriori.com) ### Do real manufacturers actually do this? Yes — at least in the case studies aPriori showcases. Signify used automated should-cost analysis as part of a procurement digitalization push and expanded those capabilities far beyond a small specialist team. TE Connectivity’s example leans on the same theme from another angle: supplier management gets better when stakeholders share actionable, real-time manufacturing data. Those examples are marketing-adjacent, sure, but they still show what “coordination” means in concrete terms. (apriori.com) ### Why should sellers care about this stat? Because it points to the objection behind the objection. A buyer may say a sourcing, TMS, or managed-service integration is too complex, too slow, or too risky. But often the real fear is cross-functional failure — procurement buys in, IT does not, operations works around it, and the system never becomes the default. A seller who cannot explain governance, integration scope, data ownership, and rollout sequencing is not really selling a solution. (apriori.com) ### Is 59% the whole market? No — it is one survey datapoint, reused in aPriori content. But it lines up with the rest of the company’s sourcing argument and with a broader pattern in procurement tech: digital projects fail less because teams hate automation and more because organizations cannot align around the data and process changes automation requires. That is why this stat keeps getting recycled — it names the bottleneck plainly. (apriori.com) ### So what is the bottom line? The useful takeaway is simple. Procurement transformation is not mainly blocked by a lack of software. It is blocked by weak coordination between the people who own the process and the people who own the systems. Until that gap closes, “digital sourcing” stays half-digital. (apriori.com)