Ariba | SAP | SAP Ariba Consolidated Assessment Report

The Acquisition Question: Does Combining Two DNA Profiles Create Value or Destroy It?

In October 2012, SAP acquired Ariba for $4.3 billion. The conventional narrative — promoted by SAP, endorsed by analyst firms, and accepted by the market — was that combining SAP's enterprise scale with Ariba's cloud procurement platform would create an unassailable market leader. But no advisory framework ever measured whether the acquisition improved the one thing practitioners care about: implementation success.

This independent assessment applies the Hansen Fit Score™ across three corporate phases — pre-acquisition Ariba, pre-acquisition SAP, and post-acquisition SAP Ariba — using 18 years of continuous coverage that began with what is likely the industry's first independent analysis of Ariba's architectural debt in August 2007.

What's Inside:

• Hansen Fit Score™ three-phase scoring: Ariba (5.1 — Conditional Proceed), SAP (4.1 — High Risk), SAP Ariba (4.3 — High Risk)
• The Acquisition Paradox: Technology Capability peaked at 7.5/10 while Outcome Measurement plummeted to 2.8/10 — the inverse correlation that defines the $4.3B transaction's impact
• The 4.7-point Capability-to-Outcome Gap — the second largest in the series, combined with the highest Minimum Client HFS Required (7.5) of any vendor assessed
• The 18-Year Prediction Arc: from August 2007 architectural debt identification to October 2025 vendor-confirmed replatforming — documented in real time across four milestone posts
• Virginia eVA vs. OECM: Same Ariba platform, opposite outcomes — the definitive proof that outcomes are methodology-dependent, not platform-driven
• SAP implementation failure cases documented contemporaneously in the 2008 white paper: Hershey ($112M), FoxMeyer (bankruptcy), HP ($400M), Cadbury (£12M) — not retrofitted, not second-hand
• The Replatforming Validation: SAP Ariba abandoning its 25-year-old codebase confirms the architectural debt thesis and raises urgent questions for organizations deploying on a platform the vendor has declared obsolete
• Five critical questions no analyst firm has asked — including independently verified implementation success rates and the $4.3B acquisition ROI measured by customer outcomes
• Cross-series comparison: SAP Ariba plotted against Zycus (6.0 HFS) and Coupa (6.6 HFS) with risk mapping graphics
• Five Harvard-style executive graphics: Acquisition Paradox scoring, Capability-to-Outcome Gap widening, Cross-Series Risk Mapping, 18-Year Prediction Arc Timeline, and Virginia/OECM contrast
• Multi-Model Validation Summary: Five independent AI models confirmed methodology, evidence chain, scoring, fairness, and defensibility through Level 3 of 5

Methodology:

RAM 2025™ multimodel validation using independent AI models analyzing the Procurement Insights archive (233 articles, 2007–2025), the 2008 SAP Procurement for Public Sector white paper, publicly available case studies, and vendor announcements. 100% vendor-neutral — no vendor interviews, no demos, no sponsorship.

Who This Is For:

• Procurement leaders currently using or evaluating SAP Ariba
• Organizations navigating the BTP replatforming transition and its implications
• CPOs and CFOs assessing vendor risk when the vendor has declared its own codebase obsolete
• Enterprise leaders evaluating whether $4.3B acquisitions create or destroy practitioner value
• Anyone who wants the assessment no analyst firm will publish about what happens when market dominance masks outcome erosion

The ROI:

If a failed implementation costs $3M and the failure rate is 65%, your risk exposure is $1.95M. This report costs 0.09% of that risk.

Hansen Models™ — Practitioner Performance Analysis & Vendor Reconciliation Exposed. Explainable. Repeatable.