For years, vendor success has been built on product leadership. Better features. Better UI. Better performance. Better price points.
That era is ending.
Not because product does not matter. It does. But because the enterprise is shifting. And the shift is structural. Buyers are moving away from buying tools and moving toward buying outcomes. That one change alters everything.
Why product-first thinking is becoming a limitation
Most vendors still position their value in isolation.
“My platform does X.”
“Our software automates Y.”
“This capability gives you efficiency.”
But enterprise change does not happen in isolated capability blocks. It happens through interrelationships and interdependencies across the business.
- Procurement decisions affect operating cost.
- Operating cost affects investment capacity.
- Investment capacity affects transformation velocity.
- Transformation velocity affects resilience.
- Resilience affects shareholder confidence.
Outcomes are not delivered by a product. Outcomes are delivered by a system. Which is why so many transformations “go live” and then quietly fail. The product works. But the operating model breaks.
This is the year of the operating model
We believe 2026 will be remembered as the year organisations stop asking, “What does the technology do?” and start asking, “What does the enterprise become when we adopt it?”
Because AI has now exposed the difference between digitising work and redesigning work.
AI does not simply improve process.
AI amplifies the system it lands inside.
If the system is badly designed, AI scales the dysfunction faster than the organisation can manage it. That is why operating model design is no longer a consulting luxury. It is the prerequisite for sustainable outcome delivery.
Permanent reinvention is the new baseline
The future enterprise is not one that “finishes transformation.” The future enterprise is one that can operate in a permanent state of reinvention and innovation. At Bloor, we call this Mutable Business™.
Mutable Business™ is not about stability through control. It is about stability through adaptability. It is a model for surviving a world where competitive advantage is temporary, customer expectations move weekly, and digital capability evolves faster than governance can normally keep up.
What this means for vendors right now
Vendors need to lead with a wider lens:
Not “our product solves this feature gap.”
But “our product contributes to this outcome, in this operating model, in this system.”
The winners will be the vendors who can clearly explain:
- How their technology changes decision making.
- How it changes accountability.
- How it changes delivery capacity.
- How it reduces hidden debt and hidden liability.
- How it reshapes the workforce across human and digital execution.
Because enterprise buyers are not buying software anymore. They are buying what their organisation can become.
The Bloor question vendors should be asking
If your product is deployed tomorrow, what changes across:
- The organisation.
- The functions.
- The workforce.
- The economics.
- The outcomes.
If you cannot answer that clearly, your product will be treated as a commodity, even if it is brilliant.
If you can answer it, you stop selling product. You start leading a market conversation.
And that is where the real growth is.
If you are a vendor who wants to reposition your proposition through an operating model and outcome lens, message us. We will share the most common interdependency failures we see, and the narrative structures that outperform feature-first selling.
By
Donna Lamden,
Head of Partnerships
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