From Orchestration to Economics: What Gartner’s DAP Market Guide Signals – and What It Still Leaves Unresolved

Gartner’s latest Market Guide for Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) marks an important inflection point in how large enterprises think about productivity, digital friction, and the role of technology in day-to-day work. The report confirms that digital adoption is no longer a peripheral enablement concern. It is now a board level issue tied directly to productivity decline, transformation outcomes, and return on technology investment.

At the same time, Gartner’s analysis also exposes a structural gap. While DAPs are evolving from simple in-application guidance tools into cross-application orchestration layers, they still stop short of providing economic authority over digital work. Outcomes are increasingly demanded, but the ownership, measurement, and governance of value remain unresolved.

This report explores what Gartner’s findings mean for the market, how they align with Digital Adoption Advisor (DAA) thinking, and why the next phase of digital adoption will be defined not by orchestration alone, but by economics.

1. The Market Has Crossed a Threshold

For much of the last decade, digital adoption was treated as a change management or training problem. When users struggled, organizations responded with more documentation, more learning content, or more tooling layered onto existing systems.

Gartner’s latest research makes it clear that this framing is no longer sufficient. According to Gartner’s 2024 Digital Worker Survey, employee productivity has declined by between 9 and 12 percentage points among workers experiencing digital friction. These declines are not marginal. They are systemic and persistent, and they affect decision quality, execution speed, and overall enterprise performance.

This matters because it reframes digital adoption as an economic issue rather than a usability one. Productivity loss at this scale directly impacts operating margins, transformation payback periods, and workforce effectiveness. In short, digital friction has become a measurable drag on enterprise value.

DAA’s perspective has long been that adoption challenges are not caused by a lack of tools, but by a lack of economic framing. Gartner’s data now validates that assumption at market scale.

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2. From Guidance to Orchestration: A Necessary Evolution

One of the most significant shifts in Gartner’s Market Guide is the repositioning of DAPs from “in-application guidance” platforms to cross-application orchestration layers. Gartner notes that modern business processes increasingly span multiple applications, systems, and data sources. Optimizing individual applications in isolation no longer addresses how work actually gets done.

To respond, DAP vendors are expanding into:

• Cross-application workflows
• Context-aware guidance
• Coordination of AI assistants and agents
• Outcome-driven nudging rather than static instruction

This evolution is both logical and necessary. Enterprises are operating in environments where ERP, CRM, HCM, analytics, and collaboration tools are deeply intertwined. Without some form of orchestration, digital work becomes fragmented, slow, and error prone.

DAA aligns strongly with this diagnosis. The fragmentation of work across systems has always been one of the primary sources of value leakage in transformation programs. However, orchestration alone does not resolve the more fundamental question: who owns the value created by that work, and how is it measured?

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3. Outcomes Are Now Mandatory – but Still Ambiguous

A recurring theme throughout Gartner’s report is the emphasis on outcomes. DAPs are increasingly expected to tie guidance and orchestration to business KPIs, productivity improvements, and ROI. Outcome driven analytics are no longer optional; they are table stakes.

This shift reflects real pressure from executives. Boards and CFOs are asking harder questions about whether transformation investments are delivering measurable returns. Usage metrics and adoption rates are no longer enough.

Yet Gartner also implicitly highlights a limitation. While outcomes are demanded, there is no common economic model for defining, comparing, or governing those outcomes. Productivity is referenced but not normalized. ROI is discussed but not operationalized as a repeatable financial discipline.

From a DAA perspective, this is the critical gap. Without a shared economic unit for digital work, outcomes remain contextual, negotiable, and difficult to govern. Analytics can show activity and behavior, but they cannot arbitrate value across competing initiatives or investments.

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4. The Limits of Tool-Centric Thinking

Despite their increasing sophistication, Digital Adoption Platforms remain software platforms. They enable, guide, and orchestrate work, but they are not designed to act as economic authorities.

Gartner’s analysis reinforces this distinction through its framing and scope. DAPs are positioned as orchestration layers that support execution and behaviour, rather than mechanisms that define, govern, or arbitrate value.

At an enterprise level, DAPs do not:

• Define ownership of digital productivity
• Establish governance models for adoption decisions
• Quantify time as a balance-sheet-relevant asset
• Resolve trade-offs between competing transformation initiatives

This is not a criticism of the category; it is a recognition of its scope. Tools, no matter how advanced, cannot credibly govern enterprise economics on their own.

This distinction matters. Software can guide activity at scale, but it cannot determine whether that activity is economically optimal. That responsibility sits above the platform, with leadership, operating models, and governance structures that connect adoption to measurable business outcomes.

DAA’s role emerges precisely at this boundary. Where tools enable execution, DAA governs value. Where platforms provide analytics, DAA delivers economic interpretation and decision frameworks.

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5. Category Boundaries Matter More Than Ever

As Gartner adopts language such as “orchestration” and “outcome-driven guidance,” there is a growing risk of category blurring in the market. Buyers may assume that because a platform orchestrates work, it therefore governs value.

This assumption is dangerous. Orchestration without economic authority can actually accelerate value leakage by increasing activity without increasing impact.

DAA’s position is deliberately distinct

• DAPs orchestrate work.
• DAA governs the economics of that work.

This distinction allows enterprises to benefit from advanced tooling while retaining independent, CFO-credible oversight of value realization.

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6. Implications for SAP, ERP, and Workforce Transformation

Gartner explicitly highlights the complexity of ERP and HCM environments and recommends limiting initial DAP deployments in such systems due to risk and complexity.

This reinforces a pattern DAA sees repeatedly in the field. The largest value losses in programs such as SAP S/4HANA or SuccessFactors do not occur during implementation. They occur after go-live, when adoption is assumed, governance relaxes, and economic accountability fades.

In this context, DAA acts as a value assurance layer:

• Before deployment, by defining economic success criteria
• During orchestration, by aligning activity with value
• After go-live, by proving whether ROI has been sustained or eroded

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7. What the Market Should Take Away

What the Market Should Take Away
Gartner’s Market Guide confirms that the digital adoption market is maturing. The problems are real, the stakes are high, and the tooling is evolving rapidly. At the same time, it makes clear that the next phase of maturity will not be driven by software alone.

The organizations that succeed will be those that:

• Treat productivity and adoption as economic variables
• Separate orchestration from governance
• Demand outcome proof grounded in financial reality
• Maintain category discipline between tools and authority

DAA exists to help enterprises make that transition.

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