The safe choice
An established provider wins another contract. The decision is easy to explain: a familiar name, extensive references, an existing ecosystem.
A smaller alternative is rejected. Too few comparable customers. Too little scale. Too much uncertainty.
Each decision may appear reasonable in isolation. Repeated across the market, however, these decisions help determine which alternatives will exist in the future.
The safe choice does more than select a supplier. It shapes the choices available next time.
Dependency is recognised. Action is optional.
An ifo Institute survey published in August 2026 illustrates the extent of Germany’s reliance on US digital providers:
➜ Nearly 88% of companies use digital products and services from US providers.
➜ 31% describe themselves as strongly dependent on them.
➜ More than one in five companies considers its dependency risky but plans no countermeasures.
➜ Among those recognising a risk, more than four in ten plan no action.
These figures describe usage, perceived dependency and intentions. They do not establish that every purchase from a US provider is problematic.
They do expose a strategic question: if companies recognise a dependency but continue making decisions that deepen it, how is their position supposed to change?
Acknowledging a risk does not reduce it. Neither does adding it to a presentation about digital sovereignty.
Procurement helps build the market it later buys from
Customers give software companies more than revenue.
They provide deployment experience, references, product feedback and evidence that the business can deliver. These assets help a vendor qualify for larger projects, attract partners and invest in support.
When a challenger is rejected for lacking references or scale, the decision also withholds the resources needed to develop them.
This does not make every rejection wrong. An unsuitable product remains unsuitable.
But it creates a problem when buyers demand mature alternatives while consistently declining the first commitments through which credible alternatives could mature.
References are the result of purchasing decisions. They cannot be demanded into existence.
The established provider starts with a different advantage
An established vendor brings something a newcomer cannot demonstrate in a PoC: broad acceptance.
Its name is recognised. Its presence in comparable organisations makes the recommendation easier to support. Choosing it requires less explanation.
A challenger may have to prove technical suitability, organisational resilience and the legitimacy of being considered at all.
The resulting decision can favour the familiar provider even when the alternative has passed its technical evaluation.
Across many purchases, that preference reinforces the same market structure buyers later describe as a dependency.
The concern appears in the risk assessment. The reinforcement happens in procurement.
The bill arrives after the contract is signed
Consolidating around a provider can bring real benefits: integration, shared skills, simpler administration and commercial efficiencies.
It also creates commitments.
As more applications, workflows, identities and data become tied to one ecosystem, changing direction can become harder. A future price increase or product withdrawal is then evaluated against the growing cost of leaving.
The original purchasing decision may still have been justified. But its consequences extend beyond the original purchase.
An apparently efficient choice today can reduce negotiating power tomorrow.
A dependency therefore needs to be assessed over time - not only at the moment the contract is approved.
A European address is not an exit strategy
A European provider may rely on infrastructure, technology or commercial relationships controlled elsewhere. A US provider may offer useful portability and contractual flexibility.
The relevant questions concern the actual ability to act:
➜ Can the customer retrieve its data in a usable form?
➜ Can another provider operate or replace the service?
➜ Which technical and contractual dependencies would survive a switch?
➜ How long would migration take, and what would it cost?
➜ Who can change the conditions under which the service remains available?
A credible assessment follows the dependencies beyond the logo.
Replacing a supplier without examining the underlying dependencies may change the invoice more than the customer’s freedom.
Alternatives need purchasing opportunities
Buyers do not have to accept uncontrolled risk to support greater choice.
They can create bounded opportunities in which qualified alternatives demonstrate their value.
➜ Remove unnecessary entry barriers.
Ask whether a requirement addresses a concrete operational concern or simply reproduces the incumbent’s profile.
➜ Define a meaningful first deployment.
Give a qualified challenger a scope that produces useful evidence, with clear responsibilities and safeguards.
➜ Make success commercially relevant.
Agree what a successful outcome would qualify the vendor for. A pilot that can never lead to a purchase does little to establish an alternative.
➜ Assess the cost of further concentration.
Include switching effort, negotiating power and additional ecosystem dependencies alongside immediate functionality and price.
➜ Keep alternatives usable.
An exit option requires skills, documentation and practical preparation. A name on a backup supplier list is not enough.
Digital sovereignty also starts with an order
At APILANi, we help international technology companies understand how to earn consideration, establish credibility and turn relevant capabilities into a viable market position.
That includes German and European challengers and international providers capable of adding meaningful choice.
Buyers cannot create every alternative themselves. They do influence which qualified providers gain the experience and commercial foundation to become credible options.
We cannot keep denying alternatives the opportunity to establish themselves - and then treat the lack of alternatives as someone else’s problem.
The safest choice today may leave us with no choice tomorrow.