Adaptability: The Power Skill No One Talks About

With all of the technology that dealerships have at their disposal one would think that there would be a perfect process that is duplicable, transferable and easy to manage. In my experience I did not find that to be the case. The automotive vendors that I used had very rudimentary training for using their applications. Sure they were easy to use but the implementation was a nightmare.
It was mostly due to a lack of time. Perfect world there would have been cookie cutter processes in place that could be adapted and managed to maximize ROI. I would cringe when I would get the call from the ILM vendor to know why I did not have the work flows set up beyond a certain time period. They were worried about losing the account, but did not make it easy for people to get started with their product. (No I am not going to name them)
Granted I was in a situation where there was no established processes in place. Had I had some benchmarks to work from it would have been better. While at the same time it would of been impossible to work under an unchangeable process for me.
When I first started in the business in 1990 the process was mandated to the point of being authoritarian and inflexible with no deviation. In today's world where I feel that is an outdated management style, as that encourages the high turnover the industry has. However I see where consultants still preach this management style. Does this still work?
Back to the main question though.