One of the most common problems we face as usabilityprofessionals today is that of not being involved earlyenough, or not having the desired impact on thesystems development. In this paper we propose onereason for this: we who work in client-supplier relationsin contract- and in-house development mayunconsciously only be seeking solutions from a supplierperspective, where “early involvement” marks thebeginning of the supplier’s engagement.In this paper we propose that usage-centered designmay instead be viewed as a tool for clients to definewhat system to purchase, and what requirements areappropriate for both the business as a whole and forthe individual users. We present a model for workingwith User-Centered Design (UCD) in procurement anddescribe two cases that followed this work model.The results from the case studies suggest that thisapproach deals effectively with issues of earlyinvolvement and integration of user requirements insystems development. The clients in the case studiesvalued the UCD work and based their forthcomingsystems development on it. In addition to being able to integrate a UCD perspective before a contract for thedevelopment was signed, several other benefits wereapparent, including an integration of business and userrequirements and improved communication amongstakeholders. We discuss some of the preconditions formaking this approach successful, based on experiencesfrom the two case studies.This approach requires us to reconsider the role of UCDin systems development. We believe a change willcome, but slowly, since it challenges establishedconceptions in UCD.