Robust and Resilient Supply Chains in 2026
Supply chain disruption is structural, not exceptional.
Resilience in 2026 is no longer about reacting well after failure. It is about whether the organization has deliberately designed decision systems that reduce exposure before disruption, force explicit tradeoffs as conditions change and enable disciplined execution when disruption occurs.
Boards and executive teams increasingly expect confidence under uncertainty. Yet many organizations still operate with fragmented data, implicit assumptions, and resilience initiatives that lack clear decision-ownership or economic bounds.
Robust and Resilient Supply Chains in 2026 is a three-part webinar series for procurement and supply chain leaders accountable for performance, risk, and capital efficiency under persistent uncertainty. Featuring Sphera experts, customer experience and empirical risk data, the series examines three critical questions:
- How AI reshapes risk intelligence before events occur and during unfolding disruption
- Where resilience investments reduce exposure versus quietly destroy value
- Why organizational confidence routinely exceeds actual preparedness, and how to close that gap
Across the series, participants will gain practical guidance to strengthen risk intelligence, define explicit resilience tradeoffs and align supply chain risk management with enterprise decision-making so action is grounded in design, not improvisation, in 2026 and beyond.
Audience
Procurement and supply chain leaders, with direct relevance for CEOs, CFOs, and COOs responsible for enterprise risk, performance and resilience strategy.
Future-proofing supply chains: AI as a risk management game changer
17 March 2026 | 9am CT | 4pm CET
AI is rapidly transforming supply chain risk management. The value does not come from automation alone. It comes from using AI to reshape decisions before disruption occurs and sharpen prioritization as risk materializes.
In this session, Scott Lehmann, VP of Product Management for Supply Chain Risk Management and Operational Risk Management at Sphera, provides a grounded view of how AI is being applied to improve pre-event risk visibility, early warning and decision quality across global supply chains.
Drawing on real-world implementations and product-level insight, the session focuses on how organizations move from static risk reporting to continuous risk intelligence. The discussion separates high-leverage use cases from low-signal experimentation and clarifies where human judgment must remain explicit to avoid false confidence.
What you will learn
- How AI transforms growing volumes of supply chain risk data into early, decision-relevant insight
- Where AI most effectively improves detection, prioritization and decision timing
- How to design AI-assisted risk management that strengthens judgment rather than replacing it
Speakers:
Scott Lehmann
GVP - Product Management, SCRM & ORM
Sphera
Scott is the Group Vice President of Product Management for Sphera’s Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) and Operational Risk Management (ORM) product line. With over 28 years of experience in enterprise software across the U.S. and Europe, Scott defines the strategic direction, product roadmaps, and vertical segmentation that drive Sphera’s industry-leading solutions.
Supply chains as value destroyers: How much robustness and resilience Is enough in 2026?
14 April 2026 | 9am CT | 4pm CET
Resilience without economic boundaries is fragility by another name.
As organizations seek to reduce exposure, many over-invest in buffers, redundancies and controls that constrain flexibility, increase cost and degrade performance long before disruption occurs. This session challenges the assumption that resilience automatically creates value.
Through a candid, moderated discussion, the panel examines how leading organizations define the right level of robustness by making tradeoffs explicit in advance. Participants will see how resilience decisions should be evaluated as capital allocation choices, not insurance policies, and how “good enough” resilience is deliberately designed rather than incrementally accumulated.
What you will learn
- How organizations distinguish exposure-reducing resilience from value-eroding overengineering
- Where excess inventory, redundancy or control most commonly destroy value
- How to define fit-for-purpose robustness aligned with risk appetite, economics and strategy
Speakers:
Expectations vs. Reality: The confidence paradox in supply chain risk management
5 May 2026 | 9am CT | 4pm CET
Insights from the Sphera Supply Chain Risk Report
Many organizations report high confidence in their supply chain risk management capabilities. Disruptions consistently reveal otherwise.
This session examines the confidence paradox: why perceived preparedness routinely exceeds actual capability. Using insights from Sphera’s latest Supply Chain Risk Report, the webinar highlights structural gaps across governance, data visibility, third-party exposure, and execution readiness.
Participants will see where confidence is supported by real decision systems and where it is based on assumption. The session concludes with practical steps to recalibrate resilience strategies so confidence is anchored in designed capability across pre-event preparation, in-event tradeoffs and post-event execution.
What you will learn
- Where organizations most frequently overestimate their supply chain risk preparedness
- How customer experience compares with the findings in Sphera’s Supply Chain Risk Report
- Concrete actions to align confidence with actual capability and reduce exposure where it matters most
Speakers:
