Supply Chain Innovation Day 2026

Highlights

The Supply Chain Innovation Day 2026 was hosted by the Institute for Production and Supply Chain Management at the University of St. Gallen (PSCM-HSG) together with GS1 Switzerland, at the SQUARE in St. Gallen. Its theme, quick savings versus long-term advantage, asked how companies balance short-term cost pressure against the resilience their supply chains need.

Intellyse CEO Alexandre de Perregaux joined Brian White (IBM), Rolf Egger (Bayer Consumer Care) and Henning Blunck (DHL Data & AI) on the panel “People, Agents, Robots: How do operations of the future look like?”, moderated by Dr. Kerstin Höfle. The core question: admin work in supply chain and procurement is heading to zero and the information will always be there, so who decides, AI or human?

Alexandre's takeaway: as AI agents take over the admin work, judgement becomes the scarce resource in supply chain management and procurement. The teams that win will know when to trust the machine and when to step in. Freight invoice control is a working example: AI agents audit 100% of carrier invoices and flag overpayments, and people step in where a decision needs judgement.