Ahead of ProcureCon Europe 2026, ProcureCon Europe Chair Tom Mills sits down with Arnd Hirschberg, Senior Strategist at Siemens Energy, to discuss why procurement leaders need to look beyond their first-tier suppliers to build more resilient global supply chains.

Drawing on 18 years of experience as a CPO, Arnd explains why greater visibility and strategic management across second- and third-tier suppliers is becoming increasingly important as procurement teams navigate geopolitical uncertainty, trade restrictions, sustainability requirements and increasingly complex global supply chains.

Tom and Arnd also explore the evolving role of AI in procurement – where automation can deliver real value, where human expertise remains essential, and why AI shouldn't be expected to solve every strategic procurement challenge.

Arnd will explore these topics further at ProcureCon Europe 2026 in Cologne.

In this conversation:

• Why procurement needs to move beyond Tier 1 supplier management
• Building resilience across complex global supply chains
• Preparing for sanctions and changing global trade conditions
• Where AI can – and can't – transform procurement
• Why procurement's strategic role is becoming more important

Transcript:

TOM

Really good to meet you. So tell me, what's your name and where do you work?

ARND

My name is Arnd Hersberg. I work for Siemens Energy for a lot of years, as CPO for 18 years, and now as senior strategies for the company.

TOM

Fantastic. So tell me, what are you looking forward to about ProcureCon?

ARND

I've been several times at ProcureCon. It's a really great conference. There's a lot of people coming from around Europe to the conference. ProcureCon always gives a lot of room for discussions and interaction and that's very different to other conferences. And that's really the value I see in ProcureCon for myself and probably for the for everybody who's there.

TOM

Yeah, I can't wait to actually meet you. We'll definitely go for a coffee there. But also for me, the fact that it's been hosted in Cologne, Cologne is one of my favourite cities, so really looking forward to that. So what are you speaking about?

ARND

I will be speaking about a multi tier management saying, because my deep belief is the procurement world has changed for all things, you know, the crisis, price changes, tariffs, ups and downs, sustainability, compliance, everything asked that we know more about our our multi tiers.

And on the other hand, it's a chance if we are really going into the multi tier to steer them better. That means we need also to steer our resources we have and people more from the first tier into the second third tier because there's a lot of volume. There's a lot of decisions made on these levels, which should be steered from the procurement organisation, which we are normally not doing.

Therefore that's a clear shift we need to do because otherwise we will not manage the challenges of the next few years.

TOM

Brilliant. So just so I understand when you talk about multi tier management at really high level, what does that mean today?

ARND

I think everybody manages in the procurement the first tier, the one we're sending the order where we're getting invoice for. We know that hopefully and sometimes we're putting strategic resources in to develop them long term to look into the cost and so on.

On the other side, then we're not looking in the second tier supply of the supply or we're doing it sometimes because supplier ask us to do something if we want to look, but it's is it structured? Is it wish? Do we know our top ten second tier supplier from PBO? Probably we don't know. Most of our companies probably don't know.

And where do we need to put resources on because a lot of decisions and cost compliance, sustainability are taking on the 2nd and 3rd tiers levels.

TOM

Fantastic. So what's the one thing that you're hoping people will take away from your talk?

ARND

That's very clear. They really make a change in the organisation and dedicate more resources. At the end, it's about resources into the second, third tier management that they see there is a better value in putting their strategic people also on these topics instead of managing the first tier.

TOM

Yeah, brilliant. And so there's, you mentioned a lot of the things that have been, I guess threatening or causing disruption within procurement over the last couple of years. What do you see the biggest challenges will be for procurement teams in the next maybe year, 18 months.

ARND

But as the situation is changing so rapidly, I think we all know it's difficult to predict in these years what's the biggest. Yeah, it's a tough question, isn't it? But there will be more sanctions or you know limits to global trade that's every year coming up more and more. Is it now called sanction, Is it limitations?

Whatever country is putting up more barriers between to manage this, especially if we have a long term supply chain, something in my own job, if we are ordering something, we need it in 18 or 24 months in between a lot of things can change and still at the end we cannot change the supplier anymore.

If we ordered India for a project in Saudi Arabia, that needs to work also in 24 months from now on. And that will be a challenge for all of us to make it as resilient as possible all our supply chain decisions because the world will be most likely not easier on a lot of aspects in the next 24 months.

TOM

And what's the one thing that procurement team should be doing to prepare for that?

ARND

That is still this. I believe we need to understand where all, all our materials are coming from, not the first tier. You know, the first tier is typically a system integrator or something which is close to your factories or close if you're in UK, it's in UK or perhaps it's in France.

But the second tier already, you know, it's a fortune, it's a metal part coming from India, coming from China, all over the globe.

And it's not just in this metal industry looking on the electronics, it's even worse. You know, their supply chains are so dispersed all over the world until you get the chip, you probably crossed 10 different countries until you have a chip in your hand and everybody is still and even the government looking on the first year say, oh, we need a chip factory in UK, in Germany.

 But it will not make the trick because you know, if the supply chain behind is still depending on 10 other countries, it doesn't help to have the last step in your hand.

TOM

The positive is there's never been more of a need for procurement to step up. So procurement has a massive opportunity to prove our value here. But the challenge will be just how much we can achieve and that I guess the next 18 months will be really critical.

There'll be lots of pressure for supply chain and procurement professionals. And how do we build resilience amongst that?

ARND

Yeah, what I also see is this. It will be a challenge because everybody knows how, oh, there's AI and everything. Procurement will be done by AI, but especially these problems, the strategic part. AI will help a lot, of course, but will it solve the topics with the suppliers to discuss? What is the resilience of? Not at all. Not they will not solve it.

TOM

And that's the balance. That's the balance. It will be like, how do we make sure that we introduce AI in a way that enhances the function whilst not allowing it to become the answer to or expecting it to become the answer to everything.

So yeah, well, on the other hand, it will help in the mile we have in addition,

ARND

We have 600,000 orders per year, and there are 350,000 orders that are 500 years old. There's something for AI.

Yes, of course, because these are not the decision making parts, but they're needed and the need that it's a safe process because if a little metal part is missing or a little cable, the whole project will not be delivered. It's easy just to give it to AI without supervision.

I'm not sure because you know, we need to be super, super sure it works at the end. Everything is in time there and there is nothing wrongly ordered and so on. And that is sometimes if people don't, it's not so easy at the end.

But the point AI to understand all the details on technical even ordering a cable because not just the cable it has 20 pages specifications need this and experienced junior buyer even knows what where to order the AI could do it somewhere it's still on the surface the right part in detail it is not therefore it will take but on the other hand there's a lot of work we're like expediting we can do so yes yeah.

TOM

So that's, I can't wait to discuss this with you when we meet in Cologne and I'm really looking forward to your speech.

I am now definitely going to make sure I attend that one because I think you may have a lot of answers for us. So thank you very much.

ARND

Thanks, Tom. Looking forward to meet you then Cologne.