Elevate+ Zürich 2026

On September 16-17, over 180 procurement leaders, Archlet customers and partners gathered in Zürich for Archlet's flagship event Elevate+, two days dedicated to what it really means to build an AI-native procurement organization in the age of agentic AI.

Elevate+ included an agenda packed with keynotes, candid fireside chats, hands-on workshops, and time to connect with the procurement community. From real-world rollout stories to bold predictions about the future of sourcing roles, Elevate+ Zürich brought together leaders navigating this shift and insights on what's coming next.

Opening evening on Lake Zurich

The two-day experience started on Lake Zurich. The evening included keynotes by Andrea Sordi (dsm-firmenich), Patrick Berglund (Xeneta), and Diana Herold (Bayer), all bringing their perspectives and insights around AI in procurement.

SpendHQ's Pierre Laprée joined forces with a longstanding customer, Alexander Pilsl from The Adecco Group, for a fireside chat on 'What would you let AI decide?' to show their journey of navigating AI in procurement together.

Explore the full evening event sessions here.

Setting the scene: The agentic sourcing era

The next day, Archlet Co-Founder Lukas Wawrla welcomed 150+ guests representing 93 companies from across Europe for the full-day Elevate+ event.

Tim Grunow, Co-Founder at Archlet, then took the stage to explore the agentic sourcing era. He traced the journey from 2019's broken trade-off between smart and easy-to-use, to today's AI-native reality.

Drawing a powerful parallel to software engineering, Tim made the case that what's happening in engineering today is a preview of procurement tomorrow: as agents take over execution, the role of the procurement professional shifts from doing to directing.

Jakob Manz, Co-Founder at Archlet, followed with a look at the product roadmap and where Spark is headed. He showed Spark's agents already at work across strategic sourcing, from RFP creation to negotiation, and shared what's shipped over the past year alongside what's next: deeper strategic sourcing capabilities and a growing move toward sourcing that runs itself.

His message was clear: within 12 to 18 months, there will be two kinds of procurement teams, those still catching up and those running ahead.

Before kicking off customer sessions, Chief Customer Officer, Alina Heimgartner, shared what's changing about adoption. She made the case that AI brings a paradigm shift in how procurement value is measured. Traditional metrics like active users, login frequency, and session duration were always proxies for value, and in an agentic world they break down: when agents do the work, less human usage no longer means less value. The metrics that matter are shifting from activity to outcomes.

Fireside chat with Bosch

Rebecca Elias (Robert Bosch) joined Alina for a candid look at transforming sourcing at global scale.

Rebecca shared why Bosch moved away from a single all-round tool: gaps in complex logistics sourcing, no AI-native analysis at scale, and no end-to-end process integration. What they wanted instead was a modern platform people actually want to use, one that scales to huge data and supplier volumes, and a best-of-breed partner rather than a one-size-fits-all suite.

In under a year from go-live, Bosch ran over a thousand tenders across dozens of logistics categories, covering billions in sourcing volume.

She closed on why technology and people have to move together, from more autonomous AI and deeper integration on one side, to sharper negotiation, data literacy, and human-owned governance on the other.

Sazerac's eSourcing rollout playbook

Mitch Matt, Procurement Digital Transformation Lead at Sazerac, delivered a standout keynote on Sazerac's eSourcing rollout playbook, sharing the real story behind one of the most successful Archlet deployments in recent memory.

In less than 12 months, Sazerac reached 100% category coverage across the entire company, with an ROI of more than 1,000x and eAuction savings of more than 20% on average.

Mitch gave the room an honest, practical look at what it actually takes to drive adoption across every category and why Archlet's ease of use and Spark AI were central to making it stick.

Closing the morning sessions, Seven Zoccolillo (allpack group & Konapharma), Ishant Garg (PepsiCo) and Johana Ludwig (dsm-firmenich) took the stage to discuss how to succeed and what to avoid when rolling out eSourcing tools.

eSourcing rollout panel discussion

Accenture: Reinventing procurement with agents

Romain Rousseau (Accenture) sahred his perspective on building an AI-native procurement organization. eshared his take. It takes more than new technology. Most organizations, he said, are putting new intelligence into an old machine, and bolting AI onto existing processes only produces faster complexity, not real transformation.

Romain suggests not to start with agents, start with the work. Begin with the outcome, deconstruct what's genuinely required, then decide who or what should do each activity, with a human owner accountable throughout. He stressed that an agent isn't a prompt but a governed organizational role, and the AI-native organization is a system, not an org chart: human leadership, a digital workforce, and a procurement operating system working together.

Breakout tracks

ORO Labs x Archlet: From intake to autonomous sourcing

Lance Younger, James Tickle, and Stephan Knauf (ORO Labs) led a hands-on session on building the right agentic handoffs. Their starting provocation: imagine a world where every approval, supplier query, contract negotiation, and risk flag could be handled without a human touching it. The reality today is the opposite, with process spread across too many disconnected tools, poor user experience, and heavy manual operations work.

ORO positioned orchestration as the connective layer across process, systems, intelligence, agents, and teams. Guests then worked through an "agent handoff canvas," mapping where in their own sourcing process work should pass between human, agent, automation, and platform, before a group debrief surfaced common patterns.

Sievo x Archlet with Emmi: Closing the value loop

The session opened with a fireside chat between Archlet Co-Founder Lukas Wawrla and Martin Ballmer, Head of Purchasing Systems and Processes at Emmi. They discussed Emmi's procurement digitalization journey, from where it started to today's tech stack. The conversation covered Emmi's sourcing with Archlet and spend analytics with Sievo. They closed on how they see the two connecting through integrations, and where Emmi will focus next.

Hreggviður Blöndal (Sievo) then framed the shared premise, that identified opportunities should turn into reported impact. But value leaks along the way, between the tools, between teams, and between what's sourced and what's finally reported.

Participants were challenged to name the one leak they see most in their own organization, then debate whether AI should close it automatically or whether human judgment still needs to be in the loop, and what would have to be true to trust an automated fix.

Logistics Track: The future of freight sourcing with Zalando and Danfoss

Led by Archlet's Marco Krebs, the logistics track brought Archlet customers onto the stage and into the room. A panel on managing volatility and AI in freight sourcing, moderated by Jacob Larsen (Moneyball CPH), brought together Karla Romero (Danfoss), Tomasz Widera (Zalando), and Michael Blumentsev.

Tomasz and Kasper then led hands-on deep-dives. Tomasz Widera walked through Zalando's journey from tactical, lane-by-lane tendering to strategic network optimization, and the things that still get in the way: tender prep eating the cycle, rate beating total cost of ownership, lane logic over network logic, and time-to-market pressure across roughly 200 tenders a year in 26 countries.

Kasper Noes (Danfoss) then led a deep-dive on autonomous sourcing with Danfoss. Freight is exactly the kind of high-volume, high-complexity category where autonomous sourcing earns its place, and Kasper shared how Danfoss is approaching it: where agents can take on more of the execution, where human judgment still needs to stay in the loop, and what it takes to trust the process at scale.

As with the Zalando session, it paired a short practitioner intro with breakout discussion and a solution outlook, giving the room a chance to pressure-test the ideas against their own freight sourcing challenges.

Closing panel: The future of eSourcing and procurement

The day concluded with a panel discussion on the future of eSourcing and procurement, featuring Karla Romero (Danfoss), Ulrike Hinske-Richter (Hunter Douglas), and Giuliana Orsini. The panelists shared their perspectives on where the industry is heading, how technology and agentic AI will reshape sourcing roles, and what procurement leaders need to do today to stay ahead.

Networking drinks and dinner

Elevate+ Zürich wrapped up with a networking cocktail hour at Westhive and dinner at Hotel Helvetia, giving guests times to unwind and connect after two eventful days.

What's next at Archlet

Elevate is more than just an event — it's a conversation shaping the future of sourcing and procurement. With events happening across Europe and the U.S., each gathering brings fresh insights, new perspectives, and meaningful connections.

Stay ahead of the curve. Explore our upcoming events and join the conversation.

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