Proxima join CPO Outlook 2026 — cost down, resilience up, and the question in between

Proxima joins CPO Outlook 2026, 14–15 October at Hotel Birger Jarl in Stockholm, hosting one of the ten Theme Discussions. Their own research sets up the question their table exists to answer.

The thesis before the welcome: procurement is being asked to take cost out and make the business unbreakable, from the same cost base, in the same year. The published research prices that squeeze precisely. It does not say who pays for it, and it does not say whether AI has helped.

Two demands, one cost base

Proxima’s research puts numbers on both sides of the squeeze. Around 85% of large public companies have a publicly communicated cost reduction target. Their Global Supply Chain survey prices the other side: the mean acceptable cost uplift for greater supply chain resilience is 17.3%. More than seven in ten would accept over 10%, and just under three in ten would go beyond 20%. The research

Then the finding that makes it a live problem rather than an arithmetic one. Asked how that uplift would be funded, the answers split three ways. 38% from cost savings elsewhere in the business, 35% from price passed to customers, 26% absorbed in margin. Even at the top there is no settled answer to who carries it. So the question arrives on procurement’s desk unresolved, and usually late.

What the research settles, and what it leaves open

The same study was published on 8 July 2026, with Simon Geale, EVP at Proxima, as its lead voice. Fieldwork was run by Censuswide across 515 chief executives at businesses turning over above 500 million US dollars, in the UK, the United States, Australia, Singapore and Germany, between 21 and 27 April 2026. On the shape of the pressure it is unusually clear:

• Documented preparedness and operating runway are different measures. Between 89% and 92% said their business was prepared across every threat category, with a formally documented mitigation strategy that had been tested and, where necessary, board-approved. Asked how long operations could run undisrupted after a major shock, more than half said no more than three weeks. Mean endurance was 7.4 weeks; just 13% could last beyond three months.
• There is no dominant threat to plan against. Answers on the single greatest financial challenge split almost evenly: geopolitical conflict 22%, emerging technology 21%, climate 20%, sustainability and regulation 20%, protectionism 17%. No outlier, and no single fire to fight.
• The response is a portfolio, not a fix. What materially improved the ability to operate through disruption clusters tightly. Supplier collaboration led at 37%, then inventory builds 36%, risk and resilience technology 34%, multi-sourcing and supply-chain rerouting 32% each, and nearshoring 30%.
• Cyber has become a supplier resilience issue. 45% had a supply chain disruption caused by a cyber incident in the past 24 months. Just 35% have real-time visibility into their critical suppliers’ cyber risk exposure, and 58% have not run a cyber stress test across critical suppliers.

Where the exposure shows up

• Revenue exposure now has a number. Asked what share of revenue would be at risk if their top three suppliers were disrupted for two weeks, the modal answer was 11–20% (56%). Almost a quarter put it at 21–40%.
• 78% agreed the procurement process was hindering AI adoption in their business — 87% in Germany, 84% in Australia, 77% in the UK, 74% in North America, 67% in Singapore.

Where the answer stops short

On AI’s contribution, the picture runs out. Proxima’s research finds roughly half reporting measurable value from AI in three places: supplier risk monitoring, cost modelling and procurement automation. The barriers to more are named as data quality, skills and clarity on return.

Their 2026 CPO Report reaches the same edge from the practitioner side. Published 19 January, it puts one question to ten senior procurement leaders: name three themes CPOs should watch entering 2026. AI appeared in every interview. The report’s own reading is that AI has become baseline language rather than the language of pioneers — no longer a differentiator, but the default. Most of those leaders were rolling out a small number of defined use cases, while encouraging teams to capture personal productivity gains inside set guardrails. 2026 CPO Report

Simon Geale’s summary in that report is the sentence worth carrying. While technology is the most prominent discussion point, the underlying message is not about technology. It is about leadership, through a period of disruption and into one of design. His third theme goes further: enterprise AI works best where the basics work first. For many, fixing the core could unlock more productivity in the short term than enterprise AI itself.

EBG’s own survey work lands in the same place. Across the 2025–2026 procurement surveys most Nordic functions place themselves at developing maturity, and only around 5% have integrated AI into decision-making.

So the research maps the squeeze precisely, and then stops. Nobody has published an answer to whether AI has moved either number. Not the cost line, not the resilience line. Not inside a real function, on a real category, with a number attached.

Which is the question Proxima put on the table

At CPO Outlook 2026 Proxima host roundtable 7 — Cost down, resilience up: what has AI moved, and what hasn’t.

The table takes the unresolved part deliberately. Not the strategy of resilience, and not a survey of tools. Where does a cost increase actually land? What would genuinely carry the business through a disruption? And where, if anywhere, has AI contributed to either? Proxima bring what they see across engagements. Everyone else brings what is true inside their own function.

The four questions, in their own words:

• How are you balancing the cost of resilience and meeting savings targets?
• Are there new demands falling onto your procurement team? What is the impact of this change?
• How are you going bigger and bolder on cost transformation? Where are you finding the incremental value?
• Where has AI truly delivered business impact — and where have you got it wrong?

That last clause is the one worth travelling for. Published research reports what worked. It almost never reports what did not. Nobody commissions a study to say so, and no vendor publishes one. The only reliable source is a room of peers who have spent the money, in a format where saying it out loud costs nothing. Roundtable 7 runs twice on Day 1 — same topic, a new group each time.

The Nordic move

Proxima has launched a Copenhagen office and is hiring consultants into it. From there the firm describes supporting organisations across Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The named work is strategic sourcing, supplier negotiation, cost transformation and procurement operating model design. Proxima Nordics

Their stated reasoning is regional. Denmark and the Nordics are home to globally competitive industries — they name life sciences, renewable energy, shipping, logistics and advanced manufacturing. Those industries run highly international supply chains, while balancing sustainability commitments, regulatory complexity and cost pressures.

The firm was founded in 1994 and acquired by Bain & Company in 2022. It is now part of the Bain procurement ecosystem. In 2025 ArcBlue was integrated into Proxima, taking the combined workforce past 1,000 specialists across three continents. Bain · Coverage

For the table itself, that has one practical consequence: whoever is sitting there does not fly home afterwards.

Meet Proxima at CPO Outlook 2026

14–15 October, Hotel Birger Jarl, Stockholm. Roundtable 7 runs twice on Day 1. Bring the number you would actually defend. Register at cpooutlook.com

About Proxima

Proxima is a global procurement and supply chain consultancy that is part of the Bain procurement ecosystem. We work alongside some of the world’s largest and most successful businesses to help them spend their money wisely, solving cost, capability, and sustainability challenges. As delivery specialists, we turn bold ideas into big results, making purposeful and profitable change happen.

proximagroup.com

About CPO Outlook 2026

CPO Outlook is EBG | Network’s Nordic summit for procurement leaders, run since 2010. The premise is straightforward: ask senior practitioners what they most need to discuss, then build the days around the answers. Peer and expert exchange comes before a stage and an audience. That means roundtable discussions, peer labs, working sessions and keynotes, with the peer sessions practitioner-led throughout.

This year’s theme is From Strategy to Practice: Making Procurement Transformation Real. The summit runs 14–15 October at Hotel Birger Jarl in Stockholm. Day 1 closes on the first Nordic CPO of the Year Award. Day 2 is built around a working session on AI in procurement.

Read the full programme at cpooutlook.com/programme-2026 — or register to attend.