How can better decisions be made under high uncertainty? This question was at the center of this year’s Procurement Lounge 2026, hosted by Porsche Consulting under the patronage of Joachim Scharnagl, CPO of Porsche AG.
Kerstin Preuschoff, Associate Professor of Neurofinance at Université de Genève, shared a striking insight: well-structured groups consistently outperform even top experts when making decisions under uncertainty. The implication is clear: Better decisions are not about adding more people. They are about building teams with diversity of thought and creating processes that stimulate creative thinking. Lutz Aschke, Director Laser Strategy at Marvel Fusion, translated this challenge into reality. Building supply chains for technologies that do not yet exist requires companies to prepare for demand long before markets are fully established.
For procurement leaders, this means recognizing diversity of thinking as a performance driver, deliberately designing decision-making processes instead of leaving them to chance, and developing ecosystem-building capabilities as a core competence in emerging technology environments. At the same time, innovation partnerships are becoming increasingly important and require active orchestration, while technological “wild cards” must be integrated into strategy development at an early stage.
The exchange with leading procurement executives across industries made one thing clear: the discussion on decision-making under uncertainty is only just beginning.