Procurement Wargame · by SYBX Group
A one-day crisis wargame in which supply is not a supporting role. Escalating disruption, scarce resources, and decisions whose consequences arrive rounds later.
01The gap
The exercise market is well served. It just trains the wrong function.
Bitkom study on hybrid attacks, 2026, based on a survey of more than 600 companies.
Crisis simulations almost always rehearse two things: external communication and IT recovery. Procurement sits at the table as a supporting role and is asked whether it can source a replacement. That is where the role ends.
In most real disruptions of the last three years the critical path was neither in the press office nor in the data centre. It was in supply. Nexperia halted car plants because a corporate dispute interrupted material flows. China's export controls hit defence manufacturers through magnet materials, not through their IT. Sabotage at a substation stops production and the supply chain behind it, not communication.
Only 16 % have an agreement with an alternative supplier, and that is the cheapest resilience measure there is. This is not an awareness problem. It is an execution problem.
02The format
A procurement and supply chain organisation works an escalating disruption across several time jumps. Decisions are made under scarce resources, and their consequences arrive rounds later.
A drill rehearses an existing procedure. A wargame tests whether that procedure holds when the situation does not fit the template. Most clients believe their emergency manual already covers this.
Not an IT continuity drill, not a certification, not a forecast. And explicitly not a threat briefing. Every trigger is anchored in a documented event and cited as such.
A session that ends with a threat picture has achieved nothing. A session that ends with three decisions for next week has. That is a design constraint, not a marketing line.
03The session
The rounds are not equal intervals. They are time jumps, and that is the point: almost every effective measure takes longer than the crisis allows.
Round 0 is where the session earns its fee. Qualifying a second source takes six to eighteen months depending on the category. A team that decides it in Round 2 has nothing by Round 5. A team that decided it in Round 0 wins. That insight arrives at the table, not in a slide.
Six resources in limited supply: liquidity, management capacity, supplier goodwill, stock cover, rule latitude and political capital. Every measure costs a combination. Without scarcity a team decides everything at once and learns nothing.
Measures are assessed on the quality of the reasoning, not the idea. “We call the supplier” earns no modifier. “We call, we have grown volumes with them since 2019, our payment record is clean, and their Czech plant has free capacity” earns three.
Each round draws a friction card, drawn rather than chosen. The information from Round 1 turns out to be wrong. The board wants an assessment by 4 pm that is possible tomorrow at the earliest. Two plants report contradictory stock figures.
04Scenarios
Nothing is invented and nothing is extrapolated. Scenarios are built from four card sets: triggers, escalations, side situations and friction, adapted to your categories and lead times.
A material does not become more expensive. It becomes legally unavailable.
Your supplier reports failure because of an upstream vendor nobody in the house can name.
A substation fails, a supplier plant stops, restart unknown.
Three key buyers are away for six weeks at the same time. Who holds the supplier relationships in their head rather than in the system?
A supplier is listed or a payment is held by the bank. Goods in transit, prepayments made, no qualified alternative.
A single-source supplier files for insolvency while volumes have just tripled. The tooling sits in their plant and ownership is unclear.
Twelve triggers in total, including cyber compromise at a supplier, corridor disruption, competition for logistics capacity in a defence readiness scenario, withdrawal of a dual-use licence and an insider case in the sourcing process.
05What you get
The record. Course of the session and the decisions taken, documented factually, with the timing of each.
The maturity profile. Six observed dimensions on a scale of one to five, tracked round by round: situational picture, decision speed, mandate and responsibility, supplier leverage, rule discipline, and interfaces to production, sales, finance and legal.
The findings. Five to eight concrete observations, each supported by a moment in the session rather than by assertion.
The measures. Proposals sorted by effort and effect, with realistic lead times, and compared against Round 0: which preventive measure would have avoided what.
The debrief. A 60 to 90 minute closing session with the leadership level, held by the person who ran the game.
Results stay with you. No attribution, no onward use, no reference without written release. Observation sheets record roles, not names, and there is no audio or video recording without the written consent of everyone in the room.
The sentence participants hear at the start decides the quality of the session: nobody can embarrass themselves here, everybody can learn. Without that assurance, senior people do not play honestly, and a wargame with dishonest participants is worthless.
06Formats
Every format includes scenario design, facilitation and a written report. Preparation runs four to six weeks and includes interviews on your critical categories, single-source positions and stock cover.
An annual cycle with three sessions, changing scenarios and maturity tracking over time is available on request. Companies based in Luxembourg may be eligible for Fit 4 Innovation funding, which covers 50 % of consultancy cost in phase one up to 15,000 €.
07Who runs it
The difference is not the game. It is who is sitting opposite you. Communications consultants can build a convincing crisis; they cannot tell you that requalifying a defence component takes eighteen months, or which contract clause would have secured capacity.
SYBX Group is a Luxembourg procurement advisory founded in 2019, working with clients in defence, energy, government and manufacturing. The wargame draws on the same category and supplier work, and the maturity profile connects directly to the Dual-Use Procurement Readiness framework.
Exercise design follows ISO 22398 and BSI Standard 200-4. Adjudication uses matrix game practice as applied in professional wargaming.
Sessions are run explicitly at unclassified level and take place on your premises. Classified formats are assessed separately.
Sessions, material and reports in German or English.
Next step
Send a short note about your sector and the category that worries you most. You get an honest assessment of whether a session is worth it, and if not, why not.