InterACT

Transforming the retail industry through supply chain transparency, co-creation and collaboration.

interACT is an ecosystem of supply chain solutions that brings retailers and their suppliers together with independent solutionaries to co-create customised and optimised value chain solutions. Together with industry leaders, interACT aims to transform the retail industry through concerted collaboration and value chain transformation.

Sustainability is no longer a competitive advantage that differentiates industry players, but now a baseline industry requirement. Transparency and transformation are rising trends within the retail industry, and through our research and industry interviews, we know that many retailers are aware of the challenges within their value chain and eager to improve. However, there is a gap between awareness and ability to act.

Our interACT initiative aims to bridge that gap by bringing various stakeholders together – those with challenges, and those with innovations – to co-create supply chain solutions that can be scaled, sustained and multiplied. The initiative aims to understand the challenges that retailers and brands face when it comes to their supply chain – making sense of it; setting goals for improvement, and then finding solutions that could achieve those goals. Utilising impact assessments, retailers can identify opportunities for improvement and innovation within the scope of their value chain. Through interACT, retailers can then join the consortium of retailers and solution providers together in a collaborative ecosystem to find or create the solutions that meet their supply chain needs.

What the initiative delivers

In finding and implementing supply chain solutions, a variety of pathways will be possible through interACT. For example, retailers could:

Safely share best practices across their industry
Connect with solution providers within the consortium that apply their solution at the appropriate scale
Identify a solution that needs to be scaled and collaborate with others to share the risk in investing in and scaling that solution

Through interACT, retailers are able to cut through complexity and find the solutions that best suit their supply chain needs. Solution providers gain access to a broad market of customers and are able to scale their solutions through shared investment.

A fundamental process in the build of interACT, is establishing founding members that co-create the shape of the initiative. These founding members will have a leading role in creating the framework of interaction and have the added value of voicing their needs and concerns from the very beginning. Founding members will ultimately become the initial users of the collaborative ecosystem and thus be able to reap the benefits from the co-creation process.

In building the collaborative ecosystem that will enable solution pathways, we will rely on supply chain consultancies, retailers and retail brands, solution providers and start-ups, as well as the channels that could connect us to these stakeholders. Each stakeholder will be able to gain unique insights throughout the initiative build, and be able to reach their collective and internal goals by interacting with other industry players.