International Supply Chain Accelerator: Seamless Trade Across Borders (UK)

The International Supply Chain Accelerator is part of the Made Smarter Innovation | Digital Supply Chain Hub programme. This project is aiming to support UK technology innovators and startups to identify and address operational inefficiencies in current trade processes. Leonardo UK and BAE Systems have set out the industry challenges with BT Group as a technology sponsor and ICC as an industry body emphasising the significant potential for optimisation and improvement of import and export processes used in cross-border trade.

The UK ecosystem of technology innovators will be invited to apply to the programme and will be at the forefront of digital transformation. Digital Catapult, as delivery partner, will facilitate and guide the partnerships between the industry challenge owners, technology sponsor and the tech innovators, providing funding of up to £85,000 to address some of the UK’s most pressing supply chain challenges.

Challenges

The import and export processes of both BAE Systems and Leonardo UK currently face numerous challenges in achieving seamless cross-border trade, highlighting a significant potential for optimisation and improvement. These challenges include:

• Effective data extraction and validation. These essential steps encounter inefficiencies due to issues such as non-standardized data content and inconsistent formats, spanning from PDFs to other variations, which complicate data integration efforts.
• Lack of consistent visibility into export and import progress is worsened by inadequate notifications that fail to offer timely updates.
• Manual interventions introduce errors, further hindering efficiency, while internal systems struggle with reconciliation issues, impeding smooth digital integration.
• The absence of an optimised governance system, agreeable to all participating organisations, raises concerns about data safety and confidentiality.
• The absence of an agreed methodology for allocating asset ownership between participants and intermediaries poses a significant obstacle, particularly in aligning with the consignment flow during the export / import process.

Why should you get involved?

• Up to £85,000 in grant funding to develop a challenge focused minimum viable product (MVP) and supporting material within the timeframe of the project.
• Collaborate with technology and subject matter experts from Digital Catapult, industrial bodies representatives, industry challenge owners and tech sponsors who will support the development of the participants’ solutions/MVPs.
• Upon successful completion of the project, the participant will have the opportunity to join the future digital supply chain hub and connect with the wider supply chain ecosystem and build further collaboration opportunities.
• Opportunity to participate in the programme networking events, roundtables and introductions to industry leaders, investors and potential customers.
• One-to-one pitching sessions with a coach to support each company to practise, build the narrative and script for the final showcase event.
• Be part of the programme showcase event in March 2025 to present your solution in front of investors and supply chain industry stakeholders.

Criteria

Applicants must ensure to comply with the following requirements:

• Applicants must be eligible to receive £72,000 in state assistance.
• They expect a minimum Co-investment of £85,000 from solution providers/grant recipients. There are various categories of co-investment which can be considered. The co-investments covers the value for money and cost to deliver the technology solutions. You can find further information on what co-investment they are looking for in the programme FAQs.
• Applicants must have a UK business bank account for any payments to be made.
• Applicants must be a UK based registered company, or prove they have an establishment in the UK and undertake the majority of the activity in the UK.
• Applicants must be considered as either an early-stage company or scale up business with a proposed solution/ product/ service at the technology readiness level 4-5 (TRL 4-5).
• Build an MVP against the chosen industrial challenge working together with the industry challenge owner, industry body and tech sponsor.
• The team must be able to attend all key events below (please note dates are subject to change):
  • Programme kick-off event (in-person) – September 2024
  • Final showcase event (in-person) – March 2025
• Attend the majority (80%+) of the workshops, progress check-in meetings/calls, and/or webinars hosted by the Digital Catapult team from September 2024 – March 2025.
• Showcase tech solution developed in the programme – Digital Catapult does not take ownership of your Intellectual property developed on the programme, however they do require you to present your solution for the challenge at the showcase event and other programme related activities.
• Applicants must develop solutions enabled by at least one of the technologies from the advanced digital technology stack: artificial intelligence, immersive, internet of things, distributed ledger technologies and 5G/future networks.
• Participant agrees to be visibly (name and logo) associated with the programme, whilst on the programme and afterwards as a former participant and beneficiary.  This includes marketing collateral, such as social posts, print and digital materials.

For more information, visit Digital Catapult.