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DH - The Sustainable Trade Initiative successfully strives to make international trade chains more sustainable. IDH develops programs and tools, seeks financing, and brings stakeholders together to collectively achieve global sustainability goals (SDGs). Since 2020, Us has been the digital technology partner of IDH. Together, we have developed various tools that bring us closer to a sustainable and fair supply chain.
Sustainable Development Goals
One of the important UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the coming years is ‘decent work & economic growth for all.’ In this context, there is a growing global demand for suppliers who demonstrably provide their employees with a ’living wage.’ Various certifications and major buyers (Unilever, Tesco, etc.) exert pressure on the supply chain to become more sustainable. IDH provides the tools for this and assists stakeholders in their digital transformation.
IDH Salary Matrix platform and tooling
The IDH Salary Matrix was developed to assist farmers and cooperatives in their efforts to make all aspects of compensation (salary, bonuses, in-kind benefits) transparent and comparable to the benchmarks for ’living wages.’ Users enter the requested data on compensation, and the system calculates the difference with ’living wages.’
In 2021, we began developing the tool (based on an excel version) at all levels: UX, front-end code, Business Logic Application, database setup, data quality, and Cloud infrastructure. By the end of 2021, we redesigned and rebuilt the entire user interface to better align with the requirements of certification organizations and to scale with the significant growth in the number of participants.
In 2022, Us implemented additional features, such as the ability to work offline. Reporting capabilities were further expanded, and in collaboration with IDH, we developed additional functionality, including data accessibility and auditing.
In the long term, the Salary Matrix Tool aims to be the go-to instrument for calculating living wage gaps in many more sectors. The challenge in the 2022 release primarily lay in flexibility, scalability, and the processing of input/feedback from hundreds of sources.
Digital Transformation Analysis (DTA) Tool
An important service provided by IDH is supporting stakeholders in making the right choices on the path to digital transformation. To facilitate and streamline this process, IDH devised a Digital Transformation Analysis (DTA). Us was asked to build this tool and provide support and updates.
digital transformation journey
The DTA toolkit assists IDH consultants worldwide in advising stakeholders in their digital transformation process. To achieve optimal foundations for success, the tool follows a series of clear steps:
Use Case identification
The first step guides stakeholders in finding and selecting relevant use cases: business cases that describe the decisions to be made, the data required for them, and how the use case contributes to the organization’s strategic objectives.
Use Case Prioritization
Employees of the client are invited to participate in a desirability and feasibility study. Based on their individual input, the tool calculates an average prioritization. In the end, this results in a Top 5 of use cases.
ROI calculator
The next step is to calculate the potential ROI for each of the use cases from the Top 5. To do this, costs and potential returns (including indirect benefits such as quality improvement and increased transparency) are entered into the system.
Digital Maturity Assessment
Finally, the tool allows determining the client’s current situation, that is, the current role of online within the organization (digital maturity), and what the digital ambitions are. The outcome of this step is a ‘digital maturity score’.
a good start
After going through this process with the DTA, the customer can optimally kickstart their own digital transformation based on the use case: with the most impact, utility, and relevance. The tool provides an overview of potential technology partners with whom the customer can collaborate on the implementation of the use case.
role of Us
Our role in this development process of the DTA included UX, development, data processing, and visualization. Additionally, we also ensured the cloud infrastructure where everything runs. In the coming period, we will continuously provide support to IDH and guarantee the future development and improvement of the tool.