Accenture invests in Interos to help companies improve their supply chain management
Accenture has made a strategic investment, through Accenture Ventures, in Interos, an operational resilience and supply chain risk management company that uses machine learning to monitor global business relationships and identify risks.
The Interos platform uses AI and machine learning to monitor and analyze a wide array of supply chain issues in real time across multiple risk categories, including financial, operational, governance, geographic, and cybersecurity. The company’s Operational Resilience Cloud contains more than 30 million unique entities sourced from public, academic, government and commercial data sets.
“Organizations need a better way to understand not only their own cybersecurity vulnerabilities, but potential risks across the entire scope of their supply chains,” said Kelly Bissell, who leads Accenture Security globally. “With Interos, we can help our clients see the typical ‘blind spots’ in their global supply chains. Through a holistic, real-time view of global business relationships and developments, they can review, monitor and anticipate cyber threats and other risks to their business that might normally go unnoticed until it’s too late.”
Jennifer Bisceglie, CEO of Interos said, “The ongoing disruption to the global supply chain, which continues to escalate, has brought the issue of risk and resilience from the back room to the board room. Our research has shown that large companies are losing an average of $184 million annually because of supply chain disruption. There has never been a stronger case for automated and continuous supply chain monitoring which can only be accomplished with AI and machine learning capabilities. This investment from Accenture will allow us to plug into new markets across the globe and bring real-time, effective insight and operational resilience to companies urgently trying improve their supply chain management.”
With a current valuation of more than $1 billion USD, Interos is the latest company to join Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, an engagement and investment program that connects emerging technology software startups with the Global 2000 to fill strategic innovation gaps. Project Spotlight offers extensive access to Accenture’s domain expertise and its enterprise clients, helping startups harness human creativity and deliver on the promise of their technology.
New Accenture research shows why organizations should think beyond securing their own enterprises to better secure their vendor ecosystems. Accenture’s 2021 State of Cyber Resilience report reveals that despite two-thirds (67%) of organizations believing that their ecosystem is secure, indirect attacks accounted for 61% of all cyberattacks this past year, up from 44% the prior year.
“Supply chain visibility is one of the biggest issues in business resiliency today, and as corporate relationship networks continue to grow, this problem will only become more and more complex,” said Kris Timmermans, Accenture’s Supply Chain & Operations global lead. “Accenture Ventures’ investment in Interos will transform the way our clients see into their own ecosystems and will help safely accelerate their growth. From a whole new angle, clients will get clear picture of their supply chain and potential threats to their business operations, including cyber risks they should prioritize and address.”
Terms of the investment were not disclosed.