A joint infrastructure of “digital corporate organisms” as facilitator for a virtual digital retail ecosystem

The European market is dominated by small and medium sized enterprises (SME), which produce the bulk of the European Gross Domestic Product. In order to strengthen these companies and the whole European market, new methods need to be introduced to allow these companies to create new value chains. This article presents a concept for the establishment of a future virtual digital retail ecosystem. This concept is based on an investigation of the requirements for the retail market, with emphasis on supply chain management. This article lays out the implications from an organizational perspective, a supply chain management perspective and a technical perspective, in order to implement a sustainable digital infrastructure to agilely adapt future supply chains in accordance with dynamically changing market requirements. The concept presented here is based on the concept of a multi-agent architecture, further adapted to function in a digital ecosystem. The newly created viable virtual collaborative network organizations are based on new networks and value chains, not only between SMEs but for the whole market. As far as supply chain management is concerned, this article uses the Vendor-Managed Inventory model as a reference to minimize costs and increase delivery reliability.