In the last decade, offices and workplaces of all types have undergone digital transformation, moving away from traditional, paper-based systems to cloud and SaaS programs. The “Digital Revolution” has been, in some ways, just as transformative as the more famous Industrial Revolution that proved to be the foundation of the global economy in the 20th century.

The last two years have seen unprecedented disruption and upheaval, the kind that we never thought we’d witness in peacetime. The Covid-19 pandemic brought air travel to a virtual standstill, changed the way we work, and caused immense tragedy for millions around the globe. And some of these trends will stay with us into the next decade and beyond.

If two concepts could be more aligned in terms of growth - you’d be hard-pressed to find a better match between APIs and e-commerce. Over the past decade, both sectors have enjoyed a surge in growth become integral in the digital era.

We’ve all heard of Hubspot, the world’s leading CRM platform, and the wonders it can do for customer relationship management. In an era where uber-personalization is king, customers can dictate your company’s fortunes more than ever before. A robust CRM strategy is pivotal to the success of businesses around the world. 

The purpose of data preparation is to ensure your business or organization has accurate, up-to-date data to do its best work. This is not down to a singular process but rather a series of measures you should take, so every component of your business is running at optimal levels. 

As supply chains worldwide come under renewed pressure, the role of logistics in the digital era has become increasingly apparent. Ecommerce, global manufacturing operations, and cross-border businesses all rely on the movement of goods - and when one link is under strain, entire chains can be affected. 

As a product manager, you will understand the challenge of bringing together all the elements needed in product development. Managing different teams, each using their own software to develop designs, process data, and other tasks, requires an integrated approach in terms of oversight. And APIs can be your secret tool. 

As a global industry, the automotive sector is bigger than the annual GDP of most countries. At $2.7trn, the giants of the industry have built entire towns to serve their operations. Toyota has a namesake city in recognition of its importance to the area. Wolfsburg in Germany is geared towards a German titan, Volkswagen. 

As parents will know, education has changed radically since our childhoods. While millennials may recall a time when they got reprimanded for bringing a phone to class, tablets are now the norm in classrooms - acting as interactive educational tools. IT classes are now coding lessons, and the old "school computer" has been replaced by personal laptops. 

There’s no other way to put it. During 2020 and much of 2021, the food and beverage (F&B) industry took a hammering. The recovery is underway in North America and across most of Europe, but the long-term effects of the shutdown remain, and new outbreaks could disrupt that recovery.  

As one publication succinctly puts it:  

“The digital economy is becoming ordinary.” 

This is the reality of today’s global economy. It is, to all intents and purposes, a digital economy. How companies operate, how transactions are made, and even how we interact with each other - is now largely done through technology. And if you don’t have a data-driven business to adapt to the present era, then you will be left behind. 

The term “digital transformation” is often heard on this blog, and it is happening around us. However, is that an accurate description of what is going on, or should we use “digital evolution” instead? Few companies can afford to completely overhaul their systems simultaneously with all the disruption it causes. Many businesses prefer an organized and structured approach towards digital maturity. 

We talk about the API economy a lot on this blog, and rightly so. APIs have been and will continue to be at the heart of the digitalization of the world economy. As global supply chains, networks, and businesses become ever more integrated, APIs have enabled those systems to communicate and transfer data efficiently. 

Many organizations will have multiple data sets across different parts of their systems. Much of the data will contain similar, if not duplicate, information about the same people. This doesn’t only affect clients and external stakeholders. In fact, in some cases, most of the data will be on internal systems and employees, presenting a challenge for HR teams. 

While it might not trigger a passionate discussion around a dinner table, there’s no doubt insurance is a necessary part of life. Whether you drive a car, own or rent a house, or booked a holiday - it’s likely that we’ve had to pay for insurance at some point in our lives. And it is that necessity that drives the value of the industry, which stood at $5.8 trillion in 2020. 

There is still a common idea that the word manufacturing is associated with old factories, building dirty machines, and the din of metal clanging. Not only has this idea been wrong for decades – think of the impressive assembly lines of car manufacturers – it is now being blown out of the water by the fourth industrial revolution. 

The idea that APIs are a major driving force in the digital economy is not new. Gartner went as far as saying we were living in an API economy back in 2016. In just five short years, the world has become ever more driven by data and cloud-based systems.  

The emergence of blockchain has been synonymous with the rise of crypto. However, blockchain is revolutionizing many aspects of technology, such as supply chains, data management, and security. It operates in similar areas to APIs – which commands the question, can APIs and blockchain work together, or do they clash? 

When people talk about digitization and digitalization, it’s easy to think they are essentially discussing the same concept. Even those uttering those words may be making the same assumption. However, there are a few small but significant differences between the two terms.  

In 2020, businesses faced down the challenges posed by successive lockdowns and social distancing through embracing digital transformation. Few could have imagined API trends would have been accelerated so quickly and extensively. The global economic picture has been shaken, and like a kaleidoscope, the patterns are starting to fall back into place. 

The value APIs bring to the modern world is hard to quantify. They are invisible to most of us yet so integral to our lives. Without these back channels churning away in the background, the digitized world we live in would simply grind to a halt. It would set back many technological advances by at least a decade or more, with inflexible communication systems, less accessibility to real-time information, and restricted automation. 

Having gone from being a bit-part player to the mainstay of businesses in just a decade, APIs are pivotal to the processes that make companies tick and generate growth. In our previous posts, the team at Universal Adapter has gone into detail and explained how APIs work and what they do. 

APIs form the backbone of many businesses, serving as the vital connection between back and front-office systems. Its role in UI and UX is invaluable in the sense it enables companies to simplify the customer journey when they visit websites and applications. Given its critical role in the recording and management of data and providing a seamless customer experience, API security is paramount. 

We talk a lot about data security and the threats posed by attacks from hackers and other actors. The risk posed is real and should be taken seriously. However, there is another weak link when it comes to securing the data that makes a business tick - and that’s you. Whether you are an employer, employee, or a stakeholder, the importance of understanding how to handle data is critical. 

In the race to get ahead of competitors, it can be easy to overlook the importance of API governance. As the beating heart of digital transformation strategies for companies, a structured oversight for APIs is essential. The role of a governance structure is to ensure existing APIs are: 

To understand the impact of API performance on a business, we need to look at how users and customers behave online. Almost half of the internet users expect web pages to load in two seconds or less, with each second of loading time potentially leading to a 7% drop in conversions. In these instances, time does cost money. 

Data governance describes the process that oversees the management of the availability, integrity, security, and usability of data within enterprises. The purpose is to implement policies designed to ensure the quality of data and its usability across systems. The broad spectrum of data governance means that it penetrates every aspect of business operations, particularly as digitization takes hold. 

Cryptocurrency, online banking, peer-to-peer lending: Each of these terms emerged in the last decade under the umbrella of fintech, the fast-emerging industry that combines finance and technology. The day-to-day impact of fintech can be seen in all aspects of business, such as contactless payments, cheaper and quicker international transfers, and more efficient and easy-to-use accounting software.

The sheer amount of data processed on a day-to-day basis poses a challenge to anyone and anything. According to the latest estimates, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are being generated each day. To get your head around this figure - here’s what it looks like in numerical terms: 

2,500,000,000,000,000,000 

Put in another way; if you were to find this many American pennies, it would cover Earth - five times over. Data velocity is only set to increase in the coming years, and companies need to build the infrastructure to manage the data efficiently. A vital component of this are API gateways.  

When “Moneyball” was first released in 2011, it revealed the secrets to the success of the unfancied Oakland Athletics baseball team’s 20 game winning streak in 2002. The secret was the emergence of sports science and a focus on deep data analysis. Much like Warren Buffett’s famous value-based investment model, the Athletics looked out for undervalued players and brought them together to form a winning team. 

Over the last decade, there has been a relentless march towards digitization. Once the preserve of only the most advanced and biggest companies, cloud technology is rapidly becoming the mainstay of business. All companies, large or small, can now afford to invest in the latest technology that allows for automated processes, faster connections, and more efficient operations. 

With the pace of technological evolution and the rise of the digital era, companies can challenge companies to retain their competitive edge. A key aspect is the management of data generated in eye-wateringly record numbers, as illustrated by the fact that 90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years up to 2020 alone.  

For any business, handling and processing this data poses a real challenge, but it can lead to missed opportunities and costly errors for small-to-medium-sized companies. One solution is to turn to an API integration platform that can serve as an efficient gatekeeper to the data flowing in. 

Over the past decade, ecommerce has enjoyed accelerating growth as shoppers become more comfortable with online retail. The full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is yet to be fully understood, but according to eMarketer, early indications suggest that the global ecommerce market grew by 27.6% to a total value of $4.280 trillion against a pre-pandemic prediction of 16.5% growth.

In today’s digitized economy, speed and convenience are of the essence. Tasks that used to take days or even weeks can now be completed within seconds. Email is an obvious example, where letters can be sent at the click of a mouse to anywhere in the world. However, in the digital age, business process automation has become increasingly sophisticated. 

The digitization of the global economy is happening and is growing fast. Even regions normally associated with less development are seeing a rapid take-up of technology. For example, Kenya is at the forefront of mobile payment systems, with one service being used by two in five Kenyans. The advance of the digital economy will continue into the next decade and beyond. 

API management can be a challenge in a constantly evolving technological environment. By turning to API management solutions, businesses have assistance in creating, implementing, and securing APIs. However, there are some common pitfalls to look out for.

The role of APIs in business is increasingly vital and yet little understood. Acting as a vital link between the front and backend of systems for decades, its importance is only going to increase further as we enter a new decade set to be driven by data. The nearest estimate we have is that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is produced - each day. 

In 2020, a year of upheaval and unparalleled challenge many companies are belatedly coming to the realization that they need to undergo digital transformation through API integration to thrive in the next decade. In spite of the tragedy and disruption caused by the pandemic, the old adage of a crisis spurring a new wave of innovation rings true.

As we begin to look back to 2020, it’s clear it has been a challenging and utterly disruptive year for many businesses. However, it has also been a year of transformation, as companies are being forced to evolve and update age-old technologies and processes. At the heart of this period of change have been API management platforms, helping to guide companies through the transition.

The fact that data together with the use of technology will be key to future economic growth has been widely known for some time. However, with 89% of companies facing challenges in managing data, it’s critical to find and use API integration tools to harness the power of data in the internet of things (IoT) era.