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. 

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. 

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.  

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. 

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.  

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.