Canadian Retailer - The Supply Chain & Logistics Issue - 21

Improving operational efficiency
and the customer experience with
revolutionary technology
BY ROBERT PRICE

APPLICATIONS Programming Interfaces (APIs) have been around for some
17 years since their first development in 2000. Their many uses have helped
revolutionize public transportation, music, and other industries. For retailers, their power can be leveraged to maximize inventory management and
streamline supply chain operations. They promise operational efficiency,
transparency, and speed never seen before.
APIs have been around in the software industry for years but for many
non-technical retail professionals, they might sound like alphabet soup. As
these technologies take root in the retail industry, they become too useful for
retailers to ignore.
Here are ten things retailers need to know about APIs before they adopt
this useful technology.
1 An API is a standard

An API allows retailers to move data over a network in a structured manner.
APIs can plug into multiple databases, pull relevant data, combine that data,
and share it. Or, as Jim Barnes, Senior Managing Partner of Supply Chain
Solutions at Envista, explains, an API is "a standard by which I make a handshake between two applications."
For example, eBay exposes APIs that share data to anybody who wants it. Retailers who sell through eBay can use this data to track sales, gather customer
metrics, compare prices, and more. Retailers who don't sell through eBay can
tap into eBay's APIs to study the eBay marketplace in granular detail.
APIs allow data to move freely between users. For this reason, many companies publish APIs that allow others to access certain datastores that had
previously been kept private. Instagram, for example, publishes APIs that
allow external developers to create new experiences with Instagram data.
Internally, large organizations use APIs to improve the speed of communications across different departments and databases.
2 APIs can improve the customer experience

Traditionally, logistics was on one side of the retail operation, sales was on another. Today, sales and logistics converge to create the customer experience.
Tracking merchandise as it zips across the store's network is a huge challenge for many retailers. Businesses with hundreds of stores and tens of thousands of individual SKUs need to know what products they have on hand,
where each individual item resides at every moment, and where that item
needs to go. It's a huge logistical puzzle made more complicated when various retail systems-like point-of-sale and customer profiles-enter the equation. Each system needs to coordinate with others to share information if the
retailer wants to give the customers a premium experience.
Retailers who use APIs can coordinate the sharing of information across a set
of databases. By sharing data across the organization, retailers can learn more
about individual customers' tastes and shopping preferences, develop quicker
replenishment strategies, and devise more effective sales and marketing.

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