Once data cannot simply move freely between your apps, damaging business consequences emerge. You know employees will need to navigate between apps simply to find the data they are actually they’re looking for; they would have to perform double data entry continually; and they’ll have to give up worthy time in performing business-critical tasks. You can easily address such issues head on by investing in api (application programming interface) type of integration. How does it actually help? This post is going to get you a proper idea about the importance of api based integration.
What is the meaning of api integration?
Api integration is just the connection of software applications via their application programming interfaces (apis*). When connected, these applications can easily request and share data between one another flawlessly, effectively eliminating any type of data silo at your organization. In simple words api integration is a simple connection between two system apis. Before two systems simply talk to each other, programmers need to develop two apis to simply communicate.
The aim of such programming or application interfaces is always to simply facilitate the exchange of information between diverse types of systems. Used appropriately, interfaces save a lot of users time and effort, making everything much easier and, ultimately, further advantaging the customer.
Enhance transparency and convenience for customers can be provide by functions displaying the overall shipping status of orders in the online shop, for example, or simply offer recipients shipping options at the ordering stage permitting them to decide which day the parcel must get deliver on.
The point is with apis, processes are a lot more efficient, there is less effort include in terms of development and system potential significantly enhances. So it’s certainly worth considering apis for particular tasks when it comes to designing that of online shops or applications. Similarly, you should know that apis can get develope in a diversity of ways. In-house or that of third-party developers and engineering teams could even be involve.
- Internal you can own internal apis, that are private and managed by in-house developers with the use of company resources such as internal databases.
- External you can even connect to public, external apis, that actually provide you actionable information from another type of business.
Quick perks of api
There are quick perks of api that you must know. Here are a few of them:
It saves the time of the employees
Well since that your employees can avoid moving between apps to find the data they require , they would save a huge amount of time that they can reallocate towards other, more crucial , tasks. You know what your marketers can easily spend more time on creating content assets for a mentioned or given campaign; your sales reps can easily concentrate more on building out presentations for main prospects; your colleagues in finance can easily ideate strategies for improving their compliance and risk management; your employees in human resource scan hold more important conversations with employees, and more.
It averts human errors
No individual is immune to errors or that of mistakes. If they are simply task with updating several applications themselves, they would be bound to make errors that head to big problems down the line.
For instance, in case someone working in salesforce gives a prospect a simple higher lead score than what’s actually shown in Marketo, a sales rep may easily be misled into thinking that a prospect is simply more sales-ready than they actually are. This can head the rep to nurture that prospect in a manner that comes off as aggressive—ultimately deterring the prospect from involving with your brand any further.
Api integration actually reduces the number of manual tasks your employees perform, hence lowering the possibilities of incidents like the one above from that of taking place.
It enhances the employee and customer experience
Of course, with your employees able to spend more of their time on different tactical, thoughtful tasks, versus manual, repetitive type of ones, they’re more probable to enjoy their work and be much more productive. This even benefits customers, happier employees are more probable to deliver experiences that leave customers contented as well.
It aids you get the most out of your apps
Once your apps encompass additional data through api integrations, the utility they offer to users only amplifies. Here are just a couple of examples:
- You crm platform simply can provide a 360-degree view on overall prospects and clients, enhancing the sales reps and colleagues in customer-facing roles to upkeep such key relationships in a more intelligent manner
- Your candidate tracking system can retrieve offer letters sent to applicants and their respective completion statuses, assisting the recruiters track target candidates and simply follow up once necessary
- Your erp system can easily display accurate order information and produce the invoices instantly, helping your finance team simply manage vendors effectively
- Then your overall marketing automation tool can access clients’ product use data, allowing your marketers to nurture upsell and even that of cross-sell opportunities successfully
Enhancement of the product your organization offer
Many types of popular apps rely on api integrations to deliver overall value for end-users. You can easily point to various real-world type of examples for proof. This can be anything from a that of travel site like expedient, which uses the apis of diverse types of 3rd-party websites to help its searchers find the finest possible deals on flights, hotel stays, car rentals, etc. To a payment service—that makes use of the apis of several banking institutions to allow the users transfer money over to their overall accounts.
Though your product’s api use cases might not be as obvious as that of the examples above, you would probably identify several opportunities that may improve the experience of your end users’. Of course, experience of your users is what makes a great difference. You must not miss out on it.
Conclusion
So, no matter saas api or any other option, you can make the most of api integration if you use it in your business.