FROM MAGAZINE: Time is ripe for APIs in logistics supply chain

Adopting technologies like APIs has become crucial for supply chain management stakeholders to be able to offer quick quotes, compare rates, make bookings, track and deliver value to their customers.

A huge part of supply chain management processes is exchange of data from system to system. Data creation, transfer, storage, analysis and use are hot topics of discussions as increasing digitisation is slowly, but surely getting entrenched in the business of logistics.

For decades, supply chain management solutions have been relying on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), through which companies were able to send large amounts of data with a single transfer. It allowed business to ditch the use of paper and send data to other businesses electronically. Clearly defined standard formats are maintained by all parties and this helped minimise human intervention, reducing errors and enhancing efficiency and accuracy. However, even though it is more secure, the use of EDI is increasingly thought of as redundant as it requires more manual involvement. And that’s because APIs or Application Programming Interface offer the same functions to streamline freight and logistics, with added benefits of quicker transfers and tracking data in real-time.

API is a set of programming instructions for accessing web-based software applications that allow software platforms to talk to each other. Open or public APIs are published freely on the internet for the developers to use. Businesses can integrate functionalities directly into their systems or software solutions, or customise according to their preferences for increased productivity.

Just like a user interface allows one to operate a computer or mobile phone, APIs serve as an interface between software programs and help them communicate.

In the logistics supply chain, APIs help standardise communications – carriers, shippers, warehouses can use APIs to communicate and send information. This essentially means all stakeholders adapt to an ecosystem when it comes to formats and information requirements. 

Easyship, a shipping platform for global e-commerce, depends on courier APIs to provide sellers transparency. It also offers open APIs to help e-commerce stores add worldwide shipping options to their website with ease and add end-to-end shipping functionality to warehouses. This means by single integration, users write less code and have access to new shipping solutions that Easyship keeps adding to its offerings. 

A quick Google search throws up several APIs for shipping like Easyship that enable developers to integrate shipping and tracking capabilities in their respective applications. 

Digital marketplace Freightos offers instant shipping quotes for air and ocean freight worldwide, generating a lot of data. This data can be accessed by its customers programmatically by API. By using these APIs, freight forwarders can not only access rates that are live on the Freightos Marketplace, but also rates updated by hundreds of shippers. These rates eventually fire up the Freightos Index, a freighter container index.

Digital freight forwarder Flexport also offers APIs for its global business focused on air, ocean, truck, and rail carriers. Its customers can access an all-in-one dashboard to track location of their cargo at every stage, get visual alerts and updates to keep a tight leash on their supply chain business. The Flexport REST API enables developers to interact with Flexport's freight data.

Building their own APIs, allows sellers to offer their own user interface (UI) like websites or apps to book on, essentially distributing directly to the customer. In the air freight industry, the role of API would be to effectively manage the supply chain ecosystem, by minimising human interaction and promoting seamless flow of data. 

The success of M-Pesa in Kenya
The penetration of mobile money services, and the success of M-Pesa in Kenya, in particular, is a fine example of technology adapted to fill gaps created by lack of infrastructure or opportunity. 

A promotional advertisement for the marketing campaign 'Send Money Home', showed office-goer John sending money to his parents working on a village farm with the click of a button on the mobile phone. The elated parents then go to get a cash-out from an M-Pesa network agent, as the voiceover says "it is the new reliable way to send and receive money using your mobile phone". The simplicity of the transaction seems to have worked in a country where citizens have had limited access to formal banking.

Launched in March 2007 by Safaricom, the largest mobile network provider in the East African nation, M-Pesa initially started out as a means to make micro-finance payouts to people in rural areas. After a pilot test, the service was extended so citizens could send money to each other. Almost 12 years later, M-Pesa has evolved into a full-fledged financial service. It now offers loans through its KCB M-Pesa account, paperless banking service M-Shwari, in addition to merchant payments services.

As M-Pesa crafted a success story in Kenya, a host of start-ups mushroomed modelled on its foundations. This was made possible by M-Pesa's APIs for B2B, B2C, and C2B built on REST, a software architectural style that lays out a set of constraints to be used for creating web services. M-Pesa's API request parameters and responses are encoded in JSON, a text format, lightweight data-interchange format. 

Time for change
For supply chain businesses, EDI may have provided a much needed framework for electronic transmission, but its drawbacks are amplified with today’s fast evolving business processes that demand better and faster results. 

Mobile applications, Internet of Things, route optimisation, real-time tracking, fleet management, drones are all adding to the efficient logistics experience. This wireless tech has to be connected to streamline operations and the best way to do that are APIs. Supply chain management actors need to critically review their current IT capabilities to build an effective roadmap for a more digital future – the time to adopt technologies like APIs is here and it is now.

This story was originally published in Logistics Update Africa's September - October 2019 issue.