The value of back-office interface SMEs need to adapt

There is a growing interest among SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) owners to incorporate technology into their businesses. Numerous industries, from shopping, marketing, warehousing and others have undergone significant transformation as a result. However, it is important to note this transformation often involve collaboration among various companies, including competitors and other companies. This fundamental realization is essential for SMEs to grasp before making final decision into the digital era.

Our traditional business landscape is evolving into a more streamlined and efficient way of conducting and managing operations, customer services and administration. The days of extensive briefings on daily tasks or repetitive reviews by multiple individuals are coming to an end. For instance, consider the task of directing a warehouse operator on where to place items in specific rack numbers; this can now be done precisely and automatically by robots. Similarly, informing a truck driver of when and where to pick up and deliver items in response to new order requirements can be delivered automatically into driver’s mobile application.

These significant improvement across supply chain vendors involves collaboration with warehouse operator at origin location, transportation provider, warehouse operator at destination in addition of technology provider. The information interchange is largely initiated by algorithms through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) which is now becoming important tools to facilitate seamless connections between applications. This allows each application to autonomously perform tasks, establishing a robust correlation within each company’s request and respond in working supply chain relationships.

For example, our company Mahyu, has been leveraging APIs for several years. The vast majority of logistics transactions generated from our platform are seamlessly connected to our partner applications automatically. This enables our users, even those located thousands of miles away, such as in Amsterdam, to promptly process and respond immediately from partner in Indonesia.

In another scenario, our payment feature captures requests from Indonesian users placing orders from Thailand. Our application communicates these requests directly to our Indonesia paymentgateway provider through APIs. This allows for immediate verification and confirmation of different type transactions, representing a significant advancement compared to old payment methods. Through the use of technology, we have streamlined many of manual processes to become autonomous which had reduced operation cost, minimized delay and enhanced services.

However, SMEs and some multinational companies remain hesitant and, in some cases, unwilling to adapt into technology revolution. Invoicing or even summary of warehouse inventory levels are still preferred by manual process instead by trusted system algorithm. The cost of living has increased substantially the last few years, leading workers to demand higher wages to keep up with inflation. Concurrently, companies are facing increasing competition, resulting profit margin becoming slimmer and new orders are difficult to come by.

As more industries transition towards the platform business model, which integrates and connects diverse companies in a real-time environment, both SMEs and multinational corporations face the reality to compete with new entrants and collaborate across operation value chains. This collaboration is crucial for establishing a robust and fully cooperative ecosystem, facilitated by platform API features. Without implementing API feature, Mahyu, our company would not have achieved our current capabilities. This roadmap underscores the urgency for supply chain companies to seize this opportunity before it’s too late. Written by Eddy Syaifulah.