Imagine you’re traveling overseas with your family. There are a lot of different preferences, needs, itineraries and interests. And different destination possibilities, each with its own languages, laws and local customs. You have to orchestrate all of this, in addition to the logistics, from lodging and transportation to immigration and currency exchange. That’s a lot of moving pieces—and this is just travel for fun, not business.
It’s no wonder that, for businesses who need to move employees all over the world, global mobility processes are even more complicated, whether you’re finding the right fit, organizing travel requirements or navigating local government restrictions.
And that’s not even taking into account the information, assets and tools that travel not just across borders with your employees, but across technologies, proprietary platforms, channels and even across departments or functional units.
So how can businesses gain the visibility and control they need to streamline their mobility processes—and unlock new experiences? The answer is: APIs.
APIs (application programming interface) help connect, automate, innovate and simplify the complex tasks of global mobility. They’re pieces of software that serve as a go-between for other software applications. Simply put, APIs enable one piece of technology to talk to another. This is what enables companies to bring new experiences to market at speed because, instead of having to develop discrete technologies, you can simply use APIs to plug into an existing experience developed by your company or a trusted third-party partner.
APIs are the gateway between table-stakes interactions and innovative, memorable and super-efficient experiences that work harder for your employees and your business.
The impact of an API can be extremely impactful to the user experience and without them even knowing. Think about a time where an assignee needed to book air travel through a third-party airfare vendor. Instead of them manually entering all their information that already lives within the global mobility database, it was already there when they needed to book their flight. Moments like these can add up to business efficiencies across every department.
Efficiencies in the global mobility leads to business growth by cutting down deployment times, improving experiences and even reduction in costs. Here are three ways to approach the development of APIs to drive your global business growth.
1. Custom-developed APIs
The first way is creating an API completely from scratch. You can customize every facet of the software to create processes that work for you. For example, let’s say your organization already uses a human resources program to store your employees’ personal data (Name, date of birth, etc.).
Now, you want to integrate that data into your existing software that tracks relocation steps in real time. You can build out an API that connects the data between the two applications—making the process dynamic, efficient and much easier for both the organization and the employees.
The challenges to this approach are lead time, development resources, costs and integration complexities, whether you’re partnering with a tech provider or leaning on your own IT team to build what you need.
2. Tap into third-party API partners
The second way you can use APIs to your advantage is to leverage existing builds. Clients have similar needs along the global mobility journey, and chances are there’s already a program that exists that performs most of the tasks you need it to do. You can use that program wholesale or adapt certain aspects of it to fit your unique need.
There are a lot of advantages to reusing existing software from a trusted third party provider. These include reduced time to market, pre-tested and optimized experiences and stronger security.
3. Collaborate to ignite design thinking
Another exciting facet of APIs is the chance to collaborate on innovative design thinking. At Vialto Partners, we believe that innovation can come from anywhere in the world—and that’s why we’re constantly bridging connections.
When a client faces integration roadblocks, chances are some other organization in our network has faced similar. We believe that making information and connections readily available helps to boost collaboration and bring forth the best ideas. Not only that, when we unlock seamless solutions for other clients, it feeds into what we’re able to do next so that we can be agile, bolder and better.
API-first tech ecosystems are enabling global mobility like never before. With the right platform and partner, you can save costs, amp up efficiency, automate manual processes and reduce costly back-end development and duplication, helping you rapidly innovate a more modern mobility program.
Whether standing up bold new experiences, connecting insights to surface new growth opportunities and initiatives, or syncing technologies, proprietary software and data to create one dynamic profile that follows your employees across borders and touchpoints, technology is truly opening up whole new world of potential. APIs are the key—with the right ones, you can turn data and dashboards into exciting differentiators that help you drive growth, anywhere in the world.