Mr Engelbrett, could you please introduce yourself?  I represent the fashion company hummel. We are mainly involved in sports fashion, and we have more brands than just hummel, for example, Newline and Halo. Next year we celebrate our 100 year anniversary, so we are a modern company, but with a long tradition regarding sports clothes.   As for myself, I started 5 months ago as Head of IT at hummel. My aim is to prepare our IT department for the growth journey that the company is on. We have the ambition to be one of the top 10 sports brands in…

Has the UK’s drive for digitalisation stalled before it even started? After placing 5th in the G7 and 15th in the G20¹ in terms of digital transformation and competitiveness – one might certainly think so. And yet no-code software solutions, in particular, present the ideal solution for improving the digital readiness of non-IT employees. When combined with innovative strategies, such the Lobster Group’s unique approach of integrating data and processes as one, there are still plenty of avenues companies can take to expedite their digitalisation journeys and drive growth. Nobody ever said digitalisation would be easy or that it would…

Data integration, application development, business process management, database analyses… the to-do list once reserved for in-house and third-party developers with their lines of Java, Python or C++ is long. Now no-code is taking centre stage. No longer the new kid on the block, no-code gives non-IT-trained employees the tools to take the development of process-centric applications into their own hands, becoming citizen developers. Certainly no fleeting fad, no-code should not be overlooked – particularly in light of the acute shortage of IT specialists at home and abroad1.  WHAT IS A CITIZEN DEVELOPER?  Articles dedicated to digital transformation and no-code software…

Drumroll, please! It’s time for a brand-new update for Lobster_data that comes with a plethora of new options and solutions: Lobster_data 4.5! Let’s look at some of the highlights of the release, the full list of changes, fixes and – most importantly – how you can start using Lobster_data 4.5. From GUI updates, new modules, and better API management to improved security and more ways to communicate. Whatever you need in the world of EDI, EAI, IoT, Industry 4.0, big data, automation and much more: we’ve got you covered. LOBSTER’S LIST OF MODULES KEEPS GROWING. WITH ETL/ELT, WORKFLOW AND DATACOCKPIT.…

HOW EASY IS IT TO CONFIGURE API AND WEBSERVICES? In a constantly changing digital market, companies are required to continuously introduce innovative services and rely on the greatest possible exchange of data: to optimize processes, to increase sales and awareness of their own brand via online marketing and advertising, to measure the success of their own business activities, or to make prompt modifications when necessary. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and web services offer a solution to this complex challenge. WHAT ARE API AND WEB SERVICES? A data interface is part of an application or database. It is developed to give…

Supplier management is the act of planning, shaping and developing relationships between buyers/customers and suppliers. The process can be subdivided into evaluation, development, integration and controlling of the involved collaboration and is used to assess the respective supplier’s performance, fulfilment of and involvement in ordering processes. This reduces the risk of supplier-side failure whilst other benefits include decreased procurement costs, higher procurement efficiency and long-term security of supply.  Increasingly complex and error-prone supply chains – not least due to events such as the coronavirus pandemic, China’s zero Covid strategy and the war in Ukraine – have highlighted the strategic importance…

BUILDING A DECENTRALISED IT LANDSCAPE. FOR MORE DATA. ADDED INSIGHTS. ADDED VALUE. In recent times, large corporations and SMEs have not only found themselves faced with a slew of data in all manner of formats. They have also had to navigate a wide range of data storage options – on-prem, private clouds, public clouds and even hybrid clouds. Not to mention juggling edge and IoT devices, whilst getting to grips with the different ways to use data – for example, internally through ETL processes, data warehousing or mass data processing, as well as externally within the context of IoT or…

The first thing consumers and vendors think of when the conversation turns to ecommerce – is Amazon. Selling a few items on the platform is fairly straightforward, but when the number of products ramps up into the dozens, hundreds or even thousands, it can be very time consuming. Particularly if all data regarding orders, shipments, returns, products, etc. is extracted manually through the Amazon Seller Central Portal. Or if you’re a first-party seller wanting to send your products to an Amazon warehouse or fulfilment center using Amazon Vendor Central.  Furthermore, the old Amazon MWS (Marketplace Web Services) has become outdated…

Lobster is going from strength to strength in its journey from DACH-centric software company to European IT heavyweight. Has this focus on international markets changed the type of candidate Lobster is recruiting?

The lack of resources in many areas of software development is a well-known challenge. No-code platforms are the market’s solution to this problem. No-code means applications can be developed using a set of ready-made, standardised modules and a user-friendly interface with no prior programming knowledge needed. This means process development and digitalisation efforts can be shared across