The New Automation Mindset: AI + Automation + Integration

H&M’s Head of Integration is Making IT More Agile with APIs

May 7, 2025

Ramak Robinson, Head of Integration at H&M, leads the charge in digital transformation through APIs and event-driven architectures. He shares insights on how H&M scaled from 17 to over 600 APIs, emphasizing the role of orchestration in enhancing agility. The conversation highlights the cultural shift in fostering collaboration between IT and business teams. Ramak also explores the future of IT, discussing the impact of generative AI on business processes and the importance of combining human oversight with innovative technology for effective integration.

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ANECDOTE

Ramak's API Journey at H&M

Ramak Robinson shared how she scaled H&M's API inventory from 17 to over 600 APIs in production.
She emphasized the vision of onboarding product teams quickly to deliver solutions faster.

INSIGHT

API Impact on Agility

Moving from on-premises to cloud accelerated API adoption and product team decentralization.
API-first design became mandatory to align with enterprise architecture vision.

INSIGHT

Orchestration and APIs Foundation

APIs and events form the foundation of composable and event-driven architecture.
Orchestration combines systems, humans, and automation to enhance business process automation.

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In this episode, Markus Zirn and Ramak Robinson explore the power of digital transformation through the evolution of APIs. Ramak shares how H&M built a robust integration framework with over 600 APIs and 500 events, driving the organization toward a more modern, agile IT landscape. They dive into the strategic shift toward composable and event-driven architectures, the lessons learned in fostering business-IT collaboration, and the role of modularity in streamlining operations. Ramak also offers insights into the future of IT, from AI-driven orchestration to business process automation, and how organizations can stay ahead in an ever-changing digital world.

Timestamps

00:00 Episode Start

02:50 Ramak's journey at H&M

05:55 Impact of APIs on integration and enterprise architecture

12:15 Role of orchestration in composable architecture

17:50 Levels of orchestration

20:00 Business and IT collaboration: A cultural shift

24:05 Navigating digital transformation and lessons learned

30:20 Do your APIs provide business value?

32:30 Choosing where and when to go composable

38:15 The future of AI and orchestration

Episode Key Takeaways

Keep control in decentralized environments: Shifting from a centralized to a decentralized model doesn’t mean losing governance. Establish clear guidelines and oversight to keep teams aligned on best practices like API first design. This ensures consistency, quality, and seamless integration across your ecosystem.
Define your data models early: A strong data governance framework is key to building valuable APIs. Know how core data entities such as products, customers, and orders are structured. This clarity improves API design, boosts reusability, and simplifies integration across systems.
Be strategic about composability: Don’t try to apply composability everywhere at once. Start where it makes the biggest impact in high change, high reuse areas. A focused approach helps prove value quickly, making it easier to scale success across the organization.
Automate governance for seamless compliance: Instead of relying on documentation alone, build compliance into your development pipelines. Automated checks for naming conventions, data models, and best practices help teams stay on track without slowing them down.

Top Quote

“ I really think orchestration automation is the future if we want to have faster time to market and we want to deliver the outcome that we are set for. So also looking at the type of platforms to support us also is very super crucial. And what I'm excited about is that composability and modularity is now kind of part of our tech strategy, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how we can bring that to life.”