1) Open APIs have become more prevalent as enterprises are beginning to realize benefits from the API economy. The number of open APIs is projected to grow significantly by 2016.
2) A well-planned API strategy can help businesses compete and grow by plugging into digital value chains, managing partner networks more efficiently, inspiring developer communities, and increasing customer satisfaction and brand awareness.
3) Factors like the growth of mobile devices, enterprise mobility adoption, and continuous evolution of internet business models have led to increased connectivity and a more client-centric approach to application development using RESTful APIs.
To keep pace in a rapidly evolving marketplace, organizations must innovate faster than ever.
Companies today are making their services and data available through web APIs to internal and
external developers, creating higher value and new ecosystems. In this paper, we’ll discuss the
transformational effect APIs have had in the marketplace at large, the data they’re capable of
uncovering, and how companies are applying that data to create intelligent APIs to drive business.
How covid 19 pandemic has affected social media marketingReal-Time OutSource
The coronavirus pandemic has not only affected the daily routine of people and the economy of the world's most powerful nations, but it has also had a great impact on social media. For that reason, marketers have had to go to great lengths to find the right ways to do their jobs.
To keep pace in a rapidly evolving marketplace, organizations must innovate faster than ever.
Companies today are making their services and data available through web APIs to internal and
external developers, creating higher value and new ecosystems. In this paper, we’ll discuss the
transformational effect APIs have had in the marketplace at large, the data they’re capable of
uncovering, and how companies are applying that data to create intelligent APIs to drive business.
How covid 19 pandemic has affected social media marketingReal-Time OutSource
The coronavirus pandemic has not only affected the daily routine of people and the economy of the world's most powerful nations, but it has also had a great impact on social media. For that reason, marketers have had to go to great lengths to find the right ways to do their jobs.
A Gartner survey shows that the amount of downloaded apps is expected to reach 268 billion during 2017, and with utilities delivering such crucial services to people all over the world, the industry has a large potential with this huge number of downloads.
Based on data collected before the creation of this report, it appears that utilities around the world are taking the digital and mobile transformation seriously and the industry embraces many of the opportunities that mobile technology offers.
In this report we have gathered 50 apps from utility companies around the world for your inspiration.
Shopping has previously been predominantly either an online or physical experience. The latest surveys, however, show that 46% of shopping trips now include mobile, meaning shopping in stores is also an online experience.
According to Business Insider, mobile payments will account for 503 billion dollars in sales in the USA by 2020. As mobile payments increase, how can retailers exploit the many possibilities mobile and apps offer when customers expect online advantages when entering the store?
In this report, we have gathered 50 apps from companies operating in different parts of the retail industry. These apps will show you how alike some companies are thinking, but also how different others see the future of the retail market. Having gone through hundreds of apps, we came across various trends. One of these tendencies is that companies are building apps not only for customers, but also for employees, suppliers, and distribution partners. We can also see that some companies are quickly adapting new technology and implementing advanced features in order to differentiate themselves in the market.
We hope that the report will inspire you for your next mobile project.
Using mobile back end as a service (MBaaS), embedded in a standard enterprise architecture, as a platform for mobile app development offers organizations development agility. MBaaS features also include mobile security, business logic, analytics and support services.
An Analysis of U.S. P&C Insurance Customer-Facing Mobile AppsCognizant
Property and casualty insurers are playing catch-up in the mobile app space, with most failing to deliver features and functionality that meet consumer needs and expectations, or matching the capabilities provided on existing Web portals, our latest research shows.
Digital Transformation for Utilities: Creating a Differentiated Customer Expe...Cognizant
Utilities stand to reap large gains in customer-service efficiencies and user experience satisfaction by adopting a mobile-centric approach with apps that cover a wealth of transactional and engagement features.
Tech. 2017 predictions presentation for meetupsSumant Parimal
This presentation is based on various secondary data available on emerging Tech. markets and specially customized for start up and SMB Tech. firms to have guidance for their GTM in year 2017 and onwards.
APIs + Business Models = New Ecosystems - APIdays Paris 2019Marjukka Niinioja
API and Platform economies as business models are in the center of competitiveness. APIs enable scaling and decentralization of products, services and organizations and affect your company structures and cultures in unexpected ways. Ecosystem customer journeys run on APIs and Platforms. Innovation becomes quicker and customer experience better, when you build services using resources from your partner ecosystem. Providing your core capabilities as APIs for others to consume let's your company focus on what you can do best. What are the ways to design and manage these business and IT changes? What does research say? What practical methods are available?
APIs and Beyond - Open Distribution PlatformsMartin Tantow
Not having an API today is like not having a website in the 90s. Open APIs are a no-brainer in the IT landscape of 2010. However I'd like to share some thoughts on what I believe is next. Will we still be talking about APIs, API management, etc in a few years from now? What role do APIs play in a multi-channel distribution play?
How Telematics Will Improve Driver Experience and Deliver Greater Business ValueCognizant
Rapidly accelerating advances in telematics and human-machine interface design promise to deliver not only superior driving experiences but also benefits across the automotive ecosystem and beyond.
API is the New Black for FinTech & Financial InstitutionsElias Gagas
API is the New Black for FinTech & Financial Institutions. See how Payment Components aplonAPI (TM) API Framework empowers Banks to offer Open Platform Banking Services.
Presented during FinTech Connect Live 2016 in London
apidays LIVE New York 2021 - Communications APIs Against COVID by Charlie Wee...apidays
apidays LIVE New York 2021 - API-driven Regulations for Finance, Insurance, and Healthcare
July 28 & 29, 2021
Communications APIs Against COVID
Charlie Weems, Partnership Engineer at Twilio
Co-Founder and CTO, Paul Fremantle and Solutions Architect, Senaka Fernando facilitated this workshop at Jax London 2014. The workshop illustrated how API management helps organizations participate in the API Economy; with the first half of the workshop looking at the overall landscape and approaches, while the second half focusing on using Open Source API Management tooling to expose, monitor and manage APIs.
A Gartner survey shows that the amount of downloaded apps is expected to reach 268 billion during 2017, and with utilities delivering such crucial services to people all over the world, the industry has a large potential with this huge number of downloads.
Based on data collected before the creation of this report, it appears that utilities around the world are taking the digital and mobile transformation seriously and the industry embraces many of the opportunities that mobile technology offers.
In this report we have gathered 50 apps from utility companies around the world for your inspiration.
Shopping has previously been predominantly either an online or physical experience. The latest surveys, however, show that 46% of shopping trips now include mobile, meaning shopping in stores is also an online experience.
According to Business Insider, mobile payments will account for 503 billion dollars in sales in the USA by 2020. As mobile payments increase, how can retailers exploit the many possibilities mobile and apps offer when customers expect online advantages when entering the store?
In this report, we have gathered 50 apps from companies operating in different parts of the retail industry. These apps will show you how alike some companies are thinking, but also how different others see the future of the retail market. Having gone through hundreds of apps, we came across various trends. One of these tendencies is that companies are building apps not only for customers, but also for employees, suppliers, and distribution partners. We can also see that some companies are quickly adapting new technology and implementing advanced features in order to differentiate themselves in the market.
We hope that the report will inspire you for your next mobile project.
Using mobile back end as a service (MBaaS), embedded in a standard enterprise architecture, as a platform for mobile app development offers organizations development agility. MBaaS features also include mobile security, business logic, analytics and support services.
An Analysis of U.S. P&C Insurance Customer-Facing Mobile AppsCognizant
Property and casualty insurers are playing catch-up in the mobile app space, with most failing to deliver features and functionality that meet consumer needs and expectations, or matching the capabilities provided on existing Web portals, our latest research shows.
Digital Transformation for Utilities: Creating a Differentiated Customer Expe...Cognizant
Utilities stand to reap large gains in customer-service efficiencies and user experience satisfaction by adopting a mobile-centric approach with apps that cover a wealth of transactional and engagement features.
Tech. 2017 predictions presentation for meetupsSumant Parimal
This presentation is based on various secondary data available on emerging Tech. markets and specially customized for start up and SMB Tech. firms to have guidance for their GTM in year 2017 and onwards.
APIs + Business Models = New Ecosystems - APIdays Paris 2019Marjukka Niinioja
API and Platform economies as business models are in the center of competitiveness. APIs enable scaling and decentralization of products, services and organizations and affect your company structures and cultures in unexpected ways. Ecosystem customer journeys run on APIs and Platforms. Innovation becomes quicker and customer experience better, when you build services using resources from your partner ecosystem. Providing your core capabilities as APIs for others to consume let's your company focus on what you can do best. What are the ways to design and manage these business and IT changes? What does research say? What practical methods are available?
APIs and Beyond - Open Distribution PlatformsMartin Tantow
Not having an API today is like not having a website in the 90s. Open APIs are a no-brainer in the IT landscape of 2010. However I'd like to share some thoughts on what I believe is next. Will we still be talking about APIs, API management, etc in a few years from now? What role do APIs play in a multi-channel distribution play?
How Telematics Will Improve Driver Experience and Deliver Greater Business ValueCognizant
Rapidly accelerating advances in telematics and human-machine interface design promise to deliver not only superior driving experiences but also benefits across the automotive ecosystem and beyond.
API is the New Black for FinTech & Financial InstitutionsElias Gagas
API is the New Black for FinTech & Financial Institutions. See how Payment Components aplonAPI (TM) API Framework empowers Banks to offer Open Platform Banking Services.
Presented during FinTech Connect Live 2016 in London
apidays LIVE New York 2021 - Communications APIs Against COVID by Charlie Wee...apidays
apidays LIVE New York 2021 - API-driven Regulations for Finance, Insurance, and Healthcare
July 28 & 29, 2021
Communications APIs Against COVID
Charlie Weems, Partnership Engineer at Twilio
Co-Founder and CTO, Paul Fremantle and Solutions Architect, Senaka Fernando facilitated this workshop at Jax London 2014. The workshop illustrated how API management helps organizations participate in the API Economy; with the first half of the workshop looking at the overall landscape and approaches, while the second half focusing on using Open Source API Management tooling to expose, monitor and manage APIs.
How Spotify Payments Creates APIs to Manage Complexity (Horia Jurcut)Nordic APIs
This is a session given by Horia Jurcut at Nordic APIs 2016 Platform Summit on October 25th, in Stockholm Sweden.
Description:
Spotify is one of the world leaders in media subscriptions and is the largest music streaming service with over 30 million paying subscribers. We currently provide 16 different methods of payment in over 60 countries and we continue to expand our offerings.
In this session we are going to talk about engineering an internal API to abstract away from the complexities of multiple payment gateways and multiple clients with potentially long release cycles (iOS, Android). I will share some of the benefits of growing the API organically, and some of the downfalls of premature abstraction.
This is a session given by Peter Drougge at Nordic APIs 2016 Platform Summit on October 26th, in Stockholm Sweden.
Description:
In the fast paced world of cloud awesomeness there’s a new buzzword in town, and it’s called “serverless computing”.
Deposit 20 minutes of your time at this session and you’ll leave knowing how to leverage the power of Azure Functions to build and run an API without worrying about what server it’s hosted on or how it will scale.
Versioning strategy for a complex internal API (Konstantin Yakushev)Nordic APIs
This is a session given by Konstantin Yakushev at Nordic APIs 2016 Platform Summit on October 25th, in Stockholm Sweden.
Description:
API versioning is a very heated topic in API design world. Common approaches are passing version number explicitly (with a lot of fairly useless discussion on where exactly to put that number) or only introducing backwards-compatible changes.
When creating internal API for Badoo applications we found those approaches to be too limiting. Passing version number requires implementers to accommodate for all breaking changes when bumping version – even when it’s not required for business goals of that application at the time. Instead of driving value for business, application developers are in constant race to keep up with the API.
Never introducing incompatible changes is also not an option. After several feature redesigns (something that may happen at Badoo once every few weeks) protocol becomes bloated and half of the fields transmitted over the wire start being useless.
This talk is about our approach to versioning as part of client-server component negotiation. Client announces features and capabilities it supports and server replies with features status: whether they are enabled or disabled and whether they can be enabled by some user action (e. g. by buying some paid product).
Beside those componentized features, client also sends support flags such as SUPPORT_IMAGE_SIZE_VIA_URL which affects how API works. We use those flags where in typical API a version number bump would be required.
This approach allows both server and client to understand their current state and adjust their code accordingly – essentially, a tailor-made API for every client. Gathering data on feature and flag support among clients allows us to remove old code branches while continuing to evolve the API.
As a result, we are not afraid to change something when that change is required. Old clients continue to work while protocol rot is kept at low level.
In this talk I will give details on how exactly this versioning scheme work, how we test those changes, how and when we deprecate our old clients and note some stats and insights from using this scheme at Badoo for several years.
Pie for Sale: Timeless Lessons in API Advocacy (Adam DuVander)Nordic APIs
This is a session given by Adam Duvander at Nordic APIs 2016 Platform Summit on October 26th, in Stockholm Sweden.
Description:
API that nobody uses is almost as sad as a pie that nobody eats. Yet, both of these occur every day. Regardless of whether your API is for partners, internal, or external usage, it needs an advocate to help it be adopted. There are good reasons why an API gets no usage, and there’s a lot we can learn from how pies are made, sold, and consumed.
Don’t expect short-term tactics, but the timeless fundamentals from Adam DuVander’s lessons learned in developer relations, within a large enterprise, and as one of the earliest journalists covering APIs. You’ll learn the importance of knowing your competition (yup, even for internal APIs), sharing your vision, being ever-present, and helping developers get started fast. And don’t forget the delicious, flaky crust.
DuVander has seen the same approach work at database-as-a-service Orchestrate.io, internally at its parent company CTL.io, at his neighborhood bakery, and in discussions with hundreds of API providers over the last eight years.
API Creation to Iteration without the FrustrationNordic APIs
This is a session given by Steve Rice at Nordic APIs 2016 Platform Summit on October 26th, in Stockholm Sweden.
Description:
Once you have an API out in the wild (be it one that’s well designed, or one that grew organically), how do you evolve that API in the future? How do you take something everyone is using in a variety of ways, and distill those needs down into improvements?
This talk will walk through a recent major API version update we went through at PagerDuty from beginning to end. This will include details on what kinds of usage data we gathered, how we engaged with users of the API to understand what worked well and what didn’t, and how to break out of some of the existing antipatterns we had.
Audience members of this talk will be able to walk away with strategies they can apply to their own APIs (internal or external), testing patterns to consider, and ways to communicate engineering efforts in terms of business and customer value.
This slides deck about Microservices architecture and why do we need it. Architecture patterns which we need to follow doing Microservices architecture: Microservice, API Gateway, Service Discovery, Stateless/Shared-Nothing, Configuration/Service Consumption, Fault Tolerance (Circuit Breaker), Request Collapsing. And a bit about API Versioning
This pitch deck is principally suited to be used by business leaders that need to be able to communicate the API advantage internally and to build support for an API strategy.
It can also be used by API providers as a resource they share with new customers who need to be able to communicate the benefits of APIs with their colleagues so as to make organizational-wide use of third party APIs.
APIs as The Source of Truth (Zane Claes)Nordic APIs
This is a session given by Zane Claes at Nordic APIs 2016 Platform Summit on October 25th, in Stockholm Sweden.
Description:
Too often, APIs are only consumed by mobile apps and external services. This leads to inconsistencies between web and API implementations of core business logic. This talk will discuss how Airbnb created an API infrastructure that also powers our website, to create a single source of truth.
The API Economy is here and it is driving the next generation of digital banking. Learn how the face of banking is changing with rapidly evolving fintech and how API Management is going to make a difference.
API management solutions help enterprises manage, secure, and mediate API traffic, ensure that developers and partners are productive, and grow their API programs to meet the increasing demands of a digital world. APIU management capabilities including Backend as a Service (BaaS) solutions, analytics engines, and monetization enable developers to develop and extend apps with modern features, provide deep insights into the APIs, and allow API providers to monetize their APIs and developers to share in the revenue.
Lessons Learned from Building Enterprise APIs (Gustaf Nyman)Nordic APIs
This is a session given by Gustaf Nyman at Nordic APIs 2016 Platform Summit on October 25th, in Stockholm Sweden.
Description:
In enterprises the majority of APIs are internal and may count in hundreds. APIs are often implemented in and used from a variety of languages and platforms, and legacy system and protocols are ever-present. As APIs are increasingly part of business strategies, API management becomes an important concern of the whole organisation.
Gustaf has spent more than 15 years building API infrastructure for enterprises. In this talk, he shares his thoughts on designing and implementing a long-lasting API management strategy.
TDD for APIs in a Microservice World (Michael Kuehne Schlinkert)Nordic APIs
This is a session given by Michael Kuehne at Nordic APIs 2016 Platform Summit on October 26th, in Stockholm Sweden.
Description:
It can be tough to test an apparently simple service comprehensively. A microservice architecture brings a new level of complexity to the question “How can we validate that our API is working as intended?”
In this talk Michael will explain how to use test driven development for APIs and even further how TDD can drive an API Design towards a more usable design, and how to build an well-tested ecosystem of microservices.
This approach is applicable for different kinds of services (REST APIs, websockets, industrial protocols). Independent from the type of interface we always ran into similar problems when we build an ecosystem of services.
We have to deal with dependency, asynchronous behaviours, fallback mechanisms, endpoint versioning and sometimes even shared databases.
It’s not trivial to apply TDD to these kinds of problems cause you have to think of scenarios. But there are ways of identify these scenarios and to test them.
As an API specialist Michael worked with various clients designing, building, testing, maintaining and even redesigning private and public services. Based on his project experience he developed a practical approach to apply TDD to APIs in microservice ecosystems.
API monetization refers to the process of generating revenue by leveraging APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) as a business asset. APIs allow businesses to expose their data, services, or functionalities to external developers, partners, or customers, creating new monetization opportunities.
Whenever you're into the practice of choosing technology for your destined payment ecosystem, ensure to check these parameters like the payment type, whether the system you follow is regional or not, security infrastructure, and finally overview the performance of the system to ensure the right fit. Sometimes it is good to seek experts' With the help of the latest tools and innovative techniques, Opus has so far helped many businesses to free from their discomfort zone to create remarkable business standards in the market.
After understanding this market and the advantages of leveraging custom cloud
API development, businesses effectively integrate disparate IoT systems,
unlocking new data sources and building innovative applications that drive digital
transformation and growth. For more detail visit us: https://www.ficode.co.uk/api-integration
Two weeks ago we released an infographic showing the life of a normal person as we imagine it in 2025. The kinds of automated services illustrated in that graphic that will appear over the next decade are all enabled by the same piece of technology: the API. What APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, do is provide programmers with a simple way of connecting their programming into the data and services of an existing program. Any websites that embed Google or Facebook logins are accessing an API provided by Google or Facebook to authenticate users' identities. Similarly, as personal data becomes stored in the cloud, companies with permission to access such data are increasingly plugged in to their consumers' changing status and needs.
Beyond just explaining how APIs are driving technological advancements across every industry, our latest Digital Lab Thought Piece provides useful tips for any business on navigating a world based on APIs - whether that means activating the APIs that are already out there, or building one of your own to create new revenue stream or make your services indispensable.
In the dynamic landscape of technology, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have become the backbone of seamless digital experiences.
Read this Article here: https://medium.com/@ciente/the-rise-of-api-marketplaces-trends-and-opportunities-984be056915d
Learn more: https://ciente.io/blog/
Follow for more Articles here: https://ciente.io/
With its extensive expertise in the payments domain and ISO20022, Techwave is committed to revolutionizing digital transformation by improving customer experience, embracing industry standards, and streamlining payment processing and compliance requirements. Our range of services comprises Payments Data Management, UI/UX Development, Adaptors for Payment Rails, Application Modernization, and API Ecosystem Management.
The banking industry is undergoing a transformation with the use of APIs, empowering banks to comply with regulations, streamline internal operations, and foster innovation. However, managing these tools effectively is critical for banks to reap their benefits while minimizing their risks. To tackle these challenges, our team of technology experts offers a variety of services. With in-depth knowledge and experience in cloud-native systems and solutions, coupled with proficiency in managing API ecosystems, we are well-positioned to assist you with your needs.
Artistixe is an IT consulting and solution provider of next-gen business collaborate with customers throughout the world with exceptional experience, comprehensive intelligence system across diverse industries and domains, we work with customers to turn them into some of the most successful and high-performance Organizations.
MTBiz is for you if you are looking for contemporary information on business, economy and especially on banking industry of Bangladesh. You would also find periodical information on Global Economy and Commodity Markets.
Why should C-Level care about APIs? It's the new economy, stupid.Fabernovel
Why should C-Level care about APIs? It's the new economy, stupid.
In this 2013 version of our study on APIs, we identify how APIs allow companies to effectively pursue the classical triptych of business goals: business development, product development and supply chain management.
Through three new practical cases, discover how 5 companies, coming from the most traditional fields, use private APIs and technologies such as cloud and data in order to renovate their business and to invent new business models.
We studied the case of 5 japanese companies. 5 business cases showing the emerging business trend which consists in working on a private or partner-based API to change business models and find new paths of monetization:
// RETAIL: Seven Eleven, global leader of convenience stores, optimizes its logistics almost in real time by using APIs
// HEALTHCARE: OMRON, creator of connected healthcare devices, monetizes the data provided by its users to forecast epidemics
// INDUSTRY: Honda, mobile constructor, connects its entire car fleet with APIs, to provide intelligent guiding services to their clients
// MEDIA : Cookpad, originally a user-generated recipe website, sells its knowledge in consumer preferences to food-processing industry
// AGRICULTURE: Fujitsu, is getting ready to automate Japan's agriculture, in order to cope with the loss of workforce in Japanese companies
And you, how are you going to reinvent your business thanks to APIs?
La version 2013 de l’étude sur les APIs par FABERNOVEL.
A travers trois nouveaux cas pratiques, découvrez comment 5 entreprises, issues des secteurs les plus traditionnels, utilisent les APIs privées, les technologies cloud et la data pour renouveler leurs business et inventer de nouveaux modèles.
Nous sommes allés au Japon étudier le cas de cinq entreprises :
// RETAIL : Seven Eleven, leader mondial des conveniences stores, optimise sa logistique en temps quasi-réel grâce aux APIs
// SANTE : OMRON, créateur d’appareils connectés pour la santé, monétise les données fournis par ses utilisateurs pour prévoir les épidémies
// INDUSTRY : Honda, constructeur automobile, connecte l’ensemble de sa flotte avec des APIs, pour fournir des services de guidage intelligent à ses clients
// MEDIA : Cookpad, initialement un site de recettes fournis par l’utilisateur, revend son savoir des goûts consommateurs à l’agroalimentaire
// AGRICULTURE : Fujitsu, s’apprête à automatiser l’agriculture Japonaise, afin de faire face à la perte de main-d’oeuvre dans les campagnes japonaises
Et vous, comment allez vous réinventer votre business grâce aux APIs ?
Strategies to improve the ROI on your enterprise applicationPixel Crayons
Read the full blog here: https://bit.ly/34IUN7a
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Contact us : https://bit.ly/2Ew2GDx
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Api management introduction and product overview v1.0 2014.08.28
How to Win in the New API Economy
1. 1
How to Win in the New API Economy
How to grow your business by sharing
enterprise data and services via application
programming interfaces (APIs)
Open APIs, once used only by leading technology companies such as Amazon and
Facebook, have become much more prevalent. Enterprises are beginning to reap
the benefits from the API economy. Open APIs are projected to reach 30,000 by
2016, compared to less than 600 in 2007, 2,500 in 2010, and 11,000 in 2013.1
1
Craig Burton. More on the Open API Revolution. KuppingerCole Analysts.
2. 2
A well thought-out API strategy can help you compete and grow in new ways by:
• Plugging into a digital value chain for extended market reach
• Growing and managing your partner network more cost effectively
• Inspiring a developer community to create the next great set of apps for you
• Driving customer satisfaction with shared services
• Increasing brand awareness through data sharing
• Accelerating growth with internal data sharing and inter-company APIs
This ebook explains:
• How the API took off
• How APIs can be used to drive business value
• The three API business models
• The open API ecosystem
• The power of APIs
…and offers some advice on:
• Determining your API business strategy
• Managing the digital value chain
• Establishing an API business model and keeping it running
• Choosing an API management platform
3. 3
How the open API trend started
By 2010, three trends started to converge, leading to an upsurge
in connectivity and a more client-centric approach to application
development using RESTful APIs:
Rapid growth of mobile devices
The rapid growth of mobile phones and smartphones coupled with affordable connectivity allows
users to be always connected to their information, and constantly be receiving updates.
Rapid enterprise adoption of mobility
Spurred by BYOD policies, companies began mobilizing web assets, workforce policies, marketing/
sales channels and business processes (HR, ERP, CRM, and messaging platforms). Employee
demand for connectivity and heightened productivity drove the creation of APIs that exposed
these apps outside the IT boundaries of the corporation.
As a side note, today, not only is the business mobile app market growing at approximately the
same rate as the consumer app market, it is less congested and offers better revenue potential for
developers because the primary route to market is via direct sales (B2B) rather than app stores.
Continuous growth in Internet business models
During the last decade, as companies continued to experiment with new commerce models,
merchants, supply chains, and marketplaces, the model changed to “always connected and
available.” Social media has also accelerated the connectivity and generated personalized
connections between businesses and consumers. Emerging trends such as the Internet of Things
will be generating more demand for APIs.
And today…
1
2
3
“Mobile app projects will outnumber PC
projects by a factor of four by 2015.”
— SaaS Industry Report, Summer 2013,
Siemer & Associates
“Today’s $67 billion mobile app market (2013)
will exceed $140 billion by 2016.”
—Vision Mobile
“Tablet adoption in enterprises is estimated to
rise by 50% annually over the next few years.”
—TrueWireless Inc.
“More than $28 billion was spent on apps by
business and professional users in 2013, and
this will reach $58 billion by 2016.”
—Vision Mobile
4. 4
Today, the open API is one of the most powerful
sources of competitive advantage.
It comes down to the potential of your data and services.
APIs can be used as connectors to get your business plugged into
the always-on digital value chain. As a result, you can reach into new
markets for additional revenue streams.
You can use APIs to grow and manage your partner network more
quickly and efficiently, which lowers the cost of onboarding business
partners and lets you cost-effectively take your business into
new channels.
APIs can also facilitate customer satisfaction. You can address and
resolve customer experience issues, build better relationships, and
increase the touchpoints you have with customers because you can,
for example, see them browsing, evaluating, and using social networks
before they purchase.
You can inspire a developer community to create the next great
application while gaining a competitive advantage through innovation.
You can also monetize your APIs.
5. 5
Open API is a term that
describes a business model
where APIs are published
on the Internet to be shared
with business partners and/
or third-party application
developers with the intent
to deliver a successful
open initiative. The model
fosters collaborative services
environments between API
providers and application
developers who consume
APIs.
Theoretically, this creates
a three-way win because
enterprises, developers, and
application users can share
the innovation and cost
benefits created.
Three API business models
and how they work
Public
APIs are consumed by external
partners and developers. Developers
unknown to you can use your APIs
to build innovative, highly practical
applications. Sometimes the term
“open API” specifically refers to
this model.
Partner/B2B
APIs are consumed by business
partners, including suppliers,
providers, resellers, and others. This
model tries to achieve extended
market reach and cost reduction
through tighter partner integration.
Internal
APIs are consumed by internal
developers within your organization.
This model may include external
contract developers, but the
targeted projects still remain inside
and aim at cost reduction and
operational efficiency.
1
.
2
3
6. 6
The open API ecosystem
APIs are of great advantage to the enterprise, with success supported by the nurturing of an ecosystem
that includes application end-users and application developers.
Application end-users
can gain tremendous convenience and productivity with API-enabled
apps that transform the way they work and play.
ISVs and application developers
who consume APIs to create applications drive innovation for their
products and services. They can shorten time to market while
reducing costs by leveraging someone else’s services (like yours). For
this part of the ecosystem, APIs can also act like a bridge to the user
bases of API providers.
WIRED magazine explains it like this: “Today’s software development
does not require building everything from scratch. Instead, if you’ve
created any piece of software, you are well likely to find tools and
documentation that will help you fashion at least a small part of it
thanks to APIs, open source code, and code-sharing services such as
GitHub. In a nutshell, you can shape and reshape almost anything in
this world as long as you know the code.”
So you see, the world’s knowledge can be API-enabled.
Some examples:
7. 7
The power of APIs
Because an API is essentially an instruction manual, it’s about organizing and packaging existing knowledge—
what we know about any particular subject—to solve problems. Some examples of how APIs are used:
Retail
National brands can connect to customers wherever
they are by exposing inventory and price information
via APIs. Applications that third-party developers
create can cost-effectively improve market reach and a
brand’s stickiness.
Healthcare
One challenge for health caregivers is staying current
with care routines for multiple patients. APIs supply
this information to caregivers via mobile applications
so that the right medication and the right care are
provided to each patient at the right time
Insurance
An insurance company improves broker responsiveness,
information transparency, and operational efficiency by
off-loading work now performed by brokers, such as
providing certified car repair locations to claimants.
Financial Services
Banks and credit card providers seek to strongly
differentiate. Using APIs, customer information can
be protected, yet shared with business partners to
create applications for greater customer service, such
as providing credit card holders with the option to use
reward points for purchases.
Airline/Travel
By making product and customer data available to
travel brokerage services, both customer service and
profitability can be streamlined and improved, despite
the industry’s multi-layered sales channels.
Telecom
Mobile network operators wholesale their excess
capacity to companies that tack on value-added
services and sell to the same subscriber base. APIs
could help determine and deliver the right service
to the right place at the right time to help operators
capitalize on this market.
Media/Market Research
Using APIs, market and consumer behavior data
enriches content for directories, reviews, ratings,
recommendations, deals, and other social applications.
Crowd-sourcing could be used to create innovative
applications.
Logistics
For traditional delivery and logistics providers, address
and location information is a core competency. APIs can
help these providers integrate with retail, e-commerce,
and other businesses to offer differentiated delivery
services.
8. 8
The Internet of Things
A company that produces sensors and switches for
the smart-home or connected-car market can activate
and deactivate AC and lighting systems based on data
received through APIs, such as weather and sunrise/
sunset times, in addition to the location and recorded
information on the consumer’s lifestyle. The Internet
of Things will provide tremendous opportunities for
leveraging data and services for consumers and is
estimated to be a multi-trillion dollar market by 2020.
The Enterprise
Enterprise data, including payrolls, expenses, travel,
training, operations, finance, sales, and marketing can
springboard innovation both within a company and
outside it via third-party developers. With the trend
in mobile app development shifting from B2C to B2E,
companies without APIs may be left behind.
Government
Our personal data is secreted away across multiple
government departments and agencies. What if
healthcare, social security, veteran’s claims, or school
loan information could be accessed from one central
site with just a few clicks? APIs could help make
this happen if siloed data were opened and privacy
protection enforced.
9. 9
APIs and your business strategy
There are many compelling reasons for incorporating open APIs into
your business strategy. As you consider whether the time is right and
what the benefits might be, ask yourself:
• What data or application functionality could we expose to
existing business partners, channel partners, or suppliers that
would make it easier to do business with us?
• Where can we take cost out of the supply chain by enabling
more self-service and more flexibility in how suppliers interact
with us?
• How can we use an open API to create competitive
differentiation and deliver additional value to customers?
• Would it make sense to repackage our data or product
subscriptions as a collection of fine-grained micro-subscriptions
that can be monetized via APIs?
• What new routes to market or business partnerships can we
potentially create by exposing data or application functionality?
• Does our strategy include an opportunity to leverage growth in
mobility and potentially reach new markets?
• How can APIs used by external developers help drive product
innovation and out-of-the-box thinking within the company?
• How can we leverage real-time data to enhance customer
experience and drive more users and businesses?
10. 10
Where do you start?
Let’s assume you’ve decided to explore open APIs. First,
determine a strategy (based on who, what, and why).
After that, you’ll need to decide how you’ll execute it.
What are the objectives you are trying to achieve?
Consider what problems you need to solve:
• Poor customer satisfaction?
• Limited brand reach?
• Costly partner management?
• Revenue issues?
What would the ideal world look like after resolution?
Can you see APIs helping to make that happen?
Then, identify which assets you can expose and to
whom. Would you make these assets available only to
internal developers or to business partners outside the
company? Or does it make sense for these assets to be
public, or at least, have that planned for the future?
Try uncovering these elements by drawing potential use
cases or customer stories that use APIs as the catalyst.
In some cases, APIs can be your products, which will
require lifecycle management.
11. 11
Managing the digital value chain
Let’s say you’ve done the homework and identified strategic value
for an open API. You’re anxious to get some experience with this new
business model.
Here is a recommended practice in managing the digital value chain
enabled via APIs:
You expose selected internal enterprise data or business functionality as web APIs and make this
data or service available to external developers.
Developers consume your APIs by embedding them in their applications. These applications are
mainly delivered as mobile apps and/or B2B services and used by your business or end-users.
Monetization opportunities are available, yet some companies offer APIs for free if they are more
interested in brand exposure and indirect returns. Twitter, for example, does not directly charge
developers for the use of some Twitter APIs, yet 60% of all tweets come from third-party client
apps. Other companies take a more conventional route by setting the pricing schedule using
various models such as pay-as-you-go, tiered, unit-based, and freemium.
Set metrics that will define success of your API business. Through an API management tool, such
as end-to-end monitoring, you will track operational KPIs and SLA compliance. This will help you
gauge your API performance and identify future capacity needs.
Live monitoring of API usage patterns and specific user behaviors will give you deeper insights
into your initiatives and allow you to look for opportunities to grow them.
To deliver the best performing API-enabled applications, API analytics should be shared with
application developers. They can then be proactive in auditing and debugging, as well as
monitoring KPIs and SLA compliance from their end.
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12. 12
Establishing an API business model and
keeping it running
What are the key challenges to establishing and running a business
using APIs? What are the major differences between the SOA and API
management practices?
The challenges, in a nutshell, have to do with opening up internal assets
beyond the firewall and dealing with external businesses that will be
using your assets.
While SOA governance may help manage tens of partners and hundreds
of services, API management addresses hundreds or even thousands
of partners. This complexity requires different approaches for service
governance, security, performance, partner on-boarding, contract
management, and product lifecycle management.
Questions that may arise:
• How can we maintain control over growing partners and APIs? Can
we provision partners and APIs using our own rules and policies?
• Can we protect our internal assets against potential threats at all
times without additional investment?
• Can we ensure agility to bring new and improved services and APIs
to market?
• How can we scale without compromising API performance?
• Would it be possible to empower business users to manage API
lifecycles on their own?
This is where an API management platform can help.
Build vs. buy
An API management platform can help
you manage partners and APIs with ease,
security, and governance. But should
you build your own or buy a commercial
solution?
You can certainly task your IT
department with assembling the
infrastructure for hosting and managing
the environment. However, it is an
expensive proposition and competes
with many other IT priorities.
13. 13
API management platform considerations
When you shop for your API management platform, consider how its capabilities, technical support availability,
and deployment options fit your overall API strategy.
Complex API scenarios and enterprise environments require solutions that are more than just cloud proxies or
plug-ins. If you are aiming at enterprise-class API management, here are the key features to consider:
• Controlled and regulated access to curated
enterprise data and services makes it easier to
manage and govern your APIs. With the right API
gateway, centralized runtime management and
governance of APIs can be applied to any service
in the organization.
• A federated gateway architecture, which scales
with caching, throttling, and load balancing, can
ensure performance and availability.
• Rules and policy creation defines how specific
events are handled throughout the processing
pipeline of an API call. Customized policies and
actions can extend anywhere, globally, or for
specific services or partners.
• Native support for REST and SOAP APIs can
conform to the demanding needs of mobile
applications. Any SOAP service can be exposed as
a REST API.
• Advanced security and threat protection shields
APIs from attack, controls access, and secures
API-transmitted data. Examples include API keys,
OAuth, mutual SSL, WS-Security (SAML, User
name, X.509, LDAP), HTTP Basic, and Kerberos.
They should easily integrate with existing
databases and identity management systems.
• A self-service developer portal allows you to
package APIs quickly and manage partners cost-
effectively. It’s also helpful if it allows you to host
and manage the API community.
• Support for building an integrated marketplace
supplies a place you and your developer partners
can come together to host, manage, learn about,
and use APIs.
• API analytics allow you and your developer
partners to perform end-to-end monitoring of API
usage and performance. Analytics allow you to
easily gain insights on API revenue opportunities,
future road maps (plans), and capacity needs.
• Wide deployment options allow you to include on
premise, cloud, and hybrid models to meet unique
and complex configuration requirements common
to enterprises.
• Support for streaming APIs make it possible to use
one request with query filters and respond with a
stream of continuously changing responses.