API Strategy and Implementation - Dos & Don'ts

APIs have become the tissue of digital transformation. Many organizations from sectors as diverse as financial services and healthcare have implemented APIs to generate business value or to comply with regulation. During the past few years, I have supported clients with the execution of their API programmes. This has allowed me to identify the good and the bad patterns, adopting or avoiding these will benefit others engaging on their API journey. This article describes some important lessons learned in the form of dos and don’ts to help you easily identify and avoid these mistakes.

Do not delay a digital transformation or let your competition be the first

?? Don’t wait too long to execute an API programme. Many organizations start with their implementation phase only after the API strategy is complete. Certainly, this approach can give some confidence to the business before embarking on a long journey, but experience has shown me that waiting for a solid strategy can take a long time. On the other hand, the strategy will need to be adjusted as you execute the programme.

?? Do align your business and IT around the main programme goals?and let tactics dictate your strategy, ideas will emerge from different channels, from conversations with your customers to your own product and development teams.

Collaboration between business and IT

?? Don’t think of a digital transformation as merely a technology upgrade. Even though technology plays a big part in the transformation journey, IT is only there to enable and support the business to realize its goals, not the other way around.

?? Do: Get the business and IT to drive the initiative together?and to “talk the same language”. Digital products are a new way for the organization to create value and generate revenue. Therefore, an important and often underestimated part of the programme is to upskill your IT and business staff so they can understand each other and for salespeople to be able to position and sell what they can describe. Do educate the organization on the API ecosystem, business staff will feel more comfortable with it and more innovative ideas will emerge (e.g. opportunities to create revenue and partnerships).

There is no transformation without a new business model

One of the most difficult tasks for product owners is to understand the value the API delivers in order to monetize it accordingly.?Don’t call it a digital transformation if the new digital product follows the same go-to-market strategy?as any other traditional product, it can only be called digital transformation if it changes how the product is marketed and its business model differs from traditional products. For example in the raitailer space, if your new digital product allows third parties and partners to consume your stock and sell goods on their apps, you will monetize the APIs differently as you will typically do in our own store or app.

?? Do define the business model of the API and measure the value it provides to the entire customer ecosystem, for example in the retail space an API to place an order may have a different value than another API to track order status. Knowing the API customer base, the benefits it will provide and its usage will help define the right monetisation.

KPI and objectives

?? Don’t start executing a strategy without defining meaningful and measurable business outcomes.

?? Do define relevant measures of success and track them. Some organizations simply define success based on the number of APIs exposed or the number of API requests. Although these measures may be helpful at the initial phase of the programme they don’t measure customer value and they become less relevant as the programme scales. Right measures track the value the APIs bring to its customers, for example developer adoption and retention over a period of 6 to 12 months can be an effective measure.

Work with tools that can handle the entire API lifecycle

?? Don’t build your API implementation using disjointed tooling. The API lifecycle has several stages (see diagram below) with different stakeholders interactions, from developers to product owners to customer support. When you gather requirements or design, implement, deploy and monitor the APIs using disparate technologies it quickly becomes unmanageable to train staff and maintain different technologies, let aside vendors. The fragmented tooling issue becomes worse when the tools don’t integrate seamlessly, for example when the API design and the API management are two separated and incompatible products. To close the gap between incompatible tools, teams have to perform awkward manual tasks or custom automation which introduces the likelihood of security and quality risks along the process.

?? Do adopt a product that supports the entire API lifecycle. Some of the benefits of utilizing a cohesive and integrated tool can be measured with the reduction of implementation cost, automation increase throughout the API lifecycle and time to market acceleration as the organization doesn’t need to deal with a myriad of vendors or train staff to learn and manage different solutions.

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