Our world is changing, faster than we know it!

If you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the past 8 years and just woken up, then yes, the UK is leaving the EU and Trump is the president of the USA. But if you switch the headlines off and look at what’s happening to our business and government sectors, we are embarking on one of the biggest evolutions we’ve seen in the modern world: Digital Transformation. A term, amongst many others, that is being banded around and used over and over to describe the current change in the way we perform as businesses and consumers to utilise services and purchase goods etc. In other words, to solve traditional problems in a modern digital fashion.

Gartner believes the most basic and important start to a transformation journey is application programming interface's (API’s) and I agree. But why does it matter?

API’s matter because of what they give us; options and choice. They present us with a business digital eco system by creating and connecting new data streams; by allowing businesses to unlock valuable data and use it; but most importantly by connecting our people, customers/citizens and things (IoT or connecting the physical world to software) to collaborate and interact in this modern world. Some organisations are still on an 'ESB adaptor first' driven strategy which is alarming because they are expensive and restrict development, and some might say by continuing with this strategy is a form of regression.

The possibilities are endless of what we can now achieve today. How could API’s help our UK roads, trains and general transport systems? In this day and age I should be able to receive a notification on my phone telling me my train is delayed or cancelled due to a signal failure, then have a suggested alternate method of travelling home highlighted to me, whilst notifying my partner that I’ll be late as we have dinner reservations. Wouldn't that be amazing? An end to end personal travel companion that ensures that I have up to date travel info, travel options available to me at all times, whilst notifying my address book so that no one's left waiting for me. This could all be achieved if companies utilised API's in their full capacity as they allow us to integrate, collaborate and create, and all of this together gives us choices and options.

Let’s now look at it from the eyes of a train companies view. Waterloo has a signal failure, it sends a notification instantly to the maintenance team of a critical failure. As the failure is set as “high” due to rush hour approaching, it then finds a maintenance team 2 miles away working on a low importance job. It sends a new urgent job task and the maintenance team immediately rush to fix the signal, instantly taking the sting out of the issue, which means the news stations don’t report on our failing train system. Phew, negative public impact averted. Again API's allow this communication to happen, ahead of a disaster, using real time info by getting several tools or information systems to communicate.

But more importantly how could it help our health care system if it adapted an API first approach? Take a look at this scenario: I’m unwell on a business trip and I'm in Scotland, which is not home for me. I need to see a GP because I have a rare heart condition and require a more thorough examination than being given an antibiotic and off I go. So to enable this thorough examination I need to allow the GP in Scotland temporary access to my medical records from an NHS data base. So what if I were to receive a push notification on my phone to grant one-time access to my medical history to this GP? This would solve the situation that I'm in and get me the help I need. By having API's in place the information can be accessed, retrieved and shared, securely and creatively, in a situation that needs fast acting processes. It's a win, win situation for me, my Doctor and the impact on the NHS if the situation had gone bad.

If you’re familiar with the initial start of an API journey it’s not just about a Gateway and if you look at this as just a gateway, you will fail. A successful transportation journey looks at the entire API life cycle from security, authentication, ability to create API’s rapidly and the ability to connect to both software and 'things'.

Those adopting an API strategy can quickly identify high value use cases that enable smoother interaction between citizens, businesses and government agencies, and these are likely catching the eye of your CFO and CIO due to the attractive path of efficiencies and cost savings.