Every other organization in this world has realized a fact that New age Digital organizations has the agility to integrate easily with partners, expose their internal intellectual capabilities with the outside world in a secure fashion, monetize their assets etc., mainly due to their Application Programming Interface (API) model.
This gave an opportunity and confidence to other age old and middle-aged organizations and they started their organization’s API-fication journey in packets across the organization and introduced further more mess to their IT Landscape in the form of Unsecured API interactions, Opening-up of their critical intellectual and customer assets to consumers by not being aware of regulatory aspects and other associated implications.
Being an EA and Technology partner to various customers What I have observed is , the API Management models were not clearly defined by the Enterprise as a whole and each of their Service Lines/Departments/Line of Businesses have ventured into API based roll-outs and they ended up creating similar set of APIs across the Enterprise and there were no clear API Lifecycle management practices, Security management practices, uniform model of API delivery etc., etc.,.
In this paper, primarily I would like to share my Point of View on the API-fication model and to tickle & Streamline the thought process of every other organization aiming to bring-in API Management capabilities.
In my Digital Series papers I have always kept on writing about the need of a Digital Platform for an Enterprise and I have always insisted upon building an API management platform which is the real base of a digital platform. ( https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pointer-my-articles-balaji-ramarajan/ )
Until unless an Organization has a well-defined API strategy, it is really hard to realize the digital dream.
- Urge to provide Omni-channel experience & Enable new channels
- Grow existing ecosystem and venture into new business model
- Open new path ways for innovation, intelligence,ease and growth
- Keep pace with the change and Forge new partnerships to compete or collaborate
- Drive overall efficiency and improve speed to market
- Integrate with Partners, share information easily and also adhere to regulatory norms
In my experience what I felt is, until unless there is a well-defined digital ecosystem it is really hard to achieve the expected. This demands well-defined enterprise vision supported by a strong sponsorship, organized structure, appropriate procurement/build of products, frameworks and the associated methodologies.
The below discussed model gives a high level overview of the detailed current state assessment, alignment to standards & Industry trends, approach to API management, API externalization and opportunity to generate revenue out of their existing assets.which is supported by the approach of Building APIs, Organized framework driven models, API cataloging and Discovery, API Lifecycle and Governance, API Externalization , Open API Adoption, API Monetization, API Consent Management and consumption models for ***Tech (FinTech, edTech, PropTech etc.,) .
API-fication Journey — My View
The above suggested Journey is suitable for Services organization which tries to help its customers build the API-fication Journey in an organized fashion.
Assess the current state API model and its maturity and accordingly take the suggested journey. Predominantly, what I have seen is almost 60% of the customer’s have experimented with API Management models without having proper strategy. The consulting organization should help the organization with a detailed assessment and education with Industry acclaimed models and Identify deviations and suggest with a suitable API Management Strategy.
To bring-in standardization and Uniformity across the enterprise, should be suggested with a framework and SDK. Every other organization should maintain an API registry and repository (More of a Book of Record) which allows easy discovery and re-use and also holds information about Utility APIs/Adapter APIs along with Business APIs.
The framework should enable the organization to build the APIs in an Uniform fashion also Qualify the APIs against the standards which avoids future deviations.(Be it Security & Compliance standards, API instrumentation standards etc.,).
The API development strategy should be driven by the Life cycle management process and the governance structure.
Discover Existing APIs (Streamline the APIs) → Define Frameworks & Structures (Build APIs)→ Build Registry & Repository (Book of Record)→Define Lifecycle & Governance structure →Define Security Standards & Access Scope → Assess the Maturity of APIs → Qualify APIs for Externalization (External User Consumption via API Gateway) →Build Partner & Developer portal →Expose API Catalog → Define Consumption Plan & Sand Box environment → Define Monetization models → Periodically assess the Industry Trends & Align.
Suggested Approach — API Building Process — My view
Beyond the above said ones, I would like to stress on few other factors which needs higher consideration in the API-fication Journey.
- Cultural Change and Maturity within the Organization
- Skill Maturity and awareness
- Platform,products,Process and Frameworks
- Well-defined governance structure