Success with digital transformation hinges on API strategy

Almost every major enterprise is engaged in some form of digital transformation today. Yet more than half of these initiatives fail to meet expectations, according to multiple sources. One of the key reasons is that companies view transformation as a project or a destination, not a journey.

Successful digital transformation requires continuous evolution. And the driving force behind continuous change is a great API strategy. Since software drives the destiny of every business today, APIs have become both engines of innovation and the source of competitive differentiation. They enable the business to create new products, offer better customer experiences, and improve business processes.

In addition, opening up your services via APIs allows you to reach a far larger audience, expand into new channels, and even reuse existing assets to create new offerings.

When consulting firms such as Capgemini can both demonstrate a rock-solid API strategy and help clients create their own API business value, they empower companies to master the art of winning in the digital economy.

That is why it is particularly gratifying that Forrester recently rated Capgemini a leader in its report, The Forrester Wave™: Global API Strategy and Delivery Service Providers, Q2 2019. Capgemini’s top scores were in the API-managed operations, business technology vision and number of clients criteria.

“Firms that use APIs externally are nearly three times as likely to have revenue growth of 15% or more,” the report states. The report offers advice for vendor selection criteria, including looking for providers that:

• “Craft compelling API business strategies and impart such vision to CXOs… API business strategy is a specialty within the domain of business strategy.”
• “Have deep experience customizing mature, disciplined, agile API programs… true success with APIs is a portfolio-level phenomenon, with value accelerating over an ongoing stream of API-infused business change.”
• “Intimately know best practices for API design, technologies, and platforms.API design begins with a strong taxonomy that identifies several API categories and types — only when you know where you are in the taxonomy can you design the right API.”

In its vendor profiles, the Forrester report found that “Capgemini has strong vision for API possibilities, with good services to back it up. With nearly 18,000 API practitioners globally, Capgemini highlights its models and methods for innovation and six major angles for API value.”

The report went on to say that “In our evaluation, Capgemini’s top strengths were API design and build services, its focus on API skills transfer, managed operations, and its business technology vision… Altogether Capgemini offers a robust set of services for API strategy and delivery. Relative to other vendors in our evaluation, reference customers provided by Capgemini make broad use of its full range of API services… Capgemini is a good shortlist vendor for buyers that desire a strategic partner that combines API services with managed cloud delivery for APIs, integration, and microservices.”

Read the report—then learn more about our API strategy services.

We encourage you to read the full report and to delve deeper into our strengths as an API strategy. We can craft an effective API strategy for your business, building on the three key rules that drive success in today’s API economy:

Rule No 1: Ensure you have a good understanding of your existing IT estate, particularly data. This may be a difficult exercise for many companies, but it is critical for creating a coherent and successful API strategy.

Rule No 2: Consider adopting an API-first approach, particularly for cloud development. An API-first approach allows early conversations with customers. It makes it possible to generate user stories and to mock-up APIs and even web or mobile app interfaces, further enhancing and validating your API strategy. This can also be done in parallel with defining the corporate data model.

Rule No 3: Make a sound business case for enterprise-wide adoption. Securing the investment needed to support your API strategy requires buy-in from the wider business.  When the rest of the business sees the value, the business case is clear. This could include a practical demonstration of how an API-led approach can deliver pre-defined business outcomes–making it real for other parts of the business.