How to drive digital success with APIs

In the fast-changing business environment of digital business and digital business transformation, the ability to learn from those with experience and insight is invaluable. The knowledge gained from experience includes best practices, the traps to avoid, and recognizable patterns that drive digital success.

This knowledge is an integral part of what we call “thought leadership.” For clarity of how thought leadership can help your digital efforts, I’ll use examples of the Axway approach.

Axway has years of expertise in helping customers use APIs to manage digital transformation initiatives. This experience contributes to continual product development and forms the foundation for the thought leadership efforts that Axway delivers in direct customer engagement and through public activities.

Customer engagement

One of the best uses of thought leadership is through direct engagement with customers. Achieving success with digital transformation is unlike any of the business movements that preceded it. The re-engineering and Total Quality Management business efforts of the 90s were performed once and then considered done.

Digital transformation is about preparing for an environment of continual change and the agility needed to address the unexpected. We often find companies struggle to address constant change as they are accustomed to managing discrete projects. We also see how initial project success with a mobile app or API development may lead to stagnation as the challenges on the road ahead slow progress. The organizational alignment required for the pace of change is challenging.

One useful approach that helps customers work through these challenges is by convening a Digital Business Strategy Workshop. The effort tailors the workshop to the company, industry, and the hurdles it faces. It brings together business and IT for a working session that delivers both business and technical best practices, relevant case study examples, targeted education, and a practical discussion of approaches.

The effort focuses on digital business goals, achieving alignment, and providing options for the path forward. These workshops deliver an independent perspective and most often remove the roadblocks that have constrained both strategy and progress.

Customer API projects, in deployment, are also often helped by the involvement of the technical thought leaders in Axway Global Consulting that deliver API Adoption and Engagement services. Axway also helps customers plan and execute external and internal API hackathons that help API developers’ adoption and improve API quality.

Public activities

Axway delivers thought leadership through public-facing channels that influence customers indirectly. The APIFriends.com blog site is a site for publishing the work of Axway thought leaders in the API and digital world. Published articles represent both business and technical topics and best practices.

Axway thought leaders are also involved in industry initiatives working with API standards groups like OAS V3 and vertical standards groups like PSD2 where Axway is an active member of the PSD2 Stakeholder Group of the CMA UK OpenBanking Implementation Entity and in healthcare with the HL7-FHIR® effort for patient information interoperability.

Axway recently presented at an HL7-FHIR® Roundtable event where leaders across healthcare showcased current efforts in using the evolving standard. Axway thought leadership is also visible in public sector work with implementing Common Criteria Certification and the FEDramp initiatives.

Axway thought leadership is also available at API-related industry events such as Gartner Digital Workplace Summit, Gartner Application Strategies & Solutions Summit, and IDC DevOps Conference.

Vertical industry-specific conferences are also events for Axway thought leadership and include SIBOS, InsurTech Rising, and APIDays Banking in financial services, HIMSS in healthcare, and supply chain events such as CSCMP Supply Chain Conference & Exhibition.

Thought leadership also influences the Axway Amplify vision of Customer Experience Networks and works in partnership with IDC.

Axway also provides, via webinar, thought leadership on both business and technical API subjects. City-based events, like API Days and the API Roadtour series, delivers insight to mixed audiences in cities worldwide. Axway also has insightful presentations and discussions at two annual customer conferences, SPARK in Autumn, and Imagine in the Spring. The Axway events page lists current and past events and webinars.

The dynamic nature of digital business often alters the planned course or expected impact of our digital journey. Thought leadership is a helpful tool that can provide an independent perspective that can help you achieve your goals.