Enterprises that are well along their digital transformation journey are attaining new levels of maturity. But with that maturity comes increased complexity. Organizations are becoming bottlenecked by siloed business operations, poor automation, and accruing technical debt.
Business-first API strategy
Innovative API management strategies can help organizations tame the complexity and drive productivity while accelerating the development of new services.
Here are three takeaways from new data on business-first API strategy and how one company powered by Amplify is transforming their business with APIs at scale.
Enterprise complexity is growing
IDC analysts surveyed 300 IT and business leaders to learn more about their API priorities and strategies, and several key themes emerged:
Three-quarters of respondents had already adopted an API Management solution and the remaining quarter planned to adopt at least one in the next two years.
The average enterprise has two to three API management vendors and plans to adopt more soon. 40% of organizations have three or more API management vendors, and most don’t intend to consolidate to a single vendor throughout the enterprise.
The study, a first-of-its-kind look into organizational API complexity, was conducted in the UK and Ireland and has broad implications for where the API management landscape is headed next.
“Transformation is not a one-day excursion: it’s a voyage. Bringing on the right partners is key.” George Mironescu, Senior Research Manager of Accelerated App Delivery at IDC
Mironescu explained API management pain points varied among those surveys, from dealing with multiple API management vendors, to performance or governance concerns and struggling to engage developers to consume APIs.
Most organizations, Mironescu added, reported that they run API programs in just a small part of the organization or a disjointed, siloed manner in multiple parts of the organization. And most of these say they intend to be more strategic about bringing these things together in the next two years.
Mastering complexity will set you apart
Planning for a house in order will help reduce complexity. The key is having a clear API strategy in place, which allows for cross-pollination between initiatives and teams.
Gerard Guinamand, CDO of ENGIE, a global leader in innovative, low-carbon energy and services, shared lessons learned in the Group’s ongoing transformation into a data-driven company.
A very decentralized organization of 25 business units, ENGIE seeks to solve its complexity by managing data as a group commonwealth and enabling value creation within each entity AND between entities.
Common API, powered by Axway’s Amplify API Management platform, is a portal that displays data & digital services, so teams don’t need to reinvent the wheel throughout the organization.
It creates central governance and visibility while still allowing business units the independence to build their APIs on their preferred vendors, which can still be integrated into Amplify because the solution is vendor-agnostic. Learn more about how the electric utility company accelerates the development of new data-driven services.
“API management has been a key differentiator for us: it enables ENGIE to be a market leader with a real competitive advantage even though our competitors are already well-positioned,” said Guinamand.
Amplify helps enterprises master the complexity
ENGIE is leveraging data for smarter energy decisions and better customer experiences thanks to Amplify API Management. They are also in the process of simplifying and centralizing into only four global business units, and the massive organizational change is being made possible in part by a solid API strategy that combines centralized API governance with the flexibility and independence of business units.
“No matter where you find yourself on the digital and API maturity scale, brace for complexity,” said Jana Frejova, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Axway.
The findings are clear that complexity will only increase, but Frejova added enterprises can embrace that complexity because the choice to use multiple API gateways is happening for good reasons — whether because of a transition to the cloud or a desire to differentiate between internal and external API traffic.
Amplify API Management helps solve complexity thanks to:
- Automated discovery of all your API assets across your distributed IT environments
- API providers that can publish, secure, track, and monitor their assets while retaining independence to use existing or new technology
- A Unified Catalog that brings producers and consumers together in one place to facilitate reuse and speed adoption
- Greater ease to API consumers in discovering, subscribing to, and consuming API assets to accelerate time to value for digital business
Centralized API visibility, thanks to a management plane, and the Unified Catalog can help tame the complexity and drive new growth. Brace for complexity, yes, but plan to master it and set yourself apart with Amplify API Management.
Did you miss it? Catch the replay on-demand here.