Dissecting Forrester’s report on API Management

UPDATED 11/9/18

To keep up with the competition and continue business growth, businesses have to implement digital strategies. This involves significant investments in the Internet of Things, big data, cloud, social and mobile technologies. These advancements towards digital are driving CIOs, CTOs and managers to better incorporate APIs in everyday use through API management solutions. The implementation of digital strategies relies heavily on APIs.

Let’s dissect Forrester’s report

With more businesses going digital, it’s no wonder that the API Management Solutions Market is projected to quadruple by 2020. According to a recent Forrester’s report (“Sizing The Market For API Management Solutions”), “the U.S. API Management market will grow more than fourfold from $140 million in 2014 to $660 million by 2020. Uptake will be driven by multiplying use cases for APIs in the enterprise, CIOs embracing APIs and investing in digital transformation, and SOA customers adding API management to their infrastructure.”[1] Clearly, the API management market is not to be ignored by technology decision-makers.

You might ask yourself how the growth of the API industry pertains to organizations on a day-to-day business level. APIs allow businesses to innovate by exposing information. This involves online banking and shipment tracking APIs, that can be consumed by mobile apps, Web apps, and even smartwatch apps. These APIs must be managed so that developers access them in a secure manner, with all their usage tracked and fed into big data analytics.

Predictions

Furthermore, based on the fact that Forrester’s report predicts that spending on API management solutions will grow from $140 million in 2014 to $660 million by the end of the decade. The market isn’t only growing but will be almost five times the size it was at the end of last year in just five years’ time. Again, there’s a major opportunity here in API management for organizations to seize.

The report also foresees “Thirty-seven percent of U.S. enterprise companies adopt API Management solutions by 2020,” and “international companies drive the market past the billion-dollar mark” and traditional “SOA customers will add API Management to their infrastructure”² – such as Axway API Gateway and Axway API Portal.

What does all this mean for businesses moving forward? We’ve said before that you’re either embracing digital business or risking becoming obsolete, and digital initiatives cannot be launched without robust API Management behind them. Based on the findings in Forrester’s report, the industry as a whole appears to agree.

[1] Forrester Research, Inc., Sizing the Market for API Management Solutions, Heffner Randy, Yamnitsky Michael, 2 April 2015, 1.