API economy 2017 - vision of growing your business digitally

The API Economy has become more than just a term, it has become the solution of revenue growth, a way of improving the business functionality, and a tool to extend your business services and goods to a huge audience.

API Economy can help you discover the viability of doing business and create roads to success for your business opportunities. Many companies including small and medium startups understand the value of API economy and adapting it for getting an edge over their competitors.

We are living in an API based economy and with the constant rise of the Internet of Things (IoTs), the future favors API’s. Many organizations nowadays are utilizing API’s as a business building tool for 3rd party apps.

The advancement in mobile and social media technologies have helped the organization realize the potential financial effects that API’s will have towards their growth in coming eras. A few examples of the companies who have gained immensely due to API’s are Google, Facebook, Amazon.

Industries from media, telecommunications, finance, tourism to real estate, have embraced APIs, and this trend will continue in the future also. And not just the commercial sector, but even the government sectors of many countries are banking on APIs now for making various data available to the public.

Looking at this from a regulatory perspective, multiple states need real time verification of insurance data. Many government entities are leveraging APIs for simplifying access to insurance info, resulting in faster exchange of bulk data at lower costs.

Well established competitors in the financial services have also shown their interest in exploring banking platforms for their API driven services to gain a competitive edge. API’s have managed to integrate and connect people, places and system.

If you have noticed, everything around us now communicates using an API. API’s are helpful in creating better customer experiences and improving our business models.

Integration is the trend that has been setting in with the organization, and it will keep doing so in the days to come, simply because their industrial adversaries will adopt it.

API’s to become backbone for Startups

API’s simplify the B2B outreach by sharing the data and information with business partners via commercial licensing or freely. For businesses, it makes new information discovery easier and mashups with other services help spreading the data to different platform, hence create better visibility in the market.

The Right API tools

There are plethora of API management tools that you can choose for your company, but then deciding on any one of them is the tricky part. But this can be narrowed down if you know the volume of your company and match it with the features provided by the management tool.

Introducing an API is tough and it becomes a necessity to ascertain the reliability, security and documentation of your services and API Management tools are created to solve this issue. They expose your API to the developers in an easier and inexpensive manner.

API management tools have a horde of features, and the primary focus of these features is friendly design and deployment of an API and to ensure that it is secure and efficient. The API management tools are designed to simplify API integrations, alterations or API transpositions.

Features of an API Management service:

Security
APIs bring out delicate information and it becomes important to protect the unprotected data. The data can be protected against any misuse by creating security procedures and policies.

Availability
Systematize and regulate the network between the API and the apps that are using it. The API management service should safeguard the reliability between the multiple APIs.

Performance
The management tools should deliver memory management and caching mechanisms for refining the performance of the application.

API management software are either built in-house or acquired as a third-party service. The open API movement has seen a decline in the dependency on conventional service oriented architecture (SOA).

Many API management tools can help converting SOAP, MQ and JMS interfaces into JSON or RESTful APIs.

Representational state transfer also known as REST, is used by browsers. You can say that it is language of the internet.

With the rise in cloud services various API’s have started exposing web based services and REST is your ultimate choice for creating APIs, which allows your customers to interact with cloud. Many sites such as, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn use RESTful APIs.

Conclusion

Not all companies launch API programs and not all API programs have the same goals. Some APIs are used as a revenue model or part of a product or service, others are free.

Certain APIs are used to provide access and information to an ecosystem of companies. As the requirements vary, the tools diversify.

So, choose your API strategy and pick up the right tool.

What’s your vision for the years ahead, where do you want to see your company in the competitive digital market? Too much confusion? You can get in touch with us for any digital solution that you require.

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Rapidops, Inc.
Category: Software Developers Profile: Rapidops Inc. is a technology, transformation, and analytics company. We help clients design, engineer, and launch advanced digital products and platforms that enable them to thrive and achieve more for their customers. Since 2008, our team has delivered thousands of projects and hundreds of digital products that are touching millions of lives daily, solving tough problems, and changing the way people live, work, and engage. We are working with companies like Dassault Systemes, Harris Teeter, B ...