Enterprises own tons of data that hold intrinsic value. In the age of digital marketplaces and API economies, such data can be leveraged, provided it is made accessible through an online marketplace. Apart from the obvious business value it holds for the incumbent enterprise, this data might be of very high value to other enterprises in a distributed and connected ecosystem. This “network effect” enabled through digital ecosystems allows applications, services and businesses to connect with each other and go to market with new offerings and value.
For enterprises to unlock this potential value, they need to take into account three aspects:
Consumer driven API products
The APIs should be consumer focused and should abstract away any complexities of the backend systems. The ease of using APIs take prime focus, irrespective of implementation challenges introduced by how your internal IT systems have evolved over the years. The consumer here is the developer community that wants to use meaningful APIs, relevant to their domain and expertise. So it is critical to provide intuitive API products, without technical and domain specific jargon.
API product platform and storefront
Once the API product is created, it needs to be put up on a digital marketplace for external developers and SMEs to interact and interface with. The digital marketplace should support seamless automated discovery, documentation and onboarding process. For scalability, this should be a platform with minimal human touchpoints. The platform should provide expert support, when required, which is typically enabled through an ecosystem of developers, domain experts etc. discussing over a community like forum.
Metering & Analytics
For the developer community to be onboarded, they would like to know usage patterns and monetization capability of the APIs you provide, to arrive at their return on investment in your APIs. To enable a “network effect”, this needs to be a meaningful and mutually beneficial partnership that grows organically. To enable a healthy partnership with the community, an honest, open and transparent metering and analytics platform is required. Such a platform reports metrics like usage of APIs, error rate, charges incurred, trends and patterns like consumption time of day, etc. This helps in invoicing and timely billing of APIs to foster a profitable and enduring relationship.
API management
To achieve the above points, we need a centralized and easy to manage platform which provides these features as per the enterprise’s standards of security and governance practices. This is what an API management platform provides. Apart from the above, it also provides features such as:
and proxies
security policies
governance patterns
publishing platform
protocol-level transformation
onboarding platform
Metering systems
Monetizing Open Banking APIs
With increasingly new channels to market, nimble startups and “fintech” innovations, it is imperative that incumbent banks and financial institutions stay relevant through forging their own digital ecosystems and adopting API monetization strategies. Consumers today demand a certain pace and freedom to make their economic choices and are willing to move elsewhere, if these are not provided to them.
To support innovation at this pace, the Open banking platform provides a framework with a high level of security and standardization for banks to adopt. Besides, Open Banking APIs are now made mandatory as per new government regulations.
The key focus of open banking is to:
- Increase openness and fairness of offerings across banks
- Improve customer experience through a centralized, intuitive banking platform for a more personalized service
To move from the Compliance phase in Open Banking APIs, to the “Compete” phase, where banks look to monetize these APIs and the new channels they bring, banks would need to:
- Craft an innovative and differentiated set of personalized products and services by leveraging digital ecosystems enabled through Open Banking APIs
- Partner and monetize services through industry mashups, offering internal banking capabilities in an as-a-service mode, both to consumers and businesses.
About the Author
 |
- Set a robust API strategy that covers the integration of all your key IT assets and data
- Design and develop APIs with clear objectives for each
- Efficiently orchestrate API lifecycles while tracking API calls and API monetisation
Related Posts
In 2008, a significant outage in its data center prevented Netflix from sending DVDs to its customers for three days which prompted the company to rethink its IT architecture.
Organizations today are confronted with challenges arising from the growing number of applications and managing the volume of data being generated across cloud and on-premise environments.
Today, as business data increasingly proliferates a multitude of systems, app-integration teams are finding it increasingly difficult to keep pace. While a platform-based approach takes the pain out of integrating and scaling applications, the volume, velocity, and veracity of data are adding to integration complexities.
Whitepaper
Analyst Speak
(THIS) has been cited among notable vendors by Forrester Research in its report ‘The API Management Software Landscape, Q1 2024’. The report recognizes Torry Harris as a provider offering API management solutions with a geographic focus in the EMEA & APAC regions.
Forrester observes that the initial rush to “lift and shift” to the cloud has now been replaced by a focus on modernization and digital transformation. Cloud migration is the first step in a long journey to take advantage of the latest cloud-native technologies and services.
Torry Harris is a 'Strong Performer' in The Q3 2022 Forrester Wave™ for API Management Solutions. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps technology architecture and delivery (TAD) professionals select the right one for their needs.
Past Webinars
