A majority of surveyed organizations in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) recognize the importance of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in business growth, with an impressive 88 percent adoption rate, reveals a CA Technologies global study.
The study also shows that companies are getting better business results and greater competitive advantage with advanced full lifecycle API management.
The study, APIs: Building a Connected Business in the App Economy, examines responses from 1,770 senior business and IT executives worldwide, with 799 from across APJ, on how they are leveraging APIs to amp up their business in the app economy.
Use of Advanced Full Lifecycle API Management Is Paying Off
More than 70 percent of survey respondents agreed that APIs improve all areas of qualitative KPIs including customer experience, digital reach, leverage of third-party innovation and streamlined supply/demand chain.
However, simply using APIs is not enough. Effective management of API lifecycle is needed to truly reap its benefits from conception to consumption. This full lifecycle approach to API management requires a wide and complex range of capabilities. It demands the ability to connect legacy and current systems; rapidly create APIs in order to safely expose data; integrate this with back-end data and legacy apps; protect these integrations with the right levels of security; accelerate mobile development; and unlock the value of the resulting digital ecosystems through analytics and monetization.
With this in mind, the study’s API management maturity model assesses how far organizations have implemented the tools and technologies, systems and processes, and the capabilities required for full API lifecycle management.
The study found that 55 percent of surveyed organizations in APJ are advanced users of API management, who are much more confident at being able to differentiate themselves from the competition (81 percent) than basic API users (50 percent).
Overall, advanced users of API management saw up to 66 per cent better results than basic users, with increases in:
- IT-related cost (50 percent)
- partner satisfaction (49 percent)
- transaction volumes (49 percent)
- customer satisfaction (48 percent)
- speed-to-market (30 percent)
APIs are crucial to success in the app economy. However, the research shows there are still barriers to successful implementation of API programs, with at least 40 percent citing obstacles such as time to develop APIs, lack of skilled resources, the ability to effectively secure APIs and the ability to scale usage/manage performance.
“APIs are the building blocks of digital transformation. Succeeding in today’s app economy means connecting products to customer needs, customers to experiences, apps to devices, and organizations to their ecosystem partners. APIs are the central nervous system that allows these connections to be made quickly, accurately and securely with quality delivery,” said Tass Melissinos, vice president, API Management, Asia Pacific and Japan, CA Technologies. “It is encouraging to learn that API adoption rates are very high in APJ. The study clearly shows that investing in advanced capabilities throughout the full API lifecycle results in the greatest value and success.”