In 2020, virtually all industries, from retail and manufacturing to finance and hospitality, shifted how they do business. The uniting trait across all of them? A sharpened, more urgent focus on digital maturity and an API Economy.
In fact, according to our new report, 75% of companies continued focusing on their digital transformation initiatives, despite all the disruptions, and almost two-thirds of those companies actually increased their investments and efforts.
APIs replace incompatibilities created by different platforms by enabling once separate software components to communicate by allowing customer-facing, customizable interfaces. APIs have significantly increased connectivity and data exchange.
Every day, billions of photos are uploaded to Facebook. Users access information on their mobile devices and make purchases from the most popular social networks. For a developer, implementing an API may be a simple, obvious step in building a new application or program which interfaces with another one. With digital ecosystems and developing an API economy, organizations can unlock new opportunities, reach new markets, and grow the value of their business.
Google Cloud’s new “State of the API Economy 2021” report, a majority of IT decision-makers view application programming interfaces, or APIs, as essential ingredients in improved customers experiences, expanded partner engagement, accelerated innovation, and other demands of today’s business environment. This is encouraging: APIs are how software talks to other software, and since much of digital transformation involves combining disparate data and functionality into rich user experiences and process automation, APIs are an essential ingredient in modern business strategies.
The State of API Economy 2021 report explains why APIs are central to organizations’ needs and digital transformation efforts. This report is based on Google Cloud’s Apigee API Management Platform usage data, customer case studies, and analysis of several third-party surveys conducted with technology leaders from enterprises with 1,500 or more employees, across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, Indonesia, Australia, and New Zealand.
What’s inside:
- An overview of key technology trends and important shifts in the role of APIs in digital transformation initiatives
- An analysis of factors that contribute to successful digital platforms
- Exploration of organizations’ intentions for IT investment and the changing market for the API-first digital economy
- How enterprises can build or participate effectively in digital ecosystems
