In the drive to initiate and sustain an API-first culture in an organization, there are many strategic stakeholder concerns that need to be broken down and tackled. Quite often, these seem to be competing for focus, attention, and funding. Enterprises should use the experts in each of these strategic areas and use the Open Platform strategy as the goal that everyone can work towards, while still achieving tactical goals.

In part 2 of the enterprise API program guide, we talk about strategic alignment and organizational governance for an API-first culture, and the areas of concern that should be addressed and united by the API program.

Efficiency

Challenge: Many organizations get stuck with using APIs as “just another integration pattern” or just the way to modernize the IT estate in a tech-led approach.

Tactical goals:

• Modernized architecture

• Increased velocity

• Agility and flexibility

• Impenetrable security

• Breaking apart monolithic applications with microservices

Openness and standards

Challenge: Many organizations get stuck reacting to regulation and compliance at the expense of innovation and revenue-generating initiatives. Turn this into an opportunity to use standards internally and externally.

Tactical goals:

• Meeting regulatory demands quickly

• Employing standards internally and externally

• Co-creation across industries

A few notable examples of API-related regulations are in the financial services and healthcare fields, where regulations such as PSD2 in Europe or Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) and the Interoperability and Patient Access final rule in the United States have mandated organizations to expose their data via APIs.

Download this guide to continue reading (Part 2: Strategic alignment and organizational governance)