Hot Tyks is a new series where we dive into hot topics with varying levels of spicy takes from some of our passionate Tyklings. This ongoing series will include epic supporting video content, so watch this space for more!
If you’re a fan of the spice, this one’s for you.
Now you’ve been warned, let’s get started…
I’m a marketer, and I bet you think we live in a bubble and blissfully ignore the importance of customer insights, revenue impact and sales pipelines. Well, in response, I would say many tech people show little interest in how their work impacts customer satisfaction, sales growth and business ROI.
*Newsflash* – there is so much more to APIM than simply selecting your gateway or GraphQL adoption and connecting your data and systems.
In order to build a high-performing business, we must focus on efficiency and the decisions that tech teams need to make for colleagues and end customers to feel safe and in control.
Let me elaborate.
From K8s to ROI
IT teams are under more and more pressure to increase systems efficiency and reduce infrastructure costs and technical debt. So, organisations must focus more on cost-saving practices to ensure APIs and API management have a positive ROI.
Of course, the technical elements, language and tool choices you make are important, but what matters is how the management efforts of these decisions will impact your company’s teams, customers, and partners.
The biggest differentiators in running effective IT and business processes involve digital transformation, sustainability, AI, security, efficiency, governance and innovation.
APIM time to value is about increased developer velocity but also includes key elements such as engineers’ onboarding costs, development and deployment time, adoption rate, go-to-market speed, API-first marketing strategy, and standardisation costs.
As we enter another volatile year, it is time to prioritise these elements, not REST, Soap or GraphQL. Whether microservices, K8S or ChatGPT can be implemented by your platform or integration team is totally irrelevant. What matters is how fit for purpose the newest tech products and trends are to your own business (use) case.
Focus on what really matters
According to the latest tech and APIM gurus, 2023 will show several important trends for APIM practitioners to consider:
– API-First business models
– Cloud-first digital transformation
– Observability
– Developer Experience (DX)
– Open Telemetry
– Open API
– Blockchain technology
– AI
– ERP/Mainframe modernisation
– Identity Management & Security
– Compliance & Governance
.. and, last but certainly not least, engineering and development efficiency. Interesting.
Stop following the latest tech hype and shiny objects. Focus on your business and think efficiency first, not protocol, language or gateway. As I said, APIM is bigger than code and data; it’s about having the tools and processes to achieve higher business and team performance.
Here’s how you can reimagine your tech workforce for higher productivity:
- Improve internal engineering efficiency with centralised APIM and reduce management overhead
- Reduce time spent by engineers on bespoke API integration solutions
- Ensure improved reliability, security, uptime, and manageability of digital operations
Connect your ecosystem in addition to your APIs
APIM is fundamentally about using the right gateway(s), platform, portal, and dashboards to connect ecosystems for maximum business and human impact.
Your choice of APIM platform and efficiency-related decisions needs to focus on these critical questions:
– What pre-and post-sales service will I get?
– How much time will it take for my team to onboard these tools?
– How resilient are my current set-up’s complexity and efforts for adapting to business needs?
– What additional engineering talent do I need to recruit to make it all work internally?
– Can I easily expand or replicate my APIM set-up to other teams, such as product or integration?
– How much would cloud migration reduce costs (Hybrid or SaaS)?
– How much time and money could postponing microservices’ adoption reduce your IT budget to allow for other more strategic product launch projects?
Is your in-house or current APIM solution provider helping you with these core elements? If so, why not?? Do you have access to business-minded solutions engineers or architects who can advise and coach you on non-technical issues, too?
Wake up and smell the ROI coffee, dear tech teams; 2023 is the year of ROI and efficiency; that’s what I care about as a C-level, and what should be your career-boosting focus, too!
