Is your business API ready? Every modern business needs to have some form of an API at its disposal.
A new revolution is brewing. The time where a business can compete uninhibited is here. The rules are the same for all: Find the API that does exactly what you need it to and use it!
The tools: Build the API that suits your business needs and claim your dominance!
APIs are the invisible architects of the modern world.
When you buy a movie ticket online and enter your credit card number, what takes the transaction to completion and does so safely is the API. When you book a hotel room in Hawaii sitting on your couch its the API that makes it possible. In fact these days, almost everything that you do online, every transaction, every deal, every update that Nike sends to you on your mobile about the latest basketball sneakers and football cleats is made possible by an API working behind the scenes.
In this flat world, your customers are global. And they are always awake. No matter what part of the world they may be in or what time it is, there is always someone somewhere who needs exactly what your business is offering. If you are a retailer or manufacturer or simply a business dealing with other businesses, you need to have a way to ensure that your business is working and you are constantly reaching out to your customers, even if you are not doing so consciously.
According to business experts, every modern business needs to have some form of an API at its disposal. And for businesses that provide services, if you don’t have an API you are in the wrong business. You can have an API doing any of these things for you:
- Sending live product information to your customers
- Providing product updates or stock information
- Facilitating transactions
- Enabling online booking
- Recording consumer behaviour
The world is changing. And we are slowly moving towards a world where devices interact with each other catering to needs of the individuals. The backbone of this “Internet of things” is the API which acts as the mesh connecting services to consumers to transactions.
In the very near future, every major business system from banking to payment, shipping companies, service providers, aviation companies, e-commerce platforms, automotive companies will have specialized APIs that will rock the world as you know it.
Established players will find themselves competing with other companies (even start ups!), on a level playing field, armed with specialized APIs to suit their needs, a whole new breed of fearless micro startups will emerge which will get MVPs for their product idea out the door in record time and be able to test the market with minimal investment.
A never ending stream of competition is at hand! So, have you thought of an API for your business yet?
Even if you don’t, there is still time.
Just don’t be caught off guard when the API wars begin (gigaom).