5 Ways API-Led Connectivity Is Changing Business | Dreamfactory

by Spencer Nguyen • November 16, 2021

With more data and systems at their fingertips than ever before, organizations need a concrete strategy for how to connect them with their own enterprise IT. This has led to the rise of API-led connectivity, which offers a dramatic shake-up to the way that companies access and integrate these technologies and services. In this article, we’ll explore five industries in which API-led connectivity has changed the business landscape as we know it.

1. API-Led Connectivity in Healthcare

Healthcare organizations have access to a tremendous amount of data, from medical images to clinical studies—and this information could be crucial in offering better patient diagnoses and treatments. However, much of this data is scattered across a multiplicity of systems and services, preventing healthcare professionals from leveraging it to the fullest extent.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. REST APIs for healthcare help medical institutions build scalable, reliable, and secure integrations between their data sources. For example, DreamFactory’s API management tool recently helped a medical research group build walk-in telemedicine kiosks for patients. DreamFactory helped expose databases such as Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and Oracle as a REST API service, supplying the kiosks with crucial information.

2. API-Led Connectivity in Financial Services

From smartphones to web applications, and from transferring funds to analyzing data, financial services firms depend on connecting and integrating the various facets of their business. These challenges are compounded by the fact that many finance companies heavily rely on legacy IT.

Thanks to dedicated API management tools, API-led connectivity in financial services has become truly indispensable. For example, if a bank’s customers request the ability to share their financial data with a third party (a phenomenon known as “open banking”), the company can leverage API-led connectivity to easily reveal their customer databases to authorized users.

3. API-Led Connectivity in Government

Federal, state, and local governments face unique IT challenges. Often faced with shrinking budgets, these institutions must nevertheless try to “do more with less,” keeping up with greater demand from the communities they serve (as well as pressure and competition from the private sector).

To government organizations, API-led connectivity thus offers a major advantage: automating the API generation process, slashing costs, and saving untold hours of tedious work. One common use case is to offer users access to public information (see websites like data.gov for public datasets about everything from agriculture to renewable energy).

4. API-Led Connectivity in Retail

Retail companies feed on data, which they see as an essential resource to beat their competitors and better serve their customers—and the more data they can collect from third-party systems, the better. Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms assemble all the information that retail companies have on their customers, from their first point of contact with the business to their most recent purchase or phone call.

Again, API-led connectivity is here to lead the way. For example, by connecting inventory data at various outlets through an API, retail businesses can help employees find locations with items that are out of stock in their own store—which will keep customers happy as well.

5. API-Led Connectivity in Telecommunications

Last but not least, API-led connectivity has helped transform the face of the telecommunications industry. For one, telecom software developers can use APIs to expose important information to customers through a web portal or mobile app—e.g. paying an outstanding bill or displaying a customer’s monthly data usage.

Another popular use case of APIs in telecommunications is business intelligence and analytics. By collecting information about their customers’ behavior and usage patterns, telecom companies can find marketing opportunities and send this information to third-party partners via an API.

How to Get Started with API-Led Connectivity

Given all these exciting developments in the enterprise IT space, you might have one question on your mind: how can you get started with API-led connectivity at your own organization?

The good news is that it’s never been easier to find the API management tool that fits your needs—especially if that tool is DreamFactory. The DreamFactory API management platform makes it simple to generate robust, production-ready REST APIs, along with documentation, within minutes.

Find out why DreamFactory is the leading provider of instant APIs for hundreds of data sources. Our free 14-day hosted trial will give you a step-by-step walkthrough of how to create your own REST API. Sign up today.