How to Develop A Winning API Product Strategy

Every business strives to succeed in the digital economy. Consumers are shifting their focus away from physical products and towards connected experiences, prompting companies to change product designs and best management practices. An API product strategy can help aid you in your business' journey to success in the digital economy.

Application Programming Interfaces (API) are powerful tools used in this digital product transformation. They can be used as standalone products or as channels to enhance digital delivery. However, API plays a more profound role than this – it also provides a viable means of disassembling and reassembling the value-creating business capabilities of an organization. Every enterprise built on a foundation of pooled resources can react to market demands quicker and more efficiently. They can also construct more adaptive and innovative business models in this ever-evolving digital ecosystem. With the advanced technology used by DreamFactory, you can achieve the API product strategy you need to succeed.

Packaging Value for your API Product Strategy

When you look at the leaders in value creation — Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google, commonly referred to as FAANG – the main similarity between all of these companies that really shines through is how each company has been able to fully optimize the practice of packaging the delivery of value.

Whether physical or digital, a good or a service, a free offer or paid service, static or dynamic, big or small, every member of FAANG excels at packaging delivery of value. Consumers will recognize this packaged value of Facebook as the swirly F on the popular social network, Amazon is readily distinguished by the brown box with a smile on the side, Apple products all come adorned with the unmistakable Apple logo, streaming videos on Netflix, or the search engine that powers the Google ecosystem. Another aspect of packaging the delivery of value examines the open platforms and API side of things that ground, extend, and more commonly than ever, are sold directly as consumer value.

The most notable is Amazon’s AWS platform. This is a good example of a fully monetized product line that consists entirely of API. It’s not just popular because it enjoys great market success, but also because of the official, famous Bezos API order that all capabilities and components must be able to communicate through standardized service interfaces. DreamFactory can help you learn how to do this to the max!

Learn how to integrate package value into your business. Sign up today for a free trial on how to incorporate a successful API product strategy.

The Bezos API Insight

The Bezos API insight has been leveraged by many of the largest and most respected enterprises in the world. The premise is that a product is basically a unit or vehicle of value delivery from the producer to the consumer. In the context of a digital product, API can be the enablers of a product, the individual components of the product, or even the product itself. This is just one example of the flexibility and versatility of API systems.

This gives API superior potential for any enterprise because they can be reused in a multitude of diverse ways to allow for separating and bundling value items. This means that an API as a packaged product will deliver more value to consumers in the form of repeatable goods or services and evolving service positions can be bundled and separated at scale. This allows organizations to thrive in today's playing field. Global rules of engagement have changed from where the big wins over the small, where fast wins over slow to where we are now – big and fast is almost always the winner. This way of thinking allows you to design your company in a way where APIs are managed like a product and designed like a service, which guarantees customer satisfaction.

DreamFactory can help you optimize your API product strategy to ensure you are reaching your fullest potential. Start your free trial today.

The API Ecosystem

A product exists in the context of an ecosystem that is made up of audiences and stakeholders. Having a reasonable understanding of the major players in this ecosystem is important if you want to get optimal engagement and return from the ecosystem.

Inside the business and tech world, borrowed terms are constantly being overused, but within the increasing complexity of the digital economy, it makes sense to use the term “ecosystem” when discussing the components is the system.

Even though the components in a connected digital system aren't living organisms, they behave much like their biological counterparts. Just like a biological ecosystem, a digital one is made up of many individual components where each one depends on another to survive. This is achieved through competition with some and cooperation with others. It’s also important to remember that a digital ecosystem is more than a bunch of machines and software applications joined together, they are more like socio-technical systems that rely on people in many different stages of the operation. The hardware and software don't have much use without human interaction. Unlike a biological ecosystem which survives and thrives better the farther, it is away from humans.

Build your API Product Strategy with DreamFactory

APIs can form a company’s core business model or serve as an opportunity to create a new income stream. An API business model defines the monetization strategy to leverage this valuable asset. Selecting the right approach can be a daunting task, but with the right resources on your side, you’ll be able to come up with a solution that’s right for your business. 

Interested to learn more about how DreamFactory can help spearhead your adoption of microservices architecture? Start your free trial!

Related Reading

The 7 Steps To Building an API Ecosystem