No one is a lonely island
Nowadays, companies are increasingly quick to develop market niches. One can already put between fairy tales the stories that a brand can have a permanent monopoly on some market solution. Being self-sufficient and the only one doesn’t win too many fans anymore.
The customer comes first
Your customers are using modern technology. They have smartphones, social media accounts, mobile loyalty applications With speed faster than a thought they are able to communicate with the whole world. Along with them, the universe is traversed by an incredible amount of information about them and their shopping behavior. Closed-source solutions that are unable to integrate with commercially available services/accounts/data sources will not let you get close to them.
On the other hand, more and more people are focusing on convenience. Consumers want to integrate all their benefits in one place and fulfill all their needs with one device or account. This is the marketing and sales of the future. A future that is already happening today.
Are you where your customer is?
If you don’t open up to software that gives you the ability to tap into this trend, before you know it you will lose some of your customers to e-commerce. If you don’t respond in time to the new coupon system made available through Facebook, there will be a void in your point of sale. Are you open to service providers and their plug-ins? Are you ready to plug into an external ecosystem? And to connect with services and business ideas that are yet to be created! If you feel the tension rising as you read these words, it means you already feel some shortcomings here. In that case, what exactly is this “API”?
New business paradigm
API was originally a typical IT concept and meant programmable application interfaces. This concept lay at the heart of modern IT solution architecture, which quickly allowed to build and create new business areas. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Spotify are just a few examples of companies that have carved out a whole new universe of digital services on the basis of open digital platforms using APIs.
Today we live in a world of API-based economy. With APIs, it is possible to create complete and complementary business models that provide secure access to a great deal of functionality and secure data exchange. APIs make it easy to connect people, locations, IT systems, Internet of Things, databases or algorithms. Without APIs, the cloud services revolution would not be possible. With this technology, entirely new sets of services and a new customer experience (Customer Experience) are being created.
Faster, more accurate, more reliable
APIs are invaluable for creating new business models and simplifying sales processes using different sales channels. The potential of APIs lies in the ease of launching, and then scaling, new solutions that connect available business platforms and applications. This is due, among other things, to the removal of traditional problems in the integration of IT systems.
As a Gartner analyst comments:
An API-based approach enables the transformation of an enterprise or organization into a platform. And platforms make it possible to multiply the value generated by creating entire ecosystems inside and outside enterprises. Such an ecosystem allows users to effectively connect with each other, create and exchange a service, goods or “social currency” for the benefit of all parties .
At INEOGroup, we appreciate the true value of APIs. We design our solutions in an API-based architecture. We connect our customers with consumers and services available on the market. We invite you to join this ecosytem as well.