APIs should be treated like products. This also extends to the digital products that are built from APIs. In part 3 of the enterprise API program guide, we talk about how a successful API program can help organizations to establish essential and, often missing, product thinking and development practices when it comes to API delivery.
How to create growth: API product steps
Good API product practices extend from a rigorous understanding of business operations and the business goals that align to the organization’s digital strategy. These practices also extend to improvements in development operations to shorten the API lifecycle and enable automation and API accessibility.
Define KPIs for API products — examples of meaningful things to measure
A critical role for an API program is to assist API product teams with defining and tracking success and performance indicators for their API products. This goes far beyond simply tracking the number of APIs delivered and simple transactional metrics such as API calls.
The API program should help teams determine how the information should be sourced and explain why it needs to be done. Categories of KPIs for APIs include:
CONSUMPTION KPIs
Revenue growth
• Growth rate
• Customer acquisition
Adoption
• #API calls
• Data volume
API marketplace choice
• #Providers available
• #API searches
Percent of business on APIs
• Percent domain capabilities as APIs
• Percent business transactions via APIs
EFFICIENCY KPIs
ROI
• Payback period
• Dollar cost saved over a period
Velocity
• Time to market
• Time to onboard
Cost avoidance
• Savings from de-duplication of integrations
• Savings from de-duplication of APIs
UX reactivity
• Field staff productivity
• Time to service
RESILIENCE KPIs
Availability
• Service availability and downtime
Compliance
• Healthcare: FHIR, PCIDSS
• Finance: PSD2, Public Open Data
Skillset
• #Teams delivering APIs
w/o a central team
• Skillset differentiation (4 Cs)
Security
• DDos repelled
• Secure consumption from mobile and partners
Download this guide to learn more (Part 3: Digital product delivery and platform enablement)
