API productization plays a crucial role in driving value for enterprises by empowering API product managers to innovate and market digital assets effectively.
We’ve talked to companies about the rise of the API Product Manager and the concept of API as a product for a while now, and we’ve found it's difficult for a lot of organizations because they're focused primarily on the producer side of digital assets and API delivery.
What they're looking at are things like how can we go faster, how can we do things like integrate our DevOps, our CI/CD pipeline with our API delivery. But they're also concerned about the things that a platform team should be concerned about, which is the security of APIs, the policies applied to those APIs, the governance, the performance, the availability, access control, all of those things.
They haven't really focused on APIs as products. Their main concern is the platform as the product; but with an API marketplace, you now have a set of platform tools for the first time for API Product Managers. These are people who have the responsibility for delivering digital products and services for their company, opening up their company’s capabilities to the outside world, or even just allowing people within the organization to access capabilities in a new way to recombine them into new products and services for innovation.
API Product Managers never really had a set of tools to focus on the consumption side of APIs, and the big difference is that with an API product management capability and mindset, you're starting to think about who's consuming the API, what insights can we get?
If you're looking at a monetization strategy, for example, where you want to commercialize some of your world-class products and services, how can we allow these people to see the uptake, for example, or the success or the health of those new products. They could be more innovative and take risks, release more new products than they thought they could.
"We're back with our what's next in our series where we talk about the next steps in your API journey with an API Marketplace? You've probably heard a lot of talk about treating APIs or other digital assets as products. Well, if you're going to make that mindset shift, you're going to also need an API product manager.
Axway Catalyst Brian Otten joins us now. Brian, what is the role of an API product manager and how do you evangelize their importance within your organization to make that culture shift?
Well, that's a great question, Lydia. Nice to be with you.
I've been talking to companies about the rise of the API product manager and the concept of APIs as products. I think it's difficult for a lot of the organizations that I talk to because they're focused primarily on the producer side of digital assets and API delivery. What they're looking at are things like how can we go faster, how can we integrate our DevOps and CI/CD Pipeline with our API delivery.
But they're also concerned about the things that a platform team should be concerned about, such as the security of APIs, the policies that apply to those APIs, the governance, the performance, the availability, and access control. So they haven't really been focused on APIs as products; their main concern is the platform as the product.
With the API Marketplace, you now have a set of platform tools for the first time for API product managers. These are people who have the remit for delivering digital products and services for their company, opening up their company's capabilities to the outside world, or even just allowing people within the organization to access capabilities in a new way, recombine them into new products and services for innovation.
Those people really never had a set of tools to focus on the consuming side of APIs. I think that's the big difference: with API product management capability and mindset, you're starting to think about who's consuming the APIs and what insights can we get. For example, if you're looking at a monetization strategy where you want to commercialize some of your world-class products and services, how can we allow these people to see the uptake, the success, or the health of those new products? This enables them to be more innovative and take more risks, releasing new products than they thought possible.
So that's really the difference. We now have a set of tools to give insights and to allow API product managers to promote and market digital assets enabled with APIs.
Okay, well, thanks, Brian. We'll have some more advice on getting to the next step of your API journey next."
That's really the difference, that we now have a set of tools to give insights and to allow API Product Managers to promote and market digital assets that are enabled with APIs.
Want to know more? Watch this 30-minute demo to learn how to get the most out of your APIs with a custom, turnkey enterprise API marketplace.
