As with any major change, effective planning is among the most important predictors of success. Digital transformation rarely begins with a clean slate. There must be something for the initiative to transform. Before you begin your journey, you need a complete picture of your business and its assets. You need to understand your specific digital transformation needs and requirements and have a general idea of the timeframe for the transformation. This requires you to do the following:
Step 1: Assess your position
What processes and systems are already in place? How outdated are they? What is the overall maturity level of your existing infrastructure? The chart below provides some initial guidance to help you understand where you currently stand and what you may still have left to do.
“While using an API-first approach, the planning and design of APIs happen before developing backend code. This allows the teams of developers to work in parallel and encourages faster time to market.”
Debu Sinha Senior Specialist Solutions Architect Databricks Learn more about Debu →
“Breaking the large software development into APIs early in the design phase allows flexibility to add or modify features, even close to the final software release.”
Siddharth Katare Senior Solution Architect HCL Technologies Learn more about Siddharth →
Note that few organisations fit neatly into one of the above categories. It’s possible that your business displays characteristics from all three. The end goal is to move entirely into the advanced column.
Step 2: Identify the stakeholders
As we’ve already touched on, your people are as much a part of any digital transformation initiative as your infrastructure. Consider what skills your workforce currently possesses and how that may need to change. Collaborate with your developers to discuss API lifecycle management and what they need to build, test and iterate effectively at each stage. Most importantly, you need to determine the core stakeholders in your initiative. At first, the answer may seem obvious. IT will clearly be involved, as will leadership. However, digging down, most organisations find that the impact of an API-first digital transformation is surprisingly far-reaching. For example:
- Non-IT personnel may leverage APIs in their workflows.
- Certain workflows may not transition smoothly to new systems.
- External facing APIs may need to be replaced or reconfigured.
- Your customers may be directly impacted by the transition, both during and after it takes place.
Step 3: Align with corporate goals
A digital transformation plan, no matter how solid, is meaningless if it doesn’t fit into your business’s overall strategy and objectives. Each step in the process must be planned amidst the backdrop of your business goals. Regular benchmarking, assessments and reviews will help keep your initiative on track, ultimately making transformation far more achievable in the long term. “Metrics need to be defined before undertaking a project as complex as an API-first transformation,” says Budha. “However, to define those metrics, you must first understand your stakeholders, their pain points and how your project will solve their problems and improve their work.”
“An API-first approach by itself may not be significantly beneficial if the business does not partner with the right API management tool.”
Sachin Shah CTO Learn more about Sachin →
“The present-day applications expose core functions and data via services. An API gateway can ingest and orchestrate these services with other services and applications. This permits you to make APIs that modern applications can use.”
Jaykumar Wadhwani Enterprise Architect Salesforce CTO Barclays UK Learn more about Jaykumar →
Key points
01
It is crucial to assess your organisation’s current infrastructure before planning an API-first strategy.
02
Key stakeholders must be identified and considered early in the process of digital transformation.
03
Your initiative must be part of the overall corporate strategy with benchmarks, reviews and assessments.