What is API-Fication?

API-Fication refers to the process by which enterprise updates existing IT infrastructure and tools to better allow the communication of incoming and outgoing data with other applications, end users, etc. In particular, API-fication plays a critical role in facilitating automation via app-to-app communication in companies upgrading their internal toolsets. Perhaps more importantly, it does so in a way that is versatile, compatible with later upgrades and updates, and creates consistency in your programs where it may not inherently exist.

Companies and organizations updating their tools to better suit the demands and expectations of operating in 2019 often find themselves faced with necessary pieces of software which aren’t yet supported by industry-standard automation suites. This can leave companies forced to choose between modern efficiency and necessary tools without customization.

Fortunately, this is a well-documented and well-solved problem in enterprise modernization, and you’ll find yourself inundated with ways to smooth integration by customizing the core automation toolsets, your existing software, or both. Unlike other popular solutions for software integration API-fication supports consistent, high-volume, high-speed, core-level communication between the tools your enterprise relies upon for efficient, reliable, convenient automation of its core processes.

Why does your enterprise need it?

To appreciate the advantages of API-fication, the decision makers at your enterprise first need to appreciate the value of increased automation via software, understand why out-of-the-box solutions fall flat and understand what makes API-fication the strongest direction for your enterprise upgrade. So, let’s look at each step which leads us to an API-based enterprise upgrade.

Do smaller businesses need this?

Even medium and small-scale businesses can benefit from the automation suites which were once only practical and necessary for mega-corporations. As the complexity of tasks which can be automated has increased, the value to smaller operations has increased too. You don’t need to be performing millions of simplistic tasks for automation software to save time and money; even a sole proprietorship without employees can see massive benefits from advanced software such as Customer Relationship Management suites, advanced advertising, and marketing software, and various industry-or-model-specific tools—all of which need to communicate to reach optimal efficiency.

Why customize what you have?

Off-the-shelf software suites only rarely work satisfactorily with the way an enterprise already does business. This leaves you to either forcibly adjust your company to match new software, a poor option for almost any business, or adjust the software to match the way you operate. This only becomes more important as your business model, industry, regulatory concerns, and other factors diverge from what mainstream enterprises require.

Without software customization, a single piece of compliance management software which doesn’t play nicely with your other cutting-edge software solutions can hold your entire industry back on enterprise upgrades.

Why API-Fication over alternatives?

Most other solutions to integration problems holding back enterprise modernization suffer from one of two problems; they are highly specific, and thus become a problem to maintain over multiple iterations of your enterprise automation solutions, or they operate at an inefficient level of the software, i.e. by simulating human UI usage, and thus can’t keep up with more advanced automation techniques.

• Internal and external communication of data. Communicating data remains one of the most critical bottlenecks in any organization looking to modernize, especially with rising security concerns and considerations requiring new barriers between data and people inside of and outside of your organization. API-fication makes data sharing quick, painless, and above all consistent, as you adjust your systems to optimize.
• Security. API-fication allows you to better govern the way data flows between internal systems and external systems by making such interactions consistent. This, in turn, allows your enterprise to implement a more consistent, strict handling of data across your organization, minimizing leaks via API and data sharing solutions. Establish the way data is communicated between apps definitively via API-fication, and you don’t have to worry about unexpected data sharing or unanticipated access of an API you don’t fully understand.

What’s the return on your investment?

The exact ROI on API-fication will vary significantly depending on the degree of automation you have in place, the degree of automation you’re pursuing, how much adjustment you need from baseline software solutions to properly maintain internal and external data communication, and various other factors. To self-assess your potential returns, consider what you stand to gain from these benefits and compare them against any price quoted to you for the process:

• Cut down on busy work. The key function of improved software automation lay in the elimination of wasted effort and redundant efforts. Any and all activities which are repeated consistently across different teams, across different levels, etc., can be automated to a significant gain. The growing sophistication of automation suites only serves to broaden the realm of what can be automated or sped up with well-designed APIs in place.
• Skilled worker force multiplication. In some companies or industries, there can be a significant gap in employee skills and no way to bridge the gap between top-tier team members and their peers. Put the right APIs to work for these exceptional employees, however, and you allow them to put the golden touch on a much larger proportion of work even as you cut inferior team members or move them to other areas. This can be exceptionally important in personal-but-automation-friendly areas of your business such as customer service, sales, and marketing.
• Versatile, modular systems. API-Fication doesn’t just update your systems for the here and now, it gives you a strong basis for future improvements to your enterprise software solutions. By bringing together the disparate components of your business with a single consistent API system, you’ll find it’s much easier to add or remove components in the future without complications or roadblocks. There’s no such thing as a future-proof software suite, but you can prepare your firm to make necessary changes at minimal cost in years to come.
• Employee, user, and partner-friendly systems. The same consistency which makes it easy for programmers to bring new software into your network will make it far easier to familiarize employees, partners, and customer users with any and all APIs you want them to have access to in the future. A single set of instructions can cover a much broader range of applications and use cases, minimizing internal and external IT support requirements. Depending on how much trouble you currently have with IT support costs related to data communication problems, this could be a significant improvement to your bottom line.

How Robotize can help you achieve API-Fication

Over 15 year of experience connecting the web and non-web applications has helped our firm develop the breadth and depth of experience necessary to retool and customize a variety of core automation toolsets according to the principles of API-fication. Without this level of understanding, it’s simply not possible for a team to make the core level changes to a piece of software necessary to keep them running as intended and desired.

To put it succinctly, Robotixed.io offers your enterprise not only the technical understanding of API-fication necessary for the process, but the intimate knowledge of day-to-day operations within your company necessary to match our work to your expectations. You won’t find yourself the recipient of an over-optimized but ultimately non-functional piece of programming artwork; you’ll find yourself the owner of a newly tailored automation suite designed to make your business operate more efficiently than ever before.