APIs are becoming the key to the success of any business, no matter its size. Companies are increasingly realizing that the use of this technology is increasing their competitiveness. For that reason, the API benefits for business is more and
In this digital new world, retailers aim to gain more insights from their customers to offer them products and services tailored to their needs. Personalization is the key to customer engagement and loyalty. For that reason, it’s worth exploring the API benefits for business.
There are countless tools that allow businesses to build more scalable platforms by providing services that really fit their users’ needs. These tools can be easily integratable through an API.
In real life, when developers write code, they don’t use to start from scratch. What is great about APIs is that they allow developers to create codes and software using pre-existing frameworks. Thus, they can focus on establishing the unique proposition of the web and apps.
In other words, APIs offer standardized processes to access and use existing infrastructure. They can be compared to an electric device: there’s no need to have a generator to connect it; the only thing needed is to plug it onto an existing network. That’s basically the way a developer uses an API, connecting their webs and applications to pre-existing software.
In this article, we will explain the main benefits that an API can offer to any business, no matter its industry or size.
Background: What is an API?
An API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface. It’s a software intermediary that makes it possible to connect two applications.
Thanks to APIs, websites or Apps take information from a particular database to interact in certain ways. At the moment, there are around 24,000 APIs registered on ProgrammableWeb and there are over 2 million API repositories on GitHub.
According to the Slashdata Developer Economics Survey 19th edition, nearly 90% of developers are using APIs in some capacity. They break it down even further, finding:
- 69% use third-party APIs
- 20% use internal or private APIs
However, not everyone understands the API benefits for a business.
Let’s use an example to see how they work: When someone buys movie tickets online, the usual steps are choosing the movie, entering the credit card details and that’s it. The tickets can be printed later.
However, between those steps are APIs connecting the website with the bank, for instance.
In simple words, they are some sort of collaboration that takes place behind the scenes with other applications.
How APIs can Benefit a Business’ Needs: 6 API Benefits for Business
For any business, APIs have a range of benefits that help them to grow and engage via scalable solutions. For a company looking for innovative tools to improve customer experiences and reduce costs, APIs might be the appropriate solutions. An API implementation can also streamline business operations.
Let’s explore some of the benefits of using APIs:
Foments innovation
As the demand for modern software is increasing, businesses will see the innovation benefit when implementing APIs. Today, more than ever, a company that invests in innovation and technology makes a difference.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 88% of customers expect companies to accelerate digital initiatives, as a Salesforce report mentions.
There are many ways that APIs can bring innovation, but one of the most important ways is by providing a tool for developers to easily access data and functionality from other applications, which can lead to significant improvements and new capabilities.
With APIs, a developer can seamlessly get value from data sources and boost their current systems’ capabilities.
Boost Automation
API integration is the key to automating the processes of a website or app, so in terms of development agility, APIs are essential.
API integrations improve automation processes, making tasks that were once manual now effortless thanks to connected applications.
The existence of APIs helps build a digital business that saves development time and effort.
Enhances Customization
In general, APIs improve customization by allowing developers to access and use data and functionality from other applications.
In this way, developers can customize the website or app content to tailor it to the needs of users and visitors, making the user experience more flexible and personalized.
According to a report, 52% of customers expect offers to always be personalized, and 66% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations.
Builds New Revenue Models
While APIs can help organizations address customer needs and expand their services, they also enable them to create new revenue streams.
By expanding business growth via payment APIs (for example, integrating a gift card reseller API), a business can enable their users to make purchases within their webs or apps, and get revenue thanks to the commissions.
Definitely, APIs empower digital companies to reach new business models and transform their digital assets into new income streams.
Improves Customer Experience
APIs allow businesses to offer a variety of services in a short period of time. Thanks to APIs, developers can build experiences that meet customers’ expectations, leading to endless possibilities.
Integrating an API can help to make it easier for customers to access the data or services that they need. Additionally, a well-designed API can also help to reduce the number of steps required to complete a task, which can further improve the customer experience.
Saves costs
One of the best benefits of APIs for businesses is their capability to save costs. Developing an app from scratch means investing in several costs of development, and most of the time, it is not cost-effective.
Using APIs means that developers can get most of the software functionalities they need to create applications, without the necessity of building them from scratch. This means saving time, effort, and costs, allowing the development team to focus on other goals.
How Reloadly APIs can help?
As we have seen, APIs are powerful tools that bring automation, innovation, and ease to businesses looking for new possibilities to engage with customers at scale.
Now we know the API benefits for business, let’s understand the full advantages of APIs with a real business case: Reloadly payment APIs for airtime, data bundles, gift cards, and utility payments.
- Airtime top-up API. This API allows you to top-up mobile phones in more than 170
- countries across our network of over 800 mobile operators.
- Data Bundles top-up API. The API enables the bulk sending and recharge of data bundle packages and is really useful for enabling global top-ups of a variety of operators for 5.22 billion prepaid mobile phones.
- Digital Gift Cards API. Use a gift card API to send gift cards via email or SMS through a large network of global retailers using plug-and-play software. Amazon, Netflix, Roblox, Airbnb, and much more. Delight your users with a catalog of more than 14,000 products.
- Utility Payments API. Use a mobile utility payment API to connect to global services, including TV, Internet, Electricity, and Water.
You can check the developer documentation here.
In conclusion: The future is here and it’s all about APIs!
In the current digital era when consumers demand more top-notch services, businesses are looking for new ways to interact with customers. That’s why the idea of integrating an API to achieve this goal is becoming a top company priority.
APIs exist to unleash the potential of a company and at the same time, they offer disruptive solutions for companies looking to leverage their network.
Thus, businesses should seek out APIs they can integrate seamlessly and efficiently in order to build out their new phase of innovation.
Reloadly offers APIs that can offer multiple benefits to businesses. For more information on how Reloadly can help you expand innovative new services with APIs, contact our support team.
