State of
Enterprise APIs

Understanding API Uses, Challenges, and Strategies

Who did we survey?

By country
Country of the respondent.
US
50.0%
UK
16.7%
France
16.7%
Germany
16.7%
By size
How many employees does your organization have globally?
1,000-2,999
38.3%
3,000-4,999
36.3%
5,000 or more
25.3%
By vertical
Within which sector is your organization?
IT
19.3%
Manufacturing
18.0%
Retail
15.3%
Financial
12.3%
Energy
9.0%
Consumer
6.0%
Healthcare
3.0%
Other
17.0%

How do organizations use APIs?

Is an API strategy mission-critical for your organization?

Almost all respondents (97%) agree that executing API strategies successfully is essential to secure their organization’s future revenue and growth, and this survival is underpinned by a range of API roll-out use cases.

How is your organization using APIs?

Enterprises use APIs to enable partner collaboration (65%), develop and deliver products and services more quickly (60%), and create APIs as products for use by external developers (46%).

For improving collaboration with partners and enabling partner innovation
65.3%
Sharing internal APIs among internal development teams to deliver products and services faster
59.6%
Consuming third-party APIs as part of the development of products and services
53.3%
Creating APIs as products for consumption by external developers
46.3%

Are APIs an essential part of your organization’s digital transformation?

API-led digital transformation simplifies processes, enables efficiencies, improves scalability, and increases an organization’s scope for innovation.

“With APIs, developers can reduce development time and costs while reducing the risk of errors.” - CEO, consumer services organization.

What benefits are your organization hoping to achieve by using APIs?

APIs have a direct impact on customer experience, developer productivity, and business outcomes. Organizations have identified the key benefits of using APIs including an improved customer experience, accelerated path to innovation, better collaboration among developers, improved developer experience, and a strengthened competitive advantage.

Improved customer experience
48.0%
Accelerated innovation
47.0%
Improved collaboration among internal development teams
42.0%
Improved collaboration and joint-development with partners and third-party development teams
41.0%
Improved developer experience
37.0%
Strengthened competitive advantage
37.0%
Faster development time-to-market
36.0%
Expanding our offerings by 'productizing' APIs for consumption
34.0%
Better governance
33.0%
Reduced internal costs
33.0%
My organization won't achieve any benefits through using APIs
0.0%

How much will organizations invest in APIs and API infrastructure next year?

Enterprise leaders are prepared to make key investments in APIs and API infrastructure in 2022. On average, organizations will spend $23.6 million on APIs. Those in the financial services industry are placing even larger bets on APIs with respondents anticipating their API budgets will be more than $29 million for 2022.

Total
$23M
Financial services
$29M
IT, technology and telecoms
$21M
Manufacturing and production
$22M
Retail, distribution and transport
$19.6M
Other commercial sectors
$25M

What challenges has your organization faced while using APIs?

Although the benefits of implementing an API strategy are clear, almost all (95%) organizations face challenges when using APIs. As with the implementation of many technologies, when demand increases, so does the volume and variety of challenges organizations must overcome when working with APIs.

API management - existing tools are too complex and require too much resources to support
37.6%
Security and Governance - we lack visibility across all APIs and consistent policy enforcement
34.6%
Issue with providing the right access to the right individuals
29.6%
Vendor Lock-in - many API tools are “closed systems” that don't integrate well with other solutions
27.6%
Collaboration - we don't have the right tools for users and teams to share APIs effectively
26.3%
Reliability - not able to trust or verify reliability of APIs outside of immediate department
25.0%
Issues with creating/developing APIs
23.6%
Discovery - we are not able to find existing APIs, which leads to low API re-use
23.6%
The pace of innovation is too slow
26.0%
Low user adoption - developers don't use existing APIs due to poor experience, lack of documentation, etc.
21.6%
We have not faced any challenges with using APIs
4.6%

Can APIs accelerate our digital transformation?

The challenges and complexity of managing multiple APIs are acknowledged by senior decision-makers across most organizations, even among those that feel that APIs are the way forward for their digital transformation.

As different business units focus on digital initiatives in line with their objectives, API complexity increases organically while the overall governance of all the different API programs is lost.

Without the right staff and skills, these challenges may be hard for some organizations to overcome.

What is your organization’s maturity regarding an API program?

APIs are acknowledged by most as an essential part of digital transformation, and over half (52%) are in the process of incorporating APIs into their organization. Many organizations will therefore experience an increase in API complexity over time.

We have an API program or strategy that is fully executed across all areas of the organization
30.6%
We are currently building our API program or strategy, and it is currently executed across several areas of the organization
52.0%
We are currently building our API program or strategy, and it is currently executed very minimally
12.3%
We have an API program or strategy, but it's not at all executed across any areas of the organization yet
3.6%
We do not currently have an API program or strategy, but we plan to in the future
1.3%
We do not currently have an API program or strategy, and have no plans to
0.0%

Do you believe your organization needs to improve the execution of its current API program or strategy?

Although the majority reported working on an API program or having one in place, 88% of the respondents indicated that there are challenges successfully executing their programs. At the top of the list — customer experience. Following closely behind is the need to accelerate the pace of innovation and eliminate technology silos.

What improvements does your organization need to make to execute its API strategy?

Senior decision-makers can quickly identify multiple improvements their organization needs to optimize current API programs and strategies. These vary by industry, but organizations need to make these improvements to leverage the many benefits associated with API strategies.

What types of APIs do you work on?
48.2%
48.2%(2020)
Total
67.6%
67.6%(2020)
Financial services
57.6%
57.6%(2020)
IT, technology and telecoms
41.6%
41.6%(2020)
Manufacturing and production
43.5%
43.5%(2020)
Retail, distribution and transport
40.9%
40.9%(2020)
Other commercial sectors

How important is it to your organization to partner with other organizations to collaborate and build new products and services?

84% of respondents report that it is extremely or very important to partner with other organizations who provide APIs to build new products or services. However, this is made difficult by the fact that most organizations (86%) do not have a single API platform that provides them with a centralized source for accessing all available APIs.

Would you want to adopt a solution that would centralize your APIs and enable developers to build, manage, publish, and consume APIs?

Senior decision-makers want a single-platform that can  centralize the discovery and management of multiple APIs and help them overcome the range of challenges organizations face with their API program, namely API management, security, and governance.

Which of the following best describes the extent to which your organization is currently using a type of API platform?

Despite the importance of centralization to senior decision-makers, only a minority of organizations are currently using a single API platform.

We have several API platforms in use across the organization, all managed separately / independently
28.6%
We have some API platforms managed separately / independently, and some available across the entire organization in a centralized place
55.3%
We have a single API platform that provides a centralized place for working with all our APIs
13.3%
We do not use any API platforms today but we plan to within 12 months
2.0%

What are the key benefits that you expect to see from the API platform(s) used in your organization?

Respondents reported the key benefits of a centralized platform, many of which will help businesses address key needs such as collaboration and management of multiple APIs. Organizations want better interaction between API builders and consumers (45%), greater agility (41%) and speed (37%) when developing and deploying APIs, and an improved developer experience across the development lifecycle (40%).

Better interaction between API builders and API consumers
44.5%
Greater agility when developing APIs
40.7%
Improved developer experience across the development lifecycle
40.0%
Easier to share APIs internally
37.6%
Faster deployment of APIs
37.3%
Easier to create APIs as products and monetize APIs
36.3%
Easier consumption of APIs
34.9%
Easier to find existing APIs
30.8%
Centralizing our APIs
30.8%
Reports prepared by Vanson Bourne