Identifying API Use Cases:

Retail Industry

Explore business drivers and compelling use cases for APIs in Retail

Courtesy of IBM and Lightwell

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Many retail enterprises institutions are planning their journey and participation in the API economy. One of the most common questions from companies starting the journey is about the potential use cases within their industry. This paper focuses on several objectives:

Identifying the common business drivers for API initiatives

Describing an API identification methodology

Supplying retail-specific examples using the methodology

Discussing the current state of regulatory requirements and industry standards

Providing recommendations for starting an API initiative

Determining an API economy strategy and planning a roadmap have several significant benefits:

Consolidating and standardizing common APIs—or simply business services—within an organization

Lowering cost of operations by having a central repository and index of enterprise business services such as “retrieve credit score”

Accelerating digital projects and improving time to market with safe, quick access to business services by both internal and external parties

Identifying a partnership ecosystem—especially outside your own industry—for formulating new value-add products and services to be more competitive

Defining new business models for monetization purposes such as the mobile marketplace; that is, curating your company’s business capabilities aggregated with your partners’ business capabilities to provide a diverse range of related or complementary services

This paper is intended for business and IT leadership in the retail industry interested in jump-starting API initiatives by learning about industry use cases.