API integration is increasingly an important element of digital business strategy, fueling customer loyalty, partner ecosystems and new revenue opportunities, according to a new study issued today by Cloud Elements.
The third annual “State of API Integration” report contains insights and predictions from API industry experts, as well as more than 350 API enthusiasts from 27 distinct industries. Key findings include:
° Fifty-five percent said API integration is “critical” to their business strategy, and an additional 29% said it is “somewhat critical.”
° Sixty percent said API integration will have significant impact on customer upgrades or renewals.
° Sixty-two percent said they are becoming more of a platform provider to integrate with partners, maintain stickiness with customers, and/or find new revenue opportunities.
° Nearly 55% are using APIs to build B2B products, 36% for mobile products, 29% for B2C/consumer products, 26% for employee productivity, and 22% for IoT applications.
° CRM is the #1 category of integrations needed (24%), followed by finance (16%), ERP (15%), database (12%), communications (10%) and human capital (6%).
° Key business process use cases include “lead to customer” (45%), “customer to cash” (23%), “lead to loyalty” (20%), “quote to cash” (8%) and “hire to retire” (4%).
° Fifty-six percent charge for API access or integration services, up significantly from 44% in 2018.
° Development teams take 41 days on average to build a net new API integration with advanced capabilities. Respondents plan to build 18 integrations on average in 2019, up from 11.5 in 2018.
For more information, please download the 2019 State of API Integration report.