Triari Consulting and Rullion partnered to deliver an API Strategy for a major food retailer. The consulting brief was to develop an initial API strategy for the organisation from a starting position of low API maturity.
Situation:
The client situation was that APIs were being created and deployed across the business but without appropriate management and processes in place to assess risks and benefits and to ensure the use of APIs was optimal.
Solution:
At the outset of the engagement, a Statement of Work was agreed, defining the key deliverables and the milestone schedule. The scope of the work comprised producing a multidimensional API strategy, including the following themes:
· Business goals and objectives
· Organisational operating model for API lifecycle management
· A technology capability model and gap analysis
· API security considerations
· Candidate target state definition
· Definition of a 3 year roadmap to deliver the organisational and technology enhancements necessary to progress to the target state
An initial survey of the IT estate was conducted to:
· Establish the business and systems contexts of the organisation
· Catalogue the existing set of strategic APIs and usage scenarios
· Gauge the general level of API maturity
Delivery:
Execution of the engagement was via a collaborative working process, involving key stakeholders throughout the strategy process to ensure buy in. To support this approach a Working Group was set up to review emerging themes and the strategy proposals. To reflect busy schedules of stakeholders, a hybrid approach of weekly meetings and offline activity was established. The engagement was overseen by a Steering Committee including senior level sponsors, providing guidance to the work and facilitating the removal of any blockers to completion.
The strategy process was conducted using modern collaborative tooling. Microsoft Teams was used as the collaboration tooling. This allowed for the secure sharing of ideas and information and videoconferencing. Monday.com was used to provide project management support and transparency of progress to the client, including:
· Project planning
· Milestone definition
· Progress reporting against milestones
All the tooling was web based allowing consultants and the client to exchange information securely without the need for network access to the client organisation or use of a client computer. This reduced the lead time of the engagement and lowered the overall cost of the delivery.
Result:
The engagement approach resulted in the successful delivery of the pre-agreed outcomes as planned. Over 40 strategic APIs were catalogued, establishing the baseline of API maturity upon which to build the strategy. The roadmap enabled the client to incrementally plan the necessary technical capability and organisational changes in a structured way. As a result, the client was well positioned to support business growth through expansion of their API portfolio in a controlled and scalable manner.
Contact:
For a discussion on how to accelerate you payments and API strategies, contact:
Gary Farrow at gary.farrow@triari.co.uk or +44 (0)755 442 3009