When a product or service reaches its "tipping point" in terms of market saturation and no longer provides opportunities for further scaling, it becomes a signal for a business to think about shifting to a business ecosystem strategy. Why not leverage someone else's expertise and pay a fee for their product if it's not your core competency?
For example, why not use an external solution to handle customer service inquiries? Or for sending SMS to customers and charging their cards? There are plenty of options on the market that will probably handle this better and cheaper than an in-house solution.
This strategy involves a deep analysis of the business environment where partnerships, collaboration, and innovation become key to achieving sustainable growth and remaining relevant in today's dynamic and competitive environment.
This approach to goal setting assumes that today's business ecosystems are seen as a dynamic and constantly evolving landscape, shaping new customer value through mutually beneficial partnerships, synergies, and diversity of solutions provided, while maintaining the identity of the digital product within the larger system.
Superapps is a good example of this.
In breaking down the barriers between industries, super-apps have the power to meld experiences that were previously distinct. While such apps may not replace every app on a Western user’s phone, they will likely shake up consumers’ expectations for a mobile-first experience. Through cross-service insights, new partnerships, and embedded payment capabilities, tech platforms and service providers of all kinds have an opportunity to streamline the smartphone user experience, build customer loyalty, and differentiate their brands.
—by Gopi Billa, principal; Zach Aron, principal; and Mark Purowitz, principal, all with Deloitte Consulting LLP
However, you want it to be part of your product, so you'll need to integrate it. This is where APIs, SDKs, web frames, SSOs, and microservices come into the picture.
In this article, I'd like to elaborate on a trickier aspect: when the core value of your product is built around integrating with other partners, especially those who have never provided their product to an external market before.
The insights below will be based on Gett's experience in building an international network of transportation services on a single platform. Our goal is to provide a single platform for booking and managing transportation for corporate customers with the ability to travel anywhere in the world.
API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of methods and rules by which different programs communicate with each other and exchange data.
All these interactions take place with the help of functions, classes, methods, structures, and sometimes constants of one program that are accessed by other programs. This is the basic principle of how APIs work.
Let's say you buy a movie ticket using a bank card. During the purchase, the terminal accesses the API of the bank that issued your card and sends a request for payment. And if you order a cab through an app, it also accesses the payment system through the API.
**SDK (**software development kit) is a set of platform-specific tools for developers.
Components such as debuggers, compilers, and libraries are required to create code that runs on a particular platform, operating system, or programming language. SDKs contain everything you need to develop and run software in one place. They also contain resources such as documentation, tutorials, and guides, as well as APIs and platforms to accelerate application development.
SDKs allow you to use third-party tools and resources in your environment. An application programming interface (API) is a mechanism that allows two software components to communicate with each other using predefined protocols.
You can use APIs to communicate with existing software components and integrate pre-defined functions into your code. SDKs can include APIs and several other resources for the platform they support.
Similarly, you can use SDKs to create new APIs that you can share with others. Both SDKs and APIs make the software development process more efficient and collaborative.
Every large company was required to have an internal transportation management department responsible for finding, selecting, and signing contracts with transportation service providers in every country and city where there was business. Picture this: up to 20 suppliers per country, talk about a maze!
Now, let's dive into the world of transportation services. The market for transportation services is quite fragmented. And while this article is mainly focused on product integrations and positioned from a product manager's perspective, it's important to note: integrations require multiple commercial aspects to accommodate business interests.
So, here's the deal – while I guide you through the product manager's lens, I've got to throw in a little reminder. Some of the steps we're about to bust through will need a commercial specialist to tag along. It's like a buddy system for business interests, you know? They'll be right there, side by side, joining the adventure.
To embark on this journey, start by defining the landscape and your requirements. If you're venturing into a new niche, the initial step involves understanding who the major players are, how they currently operate, and identifying potential integration points.
Here's a roadmap to guide you:
By following these steps, you'll be equipped with a solid foundation for navigating the complexities of integration within your chosen niche.
This exercise will help to achieve:
✅ Have an idea of how the industry works
✅What are the average product/service offerings on the market
✅How your platform can disrupt the market (current weaknesses)
✅What are the current API possibilities of the players and what they lack vs the native products
✅Respectively, what to ask later on to add from them
✅What can be asked from the other players in the market to meet the competition
✅What can you incorporate into your product already
Based on your research, the next step is to define the vision and future capabilities of your product (hints will be listed below in the insights section). Make sure you cover both the standard market features and what makes your product unique. This should be a clear set.
It is then important to identify what can be implemented within your product and what will need to be provided and handled by suppliers.
The latter should be used to identify gaps in the current API capabilities of each of the selected vendors. In this way, it will be possible to formulate a "request": what you want them to build in exchange for the business opportunity you provide.
Entering the market is akin to pitching - it's a delicate dance of integration.
Think of it as an intricate tango of companies intertwining through APIs. It's highly unlikely that suppliers will just hand you an API; instead, your company needs to seamlessly integrate it into its API framework.
Your product must be versatile enough to support a myriad of unique integrations with each supplier standard. Consequently, any advancements in the supplier's API will lead to subsequent integration efforts on your company's part.
Essentially, the next move is to captivate the players with your product, showcasing its potential impact on revenue and instilling confidence that your offering won't disrupt their business. It's about painting a vivid picture of collaboration through API integration and ensuring a harmonious partnership in the market ecosystem.
The key recommendations would consist of: