API Standards and Third-Party Integrations
SITUATION
A North American company serving hundreds of destination hotels sought to expand into Europe but faced significant challenges with its API integrations:
- The company’s existing APIs connected core services to property management systems (PMS) used by over 90% of operators in North America. However, European hotels used entirely different systems, requiring new integrations.
- Existing APIs were bespoke, taking an average of 10 weeks to develop per interface. Each was built by a single developer, with minimal cross-training, creating a dependency on the original builder for maintenance.
- Interfaces lacked consistent functionality, as they were tailored to the specific features of each third-party PMS.
COMPLICATIONS
The expansion effort was further hindered by:
- Poor Documentation: Many APIs were poorly documented, with some source code containing multiple spoken languages interspersed, making it difficult for other developers to understand and maintain.
- Cost Prohibitive Development:New APIs required weeks or months of dedicated time from a single developer, making it financially unfeasible to create interfaces without multiple customer prospects to justify the cost. This often resulted in losing prospects during the waiting period.
- Lack of Standards:Over a decade of evolutionary additions to the API ecosystem had resulted in inconsistent and outdated interfaces, with older ones nearing obsolescence.
APPROACH
To address these challenges, I implemented a strategic and systematic approach:
- Pain Point Analysis: Conducted a thorough review of existing APIs to identify what worked, what didn’t, and where inefficiencies lay.
- Efficiency Opportunities: Explored ways to reduce the time and cost of PMS interface development by identifying opportunities to reuse code and eliminate the need for bespoke solutions.
- Scalability Focus: Designed solutions that would not only address immediate needs but also support ongoing maintenance as the number of interfaces grew from under 20 to over 50.
- Prototyping and Feasibility Testing: Built prototypes and proofs of concept to validate scalability and ensure objectives could be met.
- Simultaneous Development: Delivered initial interfaces by building two or more simultaneously, allowing for abstraction of functionality and reducing reliance on one-off features.
- Documentation and Standards: Created comprehensive documentation and established patterns for future APIs, including standards for architecture and non-functional requirements.
EXECUTION
I led the team through a series of targeted actions:
- Reverse Engineering: Analyzed the most recent API, which had been left unfinished by a departing developer, and compared it with four other reliable and high-performing interfaces.
- Pattern Recognition: Compiled a list of objectives, recurring problems, and opportunities for improvement, ultimately identifying three distinct interface types that could serve as the foundation for new standards.
- Standardized API Development: Built API-first interfaces for the three base standards, maximizing feature reuse to ensure commonality across different interface types.
- Collaboration with PMS Teams:Partnered with client PMS teams to develop purpose-built APIs for integration testing, streamlining the implementation process.
RESULTS
The outcomes were transformative:
- Dramatic Time Reduction: Reduced the average time to develop new interfaces from 10 weeks to just 6 days.
- Streamlined Implementation:Purpose-built APIs for integration testing cut the implementation process from over a day to just 1 hour, with only 15 minutes of that time requiring company staff involvement.
- Proactive Development: Lower costs and risks enabled the company to build APIs proactively before securing sales, reducing delays in ROI.
- Improved Customer Experience: Customer satisfaction ratings increased by 1.5 points due to a smoother and more predictable onboarding process.
- Enhanced Performance: New APIs replaced aging interfaces, delivering up to 10x performance gains and consuming 4x less bandwidth.
- Standardized Deployment:Preloaded co-located computers with all available interfaces were shipped to customers, ensuring seamless integration with various PMS systems.
LESSONS and TAKEAWAYS
This project underscored several key insights:
- Standardization with Flexibility: While standardization is critical for efficiency, it must allow for exceptions to accommodate unique features and quirks of third-party systems.
- Customer Onboarding Matters: A smooth onboarding experience sets the tone for positive future interactions, particularly in B2B relationships.
- Proactive Development Drives Growth: By reducing the time and cost of API development, the company was able to deliver interfaces before prospects lost interest, contributing to a 20% increase in sales and business growth.
- Documentation Lowers Friction: High-quality documentation and adherence to standards simplified code maintenance, reducing reliance on individual developers and ensuring long-term scalability.
- Overcoming Resistance: Initial skepticism about the feasibility of API standardization was overcome by demonstrating quick, tangible results that worked effectively.
- Acquisition and Exit: Streamlining critical operations led to efficiencies that were attractive to a potential suitor that subsequently acquired the company in a private transaction. Founders sold and retired from their business.