APIs in action: Exploring API use cases
Data, and your ability to access it, can be your North Star when it comes to driving mission-critical business initiatives––whether it is improving the customer experience or increasing IT efficiencies. This is where APIs come in; APIs allow you to create end-to-end connections to expose and communicate data across multiple channels. Examples of the power of APIs are all around us. Take Wells Fargo, for example, which is using APIs to create a better customer and partner experience. In the healthcare space, there’s a major health system, which is using APIs to deliver quality patient care. And in retail, New York & Company is now a leader in omnichannel through the use of APIs. In short, APIs are helping organizations across all industries drive innovation.
Here’s a look into how APIs are delivering on digital transformation goals across various industries and organizations.
Financial Services: Wells Fargo
A seamless customer experience is not only desired, but expected. When Wells Fargo began looking for a solution to build a Banking-as-a-Service platform, it looked to APIs for answers.
Wells Fargo has roughly 273,000 employees and serves 70 million customers across 8,500 locations. As part of its digital transformation initiative, the bank built the Wells Fargo Gateway platform to deliver a complete digital experience, whether over the phone, on the web, or through mobile devices. An API-led approach to connectivity allows the bank to integrate applications to deliver a more responsive and robust experiences for both customers and partners.
Retail: New York & Company
As retailers begin to search for new ways to deliver more impactful customer experiences, IT is playing an increasingly pivotal role in answering the call for solutions. For New York & Company, IT delivered on the call by working to deliver an omnichannel system to power an in-store digital experience.
Omnichannel gives customers more than one way to engage with a brand and product. New York & Company was looking to capitalize on an omnichannel system to stay relevant through digital networks, bridge brick-and-mortar and eCommerce and create a seamless customer experience. To do this, they needed to create a platform able to connect multiple endpoints to deliver quality service, while maintaining control.
Through an API-led approach powered by MuleSoft, New York & Company is now able to leverage mobile applications to take real-time inventory calls through specialty kiosks and complete end-to-end transactions. This capability has landed the store a #3 spot on the list of best omnichannel retailers.
While advances in medicine and the development of new operating equipment may be the poster child of medical innovation, APIs are giving organizations an upper hand when it comes to delivering quality patient care.
A major private health system needed a way to expose data across the organization to ensure physicians and other employees could get a comprehensive understanding of patient needs. With a vision in mind to build a connected network across 7 hospitals and 40,000 employees, MuleSoft helped the private health system construct 15 APIs in 4 months to expose data throughout their electronic health record system. Now, with the help of API-led connectivity, that system is able to optimize on patient care planning, connect with partner organizations to improve outcomes, and increase IT agility.
Organizations across every industry are leveraging APIs for digital solutions. For more insights on the value of API adoption, and to see how your business can leverage them to enable digital transformation, download the MuleSoft Connectivity Benchmark Report 2018 and learn more about how MuleSoft is helping customers achieve digital transformation and other business goals..
Image above depict a three-layered microservices architecture showcasing how API-led connectivity can accelerate the implementation of healthcare use-cases.