Digital platforms continue to contribute to the global economy by enabling new forms of value creation. Whereas the Information Systems literature is dominated by digital platform research, less is said about Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), the engine behind digital platforms. More so, there is a dearth in the literature on how developing economy firms create value through API integration. To address these research gaps, the author conducted a case study on DigMob (Pseudonym), a digital firm that focuses on the sale of indigenous African music to understand how it created value through API integration. Based on Amit and Zott's value creation model, the findings suggest that DigMob's value creation occurs on a broader value network comprising suppliers (e.g., payment service providers) and customers. For instance, DigMob generated value through the API-enabled platform by ensuring that music lovers purchase their preferred songs at competitive prices. DigMob has also been able to increase their revenue and brand image. Similarly, musicians have been able to rake substantial amounts of money through the sales of their music on the platform.
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The ever-evolving business environment calls for stringent measures from businesses. The continues change in the environment is inevitable, and as such firms are continually thriving to explore numerous opportunities to transform their business, and also fulfil the varying needs of customers. Economic forces such as demand and supply are mostly responsible for some of these changes (Sturm, Pollard, & Craig, 2017). The fulfilment of customer needs is also necessitated mainly by the changing needs of customers, regulations, and competitors. Agility has, therefore, become an essential strategy for businesses today. As customers become agile through their changing needs, so are businesses also required to adapt to the changing demands of customers. Despite the myriad of challenges, organizations have to become more innovative, competitive, and remain relevant.
Additionally, firms must be able to create value to survive and succeed (Tantalo & Priem, 2016). Studies have shown that firms can create value through the adoption of various innovation and digital ecosystems (Oh, Chen, Wang, & Liu, 2015; Suseno, Laurell, & Sick, 2018). Moore (1993) contends that businesses that seek to be innovative cannot evolve in a vacuum. As such, they are encouraged to attract new resources, partners, suppliers to create networks (Moore, 1993). Accordingly, businesses are managing innovations through their ecosystems and have become platform leaders (Gawer & Cusumano, 2002). Others have developed a competitive advantage by leveraging their business ecosystems (Iansiti & Levien, 2004). Actors within the digital business ecosystem cooperate and compete at the same time (coopetition) to create new business products, coevolve capabilities, create value and satisfy the needs of customers (Pilinkienė & Mačiulis, 2014). In line with this, value creation has become an important area drawing attention from academics and practitioners (Ruivo, Oliveira, & Neto, 2015; Suseno, Laurell, & Sick, 2018; Gol, & Avital, 2019).
Digital platforms have become ideal technologies for firms that seek to be innovative. Consequently, digital platforms have found their way into the mainstream information systems literature (Tiwana, Konsynsky, & Bush, 2010; Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2013; Gawer, 2014; Reuver, Sørensen, & Basole, 2017). Notably, is the way they are transforming industries (Khan, Shafi, & Ahangar, 2018; Hinings, Gegenhuber, & Greenwood, 2018; Chanias, Myers, & Hess, 2019), enhancing value creation (Jonsson & Holmström, 2008; Lan, Ma, Zhu, Mangalagiu, & Thornton, 2017), and how they disrupt existing industries (Utesheva, Simpson, & Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2016; Chan, Teoh, A, & Pan, 2018). Digital platforms are conceptualized as technical, where the platform is as an extensible codebase, besides the ecosystem is made up of third-party modules supplementing the codebase (Reuver, Sørensen, & Basole, 2017). Another key feature of digital platforms is the interfaces and the ability for the various modules to interoperate (Tiwana, Konsynsky, & Bush, 2010; Ghazawneh & Henfridsson, 2013; Reuver, Sørensen, & Basole, 2017).