My API Story: Fostering cohesive global digital experiences

Tell us about yourself and your job.

As a dedicated technology enthusiast, I am deeply passionate about all things tech. I enjoy inspiring and guiding colleagues while actively collaborating within a team, fostering innovation and achieving our collective goals in the fast-paced world of technology.

Within the Vodafone Group, I am responsible for Vodafone’s global integration architecture, providing crucial support to our operating companies by offering guidance on best practices, principles, governance, and standards. Additionally, as a lead architect, I drive strategic initiatives within the integration domain.

I also co-lead our API Guild, a vibrant community of practice comprising API architects and designers. Here, we discuss all things, including extensions to our API. Operating on a TM Forum Open API-first approach, the guild ensures the seamless reuse and implementation of TM Forum Open APIs throughout Vodafone on a global scale.

Why do you believe in TM Forum’s Open API program?

We support TM Forum's Open API program because it recognizes the crucial role of open and standardized APIs in shaping the future of telecommunications and digital services. This translates into benefits such as improved interoperability, increased innovation, and heightened market competitiveness.

What TM Forum Open APIs are most valuable to your company?

Vodafone has strategically implemented several TM Forum Open APIs that play a crucial role in ensuring seamless integration across our technology landscape. To name a few:

• TMF620 – Product Catalogue Management
• TMF622 – Product Ordering Management
• TMF629 – Customer Management
• TMF676 – Payment Management
• TMF677 – Usage Consumption Management
• TMF678 – Customer Bill Management
• TMF680 – Recommendation Management

Why did you choose to highlight these APIs?

These APIs play a pivotal role in our expanding eco-system of technical interfaces, which enable our journey and business services to access and manipulate system records in a consistent and reliable manner.

The Catalog Enrichment API (TMF620) provides a standardized solution for rapidly incorporating partners’ products to an existing Catalog, empowering service providers to directly communicate technical product details to their partners.

The Product Ordering Management API (TMF622) enables consumer apps to efficiently manage key product parameters, such as category, pricing, T&Cs, deals, state, delivery location, and billing details.

The Customer Management API (TMF629) provides a standardized mechanism for customer and account management, critical for any customer-focused industry.

The Payment Management API (TMF676) provides the standardized client interface that facilitates seamless interaction with payment systems for the management of payments or refunds. It is utilized by various platforms, including web servers, mobile app servers, contact center dashboards, and retail store systems.

The Usage Consumption Management API (TMF677) provides customers with immediate insights into their usage across various communication products (SMS, Voice, Data, TV), eliminating the need to wait for the billing cycle. It retrieves detailed usage data related to subscribed balances.

The Customer Bill Management API (TMF678) generates electronic or paper bills at the end of the billing process by consolidating and displaying items charged to a customer during the billing period. It encapsulates applied customer billing rates, ensuring transparency and accuracy.

The Recommendation Management API (TMF680) leverages historical and real-time customer data to delivers quick and personalized recommendations. Typically utilized by e-commerce or BSS/CRM systems in omnichannel settings, it enhances the customer experience with real-time offerings based on individual preferences.[AC1] [MV2] [AC3]

How do you use these APIs?

We leverage these APIs to empower an omni-channel experience within our digital experience layers, using these standard interfaces to serve global channels such as the My Vodafone App. This implementation also ensures seamless re-use across our diverse local markets.

Technical APIs play a crucial role in facilitating interactions and efficient data exchange among software applications and systems. Their application goes beyond just enabling frictionless integration; they significantly enhance the velocity at which teams can develop and deliver features.

How have you benefited from using these APIs?

The seamless integration of APIs across all local markets has been a critical success factor in Vodafone’s IT transformation journey. Rather than being isolated pieces of functionality, APIs are meant to be leveraged across various applications and business scenarios, fostering a cohesive global digital experience layer.

Aligning the APIs across all our local markets to a standardized set of APIs has yielded several key benefits:

• Driving Open API Standards
• Co-creating API references: documentation, implementation, test scripts
• Increasing adoption of CI/CD and code sharing across markets
• Strengthening open-source, reuse and API development cultures
• Leveraging the community experience through the governance process, facilitated by the API Guild
• Reducing integration and implementation costs through re-use.

Where do you use these APIs?

Our APIs are deployed across a network of more than 16 operating companies (op-cos), with a remarkable implementation of 259+ instances.