apidays Amsterdam 2025 | APIs with a Purpose

APIs with a Purpose
Speaker: Roger Stoffers, Enterprise Architect at ASN Bank

This session explored how APIs can be redefined beyond technical contracts to become true business enablers. Roger Stoffers, Enterprise Architect at ASN Bank, challenged the traditional tech-first mindset and reframed APIs as purposeful integration points that connect business processes, automate decisions, and power customer experiences across organizational boundaries.

The talk examined the essential qualities APIs must embody to deliver real business value—clear alignment with business intent, strong semantic design, resilience, observability, and adaptability. Through an enterprise lens, the session invited architects, product leaders, and platform teams to rethink APIs not as interfaces, but as the connective tissue that enables modern, scalable, and coherent digital organizations.
Conference Details:
Conference: apidays Amsterdam 2025
Theme: Enterprise GenAI-readiness with the API mindset
Date: 6 November 2025 • Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam

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Transcript

1. EA for intentional business transformation APIs with a PURPOSE Roger Stoffers Presenting as independent speaker
2. Roger Stoffers, Enterprise Architect, Author Presenting here as independent architect Personal 54y, married, 2 children The Netherlands, Europe Passions: Reading / Authoring Karting / Horseback riding Professional 30+ years in the field Developer Various architecture roles Principal Integration Architect Enterprise Architect Passions: Digital Transformation Business Transformation (Business) Integration Current: EA at ASN Bank Owner of Suresult Author, Consultant, Coach Advising roles present past
3. Introducing Regent & Rye Integration as tech plumbing. Capabilities lacking flow. Fictional 160 yo luxury bakery Vision Mission Strategy Launch partner marketplace Lift B2B Loyalty Reduce cost-to-change Architectural debt Strategy blockers Organisational structure Capability Map Loyalty Offers Ordering Partner Onboarding Settlement Capabilities trapped in systems across teams Fulfilment Future innovation: Explore AI -/- -/-
4. Capability Map Enterprise Architecture at work Value can’t flow without purposeful integration Loyalty Ordering Partner Onboarding Settlement Fulfilment Offers Architectural debt Strategy blockers Organisational structure Rules & Data spread across 20 systems 20 systems managed by 5 teams A single API calls 3-5 others A single change involves 3-4 teams Symptoms Change lead time 6-12 weeks
5. Team myOrdering Team NewDeli Enterprise Architecture at work Loyalty Offers Ordering Partner Onboarding Settlement Fulfilment LegacyOrdering 2ndGenOrdering Catalog NewCatalog RRDelivery NextGenDelivery Team “Stork” Fulfilment RRDelivery NextGenDelivery Team “Kingfisher” Offers Catalog NewCatalog Establish a “composable organization” … but how … ? … an organisation geared for sustainable effective and efficient change …
6. Business Capability: Delivery Business Capability: Ordering Business Capability Operating Models A mechanism for finding candidate APIs: Business Integration at heart! Ordering Delivery Roles Automation Data Process Data Roles Automation Process /Order /Deliver /Return Order Capture Organisational module / Reusable business component (*) (*) J. Ross Pick order Ship order Allocate Loyalty Pts Business Process Integration {API} Business Process Order Delivery
7. APIs as Productised Promises • Name + Definition • Purpose • Business Data • Terms of Use • SLA • Policy Model • Version(s) • Consumers • Providers Business Owner Accountable… Sponsor… /Ordering  Value team Responsible for “change” API Canvas “Business Contract” API Qualities(*) Standardised Interoperable Loose coupling Reusable Discoverable Autonomous (*) Thomas Erl: Principles of Service Design Now that is an API!  Balance qualities wisely!
8. Find APIs: only then… Execution Build the product, not a project… Business Analysis Business Process domains Data domains Roles & Responsibilities Organise teams around this Allocate applications /Ship /Offer /Payment Product delivery sliced into compound value Besides APIs, mind business events! - new capabilities, real-time analytics & decisioning - one-to-many async deeply decoupled integrations - extra layer of scalability and flexibility and central to composability
9. Outcomes Metrics the board funds: from uptime to business outcomes… Marketplace live in 8 weeks Partner onboarding from 6 weeks to 5 days Cost to change: -30% Loyalty redemption rate: +22% API reuse ratio: 3.8x across journeys
10. Innovation: Explore AI-assisted enterprise Drive loyalty: Programmable Coupons with predictable outcomes Sales Catalog mgt. Budget mgt. Coupon mgt. Business Analysis Business Process domains Data domains Roles & Responsibilities Organise teams Build Loyalty Agent Agent roles: - Analyser, Planner - Monitor & Controller, Veto-er Eagle team (sales) Hawk team (controller) Drive loyalty: Programmable Coupons with predictable outcomes Sales Catalog mgt. Budget mgt. Coupon mgt. Agent roles: - Analyser, Planner - Monitor & Controller, Veto-er Eagle team (sales) Hawk team (controller) UX / Channels Customer Engagement SoR Fallout mgt Monitoring & Control Ordering Rules  /  /Product /Compatibility /Budget /Eligibility /Coupon /Offer /PartnerIdentity /Orderhistory /Pricing /… APIs make loyalty composable; agentic AI makes them self-improving while deterministic guardrails make outcomes dependable by limiting agent creativity. Guard rails: 6 strategies 1. A specific agent for each distinct purpose - Analyser, Planner, Veto-er 2. Only access to relevant APIs (deterministic) - Access: Pricing, Coupons, Products, Customers, Orders - No access: Employee, Payroll, Accounts, … 3. High-quality APIs - Standardised, interoperable, documented, distinct, semantically clear 4. Business Rules (deterministic) - Customer only sees valid offers 5. Orchestrated processes where needed (deterministic) - Monitoring/control, fallout 6. Human in the loop: Hawk team - Monitoring & control - Veto
11. Business Analysis + KPIs = relevant innovation loop Takeaways APIs are strategic interfaces into business capabilities Business Capabilities: operating model ensuring it behaves as a reusable business component Interfaces are standardised, interoperable, decoupled, defined for business Measure what matters to business: outcome over uptime Avoid the tech trap: an HTTP endpoint is not an API Analyse process first, only then the rest! (organization, automation, …) Policy in code ≠ strategy in motion Enabler for Agentic AI  AI   AI   AI   AI   AI   AI  Many of the principles for API design are needed for the enabling of Agentic AI (through RAG)
12. Questions ?? ??
13. End
14. Author
15. Training & Consulting Coaching & Empowering Roger Stoffers, resultant