PROJECT REPORT On RAKUTEN RAPIDAPI By DEEKSHITHA R 1NH18MBA18 Submitted to DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES NEW HORIZON COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, OUTER RING ROAD, MARATHALLI, BANGALORE In partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the degree of MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Under the guidance of Dr. Smita Harwani Sr. Assistant Professor 2018-2020 CERTIFICATE This is to certify that DEEKSHITHA R bearing USN 1NH18MBA18, is a bonafide student of Master of Business Administration course of the institute 2018-20, autonomous program, affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum. The project report on “RAKUTEN RAPIDAPI” is prepared by him under the guidance of Smita Harwani, in partial fulfilment of requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Business Administration of Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum Karnataka. Signature of Internal Guide Signature of HOD Signature of Principal Name of the Examiners with affiliation Signature with date 1. External Examiner 2. Internal Examiner DECLARATION I, Jana Jaya Sai Teja, hereby declare that the project report titled “RAKUTEN RAPIDAPI” with reference to “RAKUTEN” prepared by me under the guidance of Smita Harwani, faculty of M.B.A Department, New Horizon College of Engineering. I also declare that this Internship is towards the partial fulfilment of the university regulations for the award of the degree of Master of Business Administration by Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum. I have undergone an internship for a period of eight weeks. I further declare that this report is based on the original study undertaken by me and has not been submitted for the award of a degree/diploma from any other University/Institution. Signature of Student Place: Date: ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I grateful to all those who has been an inspiration and supported me throughout in completing my Internship Report on Rakuten RapidAPI.. I like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Manjunatha, The Principal of New Horizon College of Engineering. And Dr. Sheelan Misra, Head of the Department, Management Studies. I would like to thank my internal guide Sr. Asst. Professor Smita Harwani, for his continuous support and guiding me throughout the Internship. His constructive criticism, extensive comments and time dedication has a direct impact on the quality of this Internship. I sincerely express my humble thanks to Mr. Yeshas Nag, Managing Director, Radical Frames and Media Works Pvt Ltd, Bengaluru who constantly assisted me in shaping and execution of my internship by giving me all the required data and support to complete my work and by constantly guiding during period of internship. I would also like to thank you all the respondents who help me to complete the survey and collect the data regarding my topic on Rakuten RapidAPI. I would like to express our sincere thanks to our college management, teaching and non-teaching stuffs for offering me various resources and all those who helped me a lot in finalizing this project within the limited time frame I also thank my family and friend who have assisted me to complete my Internship work and report writing for the concerned topic. DEEKSHITHA R 1NH18MBA18 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Contents Page no. 1 Executive Summary 01 2 Key Activities and Results 02 3 Industry Profile 03 4 Theoretical Background 17 5 Analysis and Interpretation 34 6 Findings, Suggestions and Conclusion 50 Annexure TABLES & GRAPHS Sl.no Table Names Page No. 1 The API Strategy Blueprint 5 2 Companies gaining tangible results with 16 API Strategies 3 Product Details 41 4 API Management Market 43 5 API Consumption 45 6 Project Roadmap 47 7 Product Sales Funnel 49 8 Social Media platform used for B2B 55 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This project is based on a product from Rakuten, introduced in India for Enterprises. The product is a management, governance, and monetization platform for APIs. APIs (Application programming Interface is a computing interface which facilitates smooth interface between software intermediaries. In simple words, it can be defined as a communication channel between apps and data. APIs have gained tremendous popularity over the last few years, and are turning into a disruptive technology, changing the function of technology processes of businesses. Large codes are being replaced by APIs. This platform is one of its kind in the Indian market. There are very few companies that can be considered direct competitors. This report gives an insight on theoretical aspects such as: • Rakuten Enterprise • What are APIs • How APIs are changing Businesses • API Market • Future Scope of APIs Also, the report consists of my project at Rakuten and role I performed: • Lead Generation • First Contact Establishment • Content Creation • Social Media Analysis • Webinar Lead generation • Website User-Interface analysis • Event Evaluation for sponsorships 1 KEY ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS • Lead Generation – 3 Leads Generated • Content creation –FAQs, Content for social Media, Content for Website • Website User Interface Evaluation – 11 improvements suggested • Driving Webinar Participation– 25 C-Level Participants • Events Evaluation for Sponsorship – 5 Events • Social Media Analysis- Action items for active social media presence submitted 2 CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1: What is an API? (Application Programming Interface) API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Each time you use an app like Facebook, send an instant message, or check the weather on your phone, you’re using an API. When you use an application on your mobile phone, the application connects to the Internet and sends data to a server. The server then retrieves that data, interprets it, performs the necessary actions and sends it back to your phone. The application then interprets that data and presents you with the information you wanted in a readable way. This is what an API is - all of this happens via API. To explain this better, let us take a familiar example. Imagine you’re sitting at a table in a restaurant with a menu of choices to order from. The kitchen is the part of the “system” that will prepare your order. What is missing is the critical link to communicate your order to the kitchen and deliver your food back to your table. That’s where the waiter or API comes in. The waiter is the messenger – or API – that takes your request or order and tells the kitchen – the system – what to do. Then the waiter delivers the response back to you; in this case, it is the food. Here is a real-life API example. You may be familiar with the process of searching flights online. Just like the restaurant, you have a variety of options to choose from, including different cities, departure and return dates, and more. Let us imagine that you’re booking you are flight on an airline website. You choose a departure city and date, a return city and date, cabin class, as well as other variables. In order to book your flight, you interact with the airline’s website to access their database and see if any seats are available on those dates and what the costs might be. However, what if you are not using the airline’s website––a channel that has direct access to the information? What if you are using an online travel service, such as Kayak or Expedia, which aggregates information from a number of airline databases? 3 The travel service, in this case, interacts with the airline’s API. The API is the interface that, like your helpful waiter, can be asked by that online travel service to get information from the airline’s database to book seats, baggage options, etc. The API then takes the airline’s response to your request and delivers it right back to the online travel service, which then shows you the most updated, relevant information. Your phone’s data is never fully exposed to the server, and likewise the server is never fully exposed to your phone. Instead, each communicates with small packets of data, sharing only that which is necessary—like ordering takeout. You tell the restaurant what you would like to eat, they tell you what they need in return and then, in the end, you get your meal. APIs have become so valuable that they comprise a large part of many business’ revenue. Major companies like Google, eBay, Salesforce.com, Amazon, and Expedia are just a few of the companies that make money from their APIs. What the “API economy” refers to is this marketplace of APIs. 1.2: The Modern API Over the years, what an “API” is has often described any sort of generic connectivity interface to an application. More recently, however, the modern API has taken on some characteristics that make them extraordinarily valuable and useful: • Modern APIs adhere to standards (typically HTTP and REST), that are developer-friendly, easily accessible and understood broadly • They are treated more like products than code. They are designed for consumption for specific audiences (e.g., mobile developers), they are documented, and they are versioned in a way that users can have certain expectations of its maintenance and lifecycle. • Because they are much more standardized, they have a much stronger discipline for security and governance, as well as monitored and managed for performance and scale • As any other piece of productized software, the modern API has its own software development lifecycle (SDLC) of designing, testing, building, managing, and versioning. Also, modern APIs are well documented for consumption and versioning. 4 Fig.1.1: The API Strategy Blueprint 5 1.3: The API Strategy Blueprint 1.3.1: Establish Digital Strategy If there’s one stage in the API strategy blueprint that’s critical to the success of the others, it is establishing your organization’s digital strategy.