The platform transition at different layers
We have discussed multiple times in this book that digital platforms consist of three layers: infrastructure, business, and experience/channels. Each layer can be treated and converted into a platform. Infrastructure and business layers are the most common internal platforms that some organizations have started moving toward as part of their digital transformation journey.
The first phase in this transformation is to modularize the architecture and separate the layers. All the technical and functional capabilities of infrastructure and business layers can be exposed as APIs for consumption by internal channels and other layers. For example, adding a room for a hotel on an OTA portal can be extracted out and exposed as an API that will be consumed by a website or an iOS app accessed via an iPad. Similarly, data encryption can be built out as a framework that any other APIs or channels can use.
This phase of modularizing the architecture...