Pure Coding Pleasure: How BMW Involves App Developers in the Design of Automotive Onboard APIs

Digital transformation requires incumbent companies to accelerate the development of their digital products. The automotive industry is a prominent example of this change. Even though, research frequently considers digital transformation of organizations, there are rare perceptions on the change of the actual technology. This action research study provides deep insights in the endeavors of the global operating car manufacturer BMW towards a generic design of onboard application programming interfaces (APIs) which should enhance accelerated development of digital products. To help the firm embrace generativity, we therefore infused lead user involvement theory and API evaluation criteria into the API design team. As a result, we present 5 majorly refined APIs, which are implemented in the BMW App SDK. Further, we identified critical challenges and benefits for the involvement of lead users in the design of enabling technology within an incumbent company.

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