Partnerships are the backbone of the Xero app ecosystem, with our community of app partners crucial in connecting our customers to best-in-breed technology, and helping us achieve our mission to make life better for people in small business.

So it was a standout moment for Xero’s ecosystem team, when Xero was recently named a worldwide leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Small Business Finance and Accounting Applications 2020 Vendor Assessment. The report called out our open API and thriving ecosystem of over 800 apps partners - providing valuable access for small businesses to add point solutions — as a key strength.

When we opened up our API over a decade ago, we knew it set us apart — encouraging innovation, extending our platform capability, and ultimately changing the game for small businesses. Cloud accounting with Xero was already an innovation leap forward, but then suddenly small businesses were also able to connect their accounting software with the tools to help run their entire business — boosting efficiency and setting them up for success.

Xero’s open API strategy has also enabled innovation from within the Xero platform. Both Xero Learn and our new short term cash flow feature are built on the Xero API, and Xero Practice Manager (our practice management solution) is now part of our API gateway, allowing us to accelerate innovation and give our customers access to a leading product suite. It also enables customers to choose the best products and apps that suit their individual business needs.

Much loved products like Xero Tax in the UK were also born through identifying opportunities with partners like Instafile from within our ecosystem, enabling even deeper integration into our product suite. These connections have been bolstered through our platform capability, such as Sign in with Xero, to ensure the best experience for our customers.

And since opening our API all of those years ago, it’s been an area we’ve continued to invest in; working closely with our developer and ecosystem community to push forward innovation and turn Xero into a global small business platform. The number of solutions on Xero’s app marketplace only continues to grow, and we’re proud of the community we’ve built, which includes over 70,000 users of our API helping solve niche problems for our 2 million-plus customers.

To be recognised by IDC reinforces us as the ideal partner of choice for developers and app partners wanting access to this global network of small businesses.

But our work is far from done and small businesses need more support now more than ever. In my last post I talked about how our ecosystem is banding together during this time, and highlighted some great initiatives happening within the community to support small business.

We’re continuing to support our partners too — and have some exciting initiatives happening this year, including investments in our app marketplace to make it even easier for small businesses to find the right tools for their business, and our updated program launching later in the year.

We’re very proud to be recognised as a leading global cloud-enabled platform serving small business and we’re grateful to our entire ecosystem community, who help make Xero’s platform what it is today.

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