Just imagine a football side in the Champions League. Lionel Messi is on your team but the other players are performing below par or wearing the wrong spikes. You’ll then never win no matter how good Messi is. The same is true of organisations. The staff may be great but good business processes will fail to emerge without the right technology. This is why the success of a digital transformation rests on three cornerstones: people, processes and technology.
A solid strategy
When organisations see changing market needs and wish to invest in an approach that can be adapted to those needs, they require a good strategy, starting with a clear vision. What is the identity or brand of the company? And what experience does it wish to offer its customers? Whatever the desired brand or customer journey might be, technology can help create it, thereby contributing to revenues.
American research firm Gartner says that organisations opting for a strategy based on composable commerce find it easy to readjust and refocus in the face of external factors such as rapidly changing customer needs or market conditions.
Composable commerce
Many IT systems have been developed to satisfy an organisation’s current needs rather than to be flexible and resilient in response to changing conditions. This is where composable commerce can help out.
Composable commerce is a strategy based on a modular IT architecture. Instead of choosing a one-size-fits-all solution, an organisation selects various microservices, separate software modules and appropriate functionalities that meet all its requirements and needs in a single application. This ‘best-of-breed’ approach involves combining the best tools for each functionality. The individual components are optimally integrated and reusable. They can be connected, disconnected, scaled up and improved.
The alternatives are endless and they are user-friendly: by integrating new functions and tools into existing applications, it is possible to build exactly what is required to be adaptable to the needs of the team. And a component can be updated without any adjustments to the other components. Organisations can therefore act quickly when it comes to competing in a saturated market. Gartner calls the components ‘Packaged Business Capabilities’. Examples include a checkout, stock management system, search function, catalogue, chatbot and CRM. The components can be linked via APIs to create a single digital platform.
The future is composable
Composable commerce offers organisations a happy medium. It simplifies the linking of components, with APIs playing a crucial role. The investment may seem costly at first, but organisations will reap the benefits in the long run. They can also work towards a composable strategy more gradually, choosing an existing software application, connecting new components and identifying what is no longer needed. In this way, they can continue to meet unique market and brand needs as well as quickly respond to changing conditions.
Organisations that go for composable commerce have the wind at their back. It helps them build a future-proof foundation where people, processes and technology connect seamlessly. With the right football team, they will be ready for success in today’s rapidly changing digital world.
