Brands are ready to face changes and meet new expectations

New expectations for the future

Elastic Path’s report found that only 22% of B2B and B2C retailers will develop the functionalities required to implement new technologies in-house. Meanwhile, the remaining 78% will rely on service and technology solution vendors.

This vision of third-party services is part of the trend that Gartner 2021 defines as composable platforms:

• By 2023, 50% of commerce capabilities will incorporate API-centric SaaS services.
• By 2023, organizations that have adopted a composable approach will outperform the competition by 80% in their speed of new feature implementation.
• In the future, we expect to work on aligning the modular architecture with Package Business Capabilities (PBC), which combine microservices, simple coding and orchestration platforms, APIs, and events, managed by merged teams, thus moving towards Composable Commerce.

These figures indicate that it is now important to implement strategic planning to embrace Composable Commerce to be prepared to adopt it, which can be achieved by partnering with experts in the field.

Digital platforms are evolving

Some time ago, monolithic architecture offered one-size-fits-all, then SaaS came along to customize the experience, although not all architectures were ready to incorporate them. However, Headless emerged as a better way to integrate SaaS into the platform.

This decoupled architecture, which is the basis for obtaining composable commerce advantages, allows us to optimize our interface without affecting the platform’s inner workings or what the customer sees.

The composable approach also influences aspects of the customer's digital experience with commerce:

• The customer journey: it aims to have an inflection point at every touchpoint in the customer experience. In turn, B2B businesses that manage their customer relationship through a customer service platform need partners to generate new channels that enable flexible integration.
• The required capabilities: in a composable architecture, integrations are done through Packaged Business Capabilities (PBC). Providing the necessary functions and dynamics modularly.
• The technology dimension: data layers, business logic, and orchestration are evolving, as are the connecting devices, from server-based to API-oriented.

Digitally mature organizations are adopting this format, as companies' business strategies can be approached in a modular way, allowing them to have the vendor that best suits their needs and objectives. For example, the shopping cart, check-out system, or search system will work separately and will not require everything from a single server.

PBCs adapting to Composable Commerce

Structuring a Composable Commerce requires functions and integrations that comprise the entire platform. This is what Packaged Business Capabilities (PBC) is all about, allowing applications to be implemented in an agile, flexible, and phased manner.

The interface that the client sees and its integrations operate with our systems; as they are decoupled, they use APIs to communicate. These load the requested information, perform a process on each PBC vendor's cloud server and carry out the integration.

We can say that the interface and our systems are the business neurons and the APIs are the synapses.

A system that bears similarities with this is the architecture proposed by the MACH Alliance: Microservices, APIs, Cloud-based and Headless, so it is built like composable, although it goes a step further than this technology, taking a business perspective.

Are we ready for the change?

Brands must be digitally mature to effectively adopt Composable Commerce, i.e., have a clear strategy for growth in their digital channels and teams prepared for it, or have expert support.

Requirements to convert companies to composable:

• Have an IT Maturity Index of 3 on the Gartner scale. That is, systematically approach improvements at an early stage, relying on the data and trends available for it.
• Bimodal IT, running at different speeds depending on the context, using different methodologies, where one can keep the functions stable while the other has the agility to test experimental solutions.
• Own the product and its management to apply digital thinking oriented to both, which allows you to have a global vision.
• Use agile development methodologies, merged teams, working autonomously to achieve the same objectives.
• Software development and IT operations must go together, either handled internally or by a trusted partner with the maturity to allow more frequent and less impactful releases.
• Have servers in the cloud that can perform the operations, or part of them in local systems, and the rest in the cloud, known as hybrid architecture.

What can we do to be prepared?

To embrace composable architecture, we have to let go of the “old ways,” so we recommend:

• Ditch monolithic solutions; some offers divide monoliths into modules, but they are still rigid platforms that make it difficult to adopt the composable approach.
• Search for API-Driven solutions that allow us to use these divisible interfaces that can be fitted together like pieces.
• Increase the delivery speed of block-built products that are versatile enough to be reordered according to our current and future needs.
• Align IT and business teams to have the same focus; though they’re autonomous with different functions, their goal is the same.

Thanks to Composable, we can say that these modules are practically Lego pieces. We will make a perfectly assembled puzzle relying on experts’ help to achieve a platform aligned with the business strategies. Thus, Reign is the partner you need in order to have specialized vendors for each part of your PBC.