As a business representative, you may be familiar with the following situation?
You have a simple requirement that needs to be implemented in your existing webshop. However, the feedback from your IT is sobering: several dozen days of development are necessary for implementation, not including testing. The work can also be scheduled for next year at the earliest, as the team is still working on an upgrade of the webshop software from version X to Y. Unfortunately, this has turned out to be much more complicated than expected, but is urgently needed to close existing security gaps and not lose product support. And actually, IT recommends not making this adjustment anyway: “never touch a running system”. Result: frustration.
If the buzzwords currently being passed around in the industry are to be believed, you would not have such problems with a “MACH architecture” or a “composable architecture”. We at diselva are also staunch advocates of these approaches, but we also want to raise awareness that this topic needs to be viewed from different perspectives. In this blog post, we would like to discuss the specific advantages of these approaches and illustrate them with examples. In addition, however, we will also shed light on the other side of the coin and describe challenges and how to meet them.
“MACH architecture” & “composable commerce” – what do these terms even mean?
The MACH Alliance (an association of various product, infrastructure and service providers) offers its article understandable explanations for readers with different previous knowledge. For non-technical readers, the approach of a “composable architecture” is described as follows:
“[an approach] that breaks down a large, complex problem into smaller, more manageable pieces. In the context of software architecture, composable architecture allows developers to create systems from smaller, reusable components that can be easily combined and reconfigured to meet the specific needs of a specific project.”
MACH is an acronym of the principles to be applied: Microservices, API first, Cloud Native, and Headless. My colleague, Cuno, goes into more detail about these principles in his blog post and describes how to build a composable commerce architecture.
From a business point of view, I will try to summarize in a simplified way:
Instead of a complex, monolithic system, the overall solution is divided into smaller, separate components. These components can be combined as desired and expanded with other components over time. The user interfaces are deliberately separated from the application logic so that a wide variety of channels can be served with the same components or services.
What are the benefits for an organization?
The approaches described are the answer to the frustration about situations like the one shown at the beginning. These new approaches create some advantages.
The decoupling and use of suitable infrastructure and tools means that there is more flexibility in the composition and expansion of the overall solution in different dimensions.
For example, a purchased SaaS Commerce Engine can be combined with a self-built application for price calculation. There is no need to make an either/or decision between “make” (building the complete commerce solution yourself) and “buy” (buying an expensive commerce engine that also covers more complex pricing models).
This flexibility leads to fewer dependencies than with large, complex and expensive monolith solutions, which often cause a lock-in effect through high license fees and long-term contracts. Customers are also often dependent on the prioritization of the vendor’s product roadmap in the area of functionalities. Instead of waiting for the Commerce Engine provider to integrate personalized product recommendations into its own software, a corresponding, specialized service can be integrated in a composable architecture if necessary.
In addition, modularization and decoupling increase the adaptability of the overall system. Since functionalities are logically separated from each other, an adjustment of the price calculation can, for example, be made in isolation in the defined price service. Ideally, this will not change anything in the existing interfaces. And if it does, only the components that are actually connected would also have to be adapted. On the one hand, this significantly reduces the complexity and thus the effort of such adjustments and, on the other hand, also enables a certain parallelization of the development work.
The use of cloud infrastructure in combination with functional decoupling also enables better scaling . Solutions can be built in such a way that, if necessary, upscaling runs automatically on the one hand and is carried out in a targeted manner for those applications that have to handle the actual load on the other. On an online campaign day like Black Friday, for example, all services related to the ordering process would be automatically adapted to the very high load in the meantime.
Last but not least, it is important to successfully equip yourself for the future. Because both analysts (such as Gartner) and the marketing departments of the software providers agree: the market is developing in the direction of API-centric SaaS solutions that find their natural place in composable architectures.
What challenges need to be considered?
In summary, the biggest challenge is to convert the described advantages into actual business benefits. Some of the aspects mentioned can also have negative effects if approached incorrectly.
The first step is always the hardest. Perhaps a truism, but nevertheless particularly suitable for this topic. For composable architecture approaches, too, it is essential to first create clean foundations before plunging into implementation. This can be achieved if an overview of the status quo is created at the beginning:
- Which systems are already in use, what functionalities do they offer and where do they stand in their product life cycle?
- Which business processes are mapped via these systems and where are the biggest levers for positive business effects?
- Which touchpoints are currently offered and where are the obstacles or gaps to offer a seamless customer journey?
- …
On this basis, an overarching vision for the digital landscape was to be developed in line with the corporate strategy, which would set the direction for all subsequent initiatives. The aim is to formulate a holistic roadmap that maps the necessary steps from the ACTUAL to the TARGET state in sensibly prioritized steps and expansion stages. How this basic work can be successfully mastered is described very vividly by my colleague Jörg Brunschwiler in this article.
Once the vision and roadmap have been defined, the next challenge lies in the planning and management of the project or program. Here, some of the advantages mentioned are also reflected in their negative guise. Flexibility, adaptability and parallelized work can quickly end in chaos. Therefore, the following two aspects are central to keeping complexities and dependencies under control.
On the one hand, it is about creating a project or program organization (depending on the scope of the projects) that enables or even forces an overarching, content-related control of all activities. This is in order to check at short intervals whether the common vision continues to exist and whether all those involved are working in the same direction.
On the other hand, from a technical point of view, it is indispensable to organize ownership centrally via the overall solution. A large number of tools and services quickly come together, which significantly increases the complexity of the solution architecture compared to a monolithic approach. Depending on the size of the organization, an individual or a committee should therefore manage the overall technical solution and be responsible for the expansion. Important here are ongoing documentation of the overall picture, clear specifications for implementation, fast decision-making, and active participation in the expansion of the solution.
In order to successfully address these issues, many organizations need a change in mindsets and attitudes at all levels.
From a management point of view, it is important to understand that the substantive work is not done with the formulation of a vision and the adoption of a roadmap. There must be a willingness to critically question decisions made, to adapt plans and thus to continuously sharpen the target image. This is the only way to exploit the advantages in terms of flexibility, independence and adaptability in a targeted manner. With the attitude that you have formulated a 5-year strategy and it is only a matter of implementing it, you would not be able to make optimal use of many of the advantages mentioned.
At the level of project and program management, a strong focus should be placed on the content level. It may be a change of habit to actively participate in the content design instead of working through deliverables and milestones defined from above. But here, too, it is important to play the existing advantages in such a way that the highest possible benefit can be achieved in the end. This requires constant and consistent prioritization of requirements and daily work. The larger the company and/or the program, the more important it is to manage these content dependencies in order to achieve a coordinated overall solution.
At the operational level in the individual projects and initiatives, close and interdisciplinary cooperation between all departments involved is indispensable in order to develop solutions that create maximum benefit from the existing conditions. Requirements and the underlying business processes must be discussed, changed, implemented and tested together. The mere handover of artifacts (e.g. business concepts, technical concepts, etc.) to the next person or body would nullify many of the described advantages of a composable architecture approach.
Last but not least, a new way of looking at costs is needed . Due to the flexibility and modular expandability described above, both the initial and ongoing estimation of costs is more difficult than if you opt for an all-in-one strategy and buy a product with fixed license costs for several years. Of course, a total cost of ownership calculation must always be carried out in individual cases. We would also not presume to make a global statement at this point that a composable architecture approach is always cheaper. However, there is no question that as a decision-maker or buyer, you have to accept variable infrastructure and license costs in order to be able to make maximum use of the advantages in terms of needs-based scaling and modular expansion. This is a challenge in many organizations and for many people.
Time for a conclusion
No, the composable architecture approach is not a simple panacea or the well-known “silver bullet”. This is shown by the challenges described. Nevertheless, from our point of view, the advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages. Especially since the risks are identifiable and there are opportunities and approaches to master them. In addition, you can cut these challenging topics into digestible bites via a step-by-step approach and learn from stage to stage.
Although the aforementioned changes in mindset vary in difficulty depending on the individual starting point, they can be very well supported by program-accompanying change management and individual or company-wide training measures. In our experience, if these topics are identified and supported by management at an early stage, this can have very positive effects on the entire organization – even beyond the project and program context.
We at diselva are happy to help you with our extensive experience in building composable architectures. Be it from a strategic point of view or from a technical point of view in the development of a new target architecture, as well as its implementation. In addition, we can offer our expertise in conception and consulting as well as project management to make your initiatives a success. Last but not least, we also know how to prepare an entire organization for such paradigm shifts and develop it into a learning organization .
We look forward to hearing from you!
Sources
Gartner – Composable Commerce Must Be Adopted for the Future of Applications