Online marketplace benefits: The multiplier effect
The digital marketplace trend shows no sign of slowing down as it helps brands drive rapid growth without adding inventory.
Digital commerce doesn’t stand still. Just look around. The buy online, drive-up delivery model scarcely existed until retail shutdowns during the pandemic— and now signs of it are (literally) in every retailer parking lot.
Digital wallets are rapidly supplanting credit cards as the payment method of choice. And manufacturers of everything from industrial machinery to candy bars are venturing beyond tried-and-true distribution channels into new terrain with direct-to-consumer sales.
Point is, the pace of change in commerce is only accelerating. And all of these advancements require new technology solutions like composable architecture to deliver and support them. Before you know it, the commerce functions and features—even business models—the market demands now will need to be refreshed or reimagined.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be ready. The need for agility is why market-leading companies are turning to composable architecture as a way to build and rebuild their commerce capabilities block by block as they respond to changing trends and needs.
From monolithic to modular
To understand why composable architecture is a game changer, consider the limitations of traditional e-commerce platforms.
These all-in-one monoliths come with a predefined, bundled set of features and capabilities. Problem is, they’re hard to customize or advance because you can’t easily scale or swap out capabilities when your business strategies change or customer expectations shift.
A modular, composable approach, on the other hand, allows you to swiftly and economically add, replace or scale just the features or functions you need. Releasing four or five new features can happen in a week or less, compared to over a month for adding a single feature on a monolithic platform.
You choose from “best in class” building blocks from multiple technology vendors, rather than being wed to a cookie-cutter templatized solution from a single vendor.
Composable architecture examples
Composable architecture has been a buzzy topic trending with IT teams for a few years.
These days, it’s business leaders who are buzzing about it, as they see how composable commerce gives their brands the agility to pivot and/or fine-tune their digital sales strategies and reach customers wherever, whenever and however they want to buy.
Here are some examples of how companies are tapping the benefits of composable architecture for commerce:
- A clothing brand reduced its online return rate after adding functionality for 360-degree product imagery across its commerce channels.
- Through a unified, adaptable platform, a sports league with dozens of teams created unique experiences for people shopping for merchandise, depending on the team or player they root for.
- By adding in-car connected commerce functionality, drivers can turn on subscription services for features like dynamic navigation systems, safety assistance and even heated seats. This allows an auto manufacturer to standardize its production line—and add new revenue streams.
- A B2B company connected its siloed billing and shipping systems—and then connected its internal system to resellers, affiliates and end customers for smoother communication.
Creating a composable organization
Adopting composable architecture gives companies the adaptability they need to thrive in commerce today. But there’s more to it than nimble technologies. New mindsets, processes and operational structures are vital to tapping this new paradigm of fast evolution.
To begin with, your IT teams will need to stretch their thinking—to look at problems differently and break old patterns. While it becomes easier and faster for IT teams to make updates and incorporate new tools, they need to be ready to leverage new learning resources and networks.
The same goes for processes and operations throughout other parts of your organization. Legal and finance teams, for instance, will need to expand their thinking to embrace agile approaches. Gone are the days of managing one contract or paying one annual invoice from a single commerce platform vendor. With composable architecture, those teams will now need processes for managing multiple vendor relationships.
For organizations more accustomed to thinking about next year than about tomorrow, these changes won’t necessarily happen today. Fortunately, once you get rolling, the very nature of a composable approach means that wherever you are today, you can adapt—component by component—to exactly where you need to be tomorrow.
This article was co-authored by Tim Juravich, Consulting Principal at Deloitte Digital.