Myth or reality: Does composable only work for digitally mature B2B firms?

Although composable commerce has steadily gained prominence since Gartner coined the term in 2020, there is still a widely held belief among many B2B practitioners that going composable only works for digitally sophisticated companies. Is this true? Or is it just a myth? The joint event with the experts at Master B2B and commercetools answers the tough questions about composable commerce posed by business and technology leaders in the B2B space. 

While market analysts and experts agree that composable architecture is the future of commerce, many executives and senior business leaders in the B2B arena still view composability with skepticism and downright reluctance. The concerns keeping them awake at night range from how complex and expensive composable commerce can be, how long it takes to implement and the massive resources needed to achieve this “composable dream.” At the heart of these concerns is the burning question: Does composable only work for digitally mature companies? 

The latest installment of Mythbusters, a Q&A session with industry experts by the pre-eminent authorities at Master B2B, Andy Hoar and Brian Beck, brought up the concerns that many B2Bs are thinking about. In the hot seat was Tom Jones, Senior Director of Customer Value Advisory at commercetools. His task: To answer the tough questions on all things composable and bust the myth of whether composability only works for digitally mature B2B firms.

Starting small as a way to achieve digital maturity means B2B companies don’t need to hire tens or hundreds of developers for the composable journey; in fact, they can start with a small team with relatively modest resources. Companies going through this journey have pulled it off with less than 10 developers, as productivity increases in a composable environment due to efficiency gains and less focus on maintenance work and bug fixing. 

Another point to consider is that a composable infrastructure is technology agnostic: It’s no longer needed to hire highly specialized Salesforce or SAP developers (which are becoming more scarce and expensive). The benefit is clear: When technical talent has the freedom to select, code, integrate, monitor and manage applications without requiring specific languages or certifications, it’s much easier to recruit and/or upskill engineers and developers.

In a nutshell, the cost of a composable implementation depends on how complex the business requirements are. There are many examples of organizations with less complex needs that translated into a composable implementation at modest costs. 

Moreover, it’s vital to consider the impact on the total costs of ownership (TCO). A soon-to-be-published study with Forrester on total economic impact found out that companies that have migrated to composable are spending 50% less on ongoing maintenance. They also become more efficient with their technology spend, refocusing their budget from maintenance and bug fixing to innovation that drives the business forward.

Again, it’s all about how businesses translate their requirements into building what they actually need. There are countless examples of companies that found the implementation easier than expected because they could focus on specific problems. Using clear API documentation and best practices by commercetools enable even the leanest development teams to accomplish great things in a short time. Actually, many at commercetools were surprised at how quickly companies with small teams — and sometimes without a system integrator — could deploy services, such as building a NextJS or React frontend, in a matter of hours or days. 

Composable commerce also enables a minimum viable product (MVP) approach, which is crucial to gather constant market feedback, as opposed to the traditional “big bang” approach, which requires a lot of resources and planning. 

Something else to consider is that a company’s leadership should be co-owners of the digital transformation/migration process. Having unwavering support from the CEO, CTO and/or CMO greatly impacts how quickly and efficiently an implementation process goes. 

Many executives worry about the limitless possibilities of best-of-breed solutions in different ways. First, there’s a real concern companies have to recreate a full tech stack solution, putting the onus of responsibility to own and manage proprietary technology internally. Second, the sheer effort to handle a myriad of contracts instead of having one single point of contact is a top-of-mind concern for business and technology leaders. 

In fact, Tom explained, what many companies want is to avoid vendor lock-in. They want to get rid of having a single point of liability, a single point of failure and a single point of risk. Enterprises also want to control their own destiny over time, and being overly reliant on one vendor creates a lot of risk for their business. With best-of-breed solutions tied together with APIs and plug-and-play integrations, companies no longer have to deal with vendor lock-in. They can pull out the solutions that no longer work and replace them with something else. 

According to Tom, this is the essence of “best for me”: “So what meets my requirements right now is the most cost-effective for me that will do the job. And then over time, if that changes, I can change that, including the commerce platform. So a much different way of thinking than in the past.”

The concern about managing multiple contracts has been blown out of proportion; after all, don’t merchants deal with this already? Don’t they deal with a third-party CMS engine, search and personalization solutions, and all the additional services a commerce platform doesn’t provide? Adopting a best-of-breed approach for commerce is not much different from the ecosystem companies already have today. 

Another tough question about best-of-breed is whether being a door opener for unparalleled choice is actually a good thing. Andy brought up the “paradox of choice”: Give people a hundred choices and they'll choose three or four or five because they feel overwhelmed. So, how to respond to the challenge of executives loving the idea of choice in theory, but not loving the reality of limitless choices? How to avoid the sense of being overwhelmed? 

Indeed, if the good news is that you can do anything, the bad news is you can do anything! But there are ways for teams to avoid being overwhelmed by using accelerators, which help cut through the noise with tried and tested components that best meet the needs of a business. Accelerators streamline the process with pre-built system integrations and support tools that enable B2B players to go composable without starting the implementation from square one. 

Coined by Gartner, the definition of composable commerce states: “The concept of weaving together a collection of modular and functionally complete Packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs) — e.g., search, PIM, payment solutions — to deliver a differentiated digital commerce experience.” So, how can companies weave in services to achieve great things? Do they need to be digitally mature to make this happen? And why not just choose an all-in-one or monolithic system in which those things are “weaved” together already? 

While there is a correlation between digitally immature companies and old legacy systems, companies starting their digital journey now use composable, best-of-breed solutions to accelerate their digital maturity. And this is possible because the components they’re using are systems that work together well via pre-integrations, accelerators, best practices and a whole ecosystem to achieve optimal results. In addition, if businesses use cloud-native and multi-tenant SaaS solutions, which are much more robust, it’s easier to set up, manage and scale over time. 

Another point brought up by Andy is how complex this can turn out to be to weave all the components of a composable system with microservices. Do companies really have to deal with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of microservices? 

This is another misconception: Enterprises going composable do not necessarily deal with microservices. It’s commercetools that deals with the complexity of these granular components and makes the functionality accessible via APIs. Of course, some businesses might build their own microservices to fill in gaps and customize functionality. And while managing a wide range of microservices may present challenges, the advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages: It’s through a microservices-based architecture that companies get seamless updates continuously (read: no more upgrades, ever!) and the flexibility needed to innovate more and faster.

After being grilled in the hot seat, Tom faced the inevitable: Did he bust the myth of composable only working for digitally mature companies? Did he win over the hearts and minds of the seasoned B2B practitioners? 

Unsurprisingly, 61% of participants agreed that the myth was busted and that composable is NOT only for the digitally mature. The message Tom shared resonated with the audience: A composable architecture doesn’t have to be complex or costly, it doesn’t require an army of developers, and the tools available today to weave best-of-breed solutions make it a lot easier and faster to go to market. Companies that have started their digital journey with composable from the get-go are a testament that less digitally mature companies have no reason to fear a composable future. 

But challenges remain: As mentioned by Andy, weaving best-of-breed solutions can turn out to be difficult for certain companies because, after all, “There’s no instruction manual for composable.” 

However, as the composable approach matures (no pun intended) and more B2B companies adopt it via partners, system integrators and accelerators leveraging composable best practices, implementations are expected to become easier, faster — and widely available for companies across the digital maturity spectrum. 

Watch the lively discussion with the MasterB2B experts and get all the insights! Access the full on-demand webinar here.