5 things to consider before committing to composable architectures

Anyone who is paying attention to the world of content and commerce management has seen the meteoric rise of MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless), or composable architecture, and for good reason. MACH solutions are known for their dynamic, flexible approaches to experience development that delivers agility and performance that is the goal of any business who leverages digital channels to interact with, convert and retain customers. In addition, the philosophy of MACH is hard to argue: choose best of breed solutions, have no vendor lock-in, create your assets once and use them anywhere.

To truly realize the benefits of composable solutions requires maturity and a plan for building and growing into these architectures. Many organizations don’t have the ability to simply commit to composable and convert legacy systems to more modernized approaches and instead, must consider new, hybrid methods to slowly migrate to composable architectures, leveraging composable suites instead of jumping wholeheartedly into complete rewrites.

There are two new trends we see now driving the composable marketplace:

1. Pure play MACH composable vendors are now creating features and services which tilt more towards traditional CMS platforms. Examples here include Contentstack building the Automation Hub framework and now expanding into front-end hosting with its Contentstack Launch featureset.
2. At the same time, traditional CMS platforms are modernizing their underlying architecture to drive the benefits of composable architecture, using a new approach called a Composable Suite. Optimizely is most notable here in that it offers a new SaaS based approach to delivering its well-regarded CMS and CMP platforms using traditional MACH delivery models.

Here are five considerations for organizations thinking about the best way to approach and adopt MACH solutions:

A final concern should be considered by organizations seeking their path to embracing composable technologies: the MACH marketplace is fast evolving and typically will see market consolidation through acquisitions and mergers. Implementing individual tools today that could later be acquired may have ramifications across how companies build, maintain and evolve their composable ecosystems. While this is always a concern in the world of IT, it is more likely to be prevalent in this space given the rapid growth and explosion of interest in MACH tools.

Companies today have three strong options to select as they think about how to continually deliver persuasive customer experiences, two of which are built upon the concept of composable architectures:

1. Continue to leverage traditional DXP platforms - It should be made clear that traditional DXPs still have a place for many companies. They are mature, packed with features and are adequate for a wide number of use cases. Standout examples of trusted DXP platforms include Optimizely’s DXP, among others.
2. Migrate fully to MACH / composable architectures - If an organization is both a mature IT organization and can take on the commitment to fully embrace its digital ecosystem using pure MACH principles, composable architectures can offer tremendous flexibility and power in a fully modernized technology stack that can adapt for an uncertain future. Best in class examples here include tools like Contentstack, Contentful and Optimizely’s SaaS CMS offering.
3. Progressively adapt to MACH / composable architectures through the adoption of Composable Suites - The increasing choice for many organizations is to adapt MACH / composable architectures through the use of a composable suite. This saves time and energy for legal, procurement and training considerations, while delivering the power and flexibility inherent in native MACH / composable architectures. Optimizely is an intriguing choice in this marketplace. With the announcement of the availability of their Optimizely Composable Suite, customers are able to deliver CMS and CMP capabilities, with commerce capabilities coming later in 2024.