Taming the MarTech Disruption with Composable DXP

The pandemic revealed vulnerabilities in business operations that for years proved to be efficient. The technology stack that once served business needs effectively was no longer useful in delivering exceptional customer experiences. So, businesses had to look for a future-ready alternative approach that could help them pivot easily in the face of technology disruptions now or in the future. This is where the idea of composability fits in.

“Composable business is a natural acceleration of the digital business that you live every day. It allows us to deliver the resilience and agility that these interesting times demand” - Gartner

Since 2020, the marketing technology landscape is in flux. There was a time when legacy martech stack or monolithic tools were helping organizations accelerate their digital transformation. But now, those days are long gone. Companies no longer want to stick to a single vendor for their system and face major limitations like vendor lock-ins and bloatware. No doubt there are plenty of martech stack options available in the market but they are not all that businesses want. What they want is a tech stack that allows them the flexibility to add or remove the components or functionality they need. They want the freedom to choose and compose their own martech stack using not only the best-of-breed but what best fits their marketing and business needs. Hence, the rise of the Composable Digital Experience Platform.

In this blog, we explore how composable DXPs enable you to leverage the power to tame the disruptions in martech.

Legacy MarTech Stacks and Monolithic Tools

Before we talk about how a composable DXP built on a composable architecture is the best way forward, it is important we understand the state of legacy and monolithic systems.

The terms, legacy and monolithic, are at times used interchangeably to describe each other but they are two different ideas. Legacy martech stacks are older tools that are maintained but not actively improved. They may not work well together as a unit and risk being phased out due to limited development and high maintenance costs. Monolithic tools are large, inflexible, and slow. Built on a single-code base architecture, one small change in a monolith could have a bad ripple effect on the whole system. Because of this businesses fail to seize the full breadth of desired features, functionality, and ROI. To sum up, a legacy system can be monolithic in nature, while a monolithic tool can be a part of a legacy system that comprises multiple monolithic tools. 

But, both legacy and monolithic could gravely limit business flexibility and agility. Their inability or incompatibility to integrate with newer technologies creates difficulties for organizations by limiting the adaptability to adhere to changing customer needs and preferences. They often require specialized expertise and resources to look after them. Thus, these are expensive and time-consuming to maintain and update.

The Rise of MACH-based Architecture

Businesses want a martech solution that is flexible and scalable so that they can innovate faster and pivot towards capitalizing on emerging marketing trends. That’s where MACH-based architecture comes in. Built on Microservices, API-first, Cloud, and Headless architecture, MACH is a modern and agile architecture that is designed to be flexible, scalable, and modular. 

While legacy systems or monolithic tools may still be the gospel truth for many businesses, MACH is a better choice given its offers an agile, fast ecosystem that supports best-of-breed tech. But at times, even MACH comes with uncertain challenges. Here are some of its drawbacks:

1. Time Consuming and complex to implement and integrate with the existing stack
2. Incompatible and difficult to ensure that all the adopted tools will work together seamlessly
3. Expensive if companies end up using it like legacy suites resulting in tough vendor lock-ins
4. Not For All as it requires extensive tech resources, something that a new or medium-sized business would not have

On account of these challenges, many organizations have therefore decided to move away and choose a more modern and flexible martech stack solution. A composable digital experience platform supported by a MACH-based tech stack.

Composable DXP Can Tame the Martech Disruption

According to Gartner, “sixty-nine percent of corporate directors want to accelerate enterprise digital strategies and implementations to help deal with the ongoing disruption”. This is where composable DXP comes in. A composable DXP is a solution that allows an organization to integrate and manage a wide range of marketing technologies in a centralized and cohesive manner, enabling them to better adapt to changing customer needs and market trends. As per Gartner’s research, ‘by 2023 organizations that have adopted an intelligent composable approach will outrun the competition by 80% in the speed of new feature implementation’.

Using a headless, decoupled, composable tech stack, businesses can orchestrate digital experiences better. They can build components that can be replaced, plugged in, scaled, and easily integrated with other systems and technologies now and in the future.

Using the four principles of composable business to guide the approach, here is how composable DXP helps businesses tame martech disruptions:

1. Discovery: Composability provides speed and flexibility to move quickly and discover the right combination of applications. Facilitated through APIs and microservices, it allows different parts of the business to communicate and work efficiently together.
2. Modularity: Modularity gives the ability to break down complex systems into smaller, independent units which could be assembled in different ways to meet the changing business needs, without affecting the entire system. This helps a business be more agile and easily respond to the changing market and customer needs.
3. Orchestration: Ability to orchestrate and manage various resources that make the business. This gives a business more control over its operations and helps them respond effectively to changes.
4. Autonomy: A well-orchestrated modular solution has autonomy. Various independent parts can operate on their own without constant oversight, and continue operating even if one part of the system fails. This makes a business more resilient and prepares them well to avoid martech disruptions.

Adopting this type of thought process could actually help businesses survive in times of great martech disruptions and provide unlock unrealized benefits:

1. Freedom of Flexibility: Legacy and monoliths make businesses conform to their capabilities and structure. Composable architecture gives the power to construct a system that suits business needs without the added complexities.
2. No Vendor Lock-In: If a vendor’s product fails to meet marketing needs, businesses are free to let it go and look for the next best fit. Maybe a business is soon to outgrow a certain feature, they can simply swap it out and add another from a different vendor.
3. Best-Of-Breed Technology: Composable DXP allows the business to select the combination of the tech stack. This ensures that teams get what they need to produce the best results. That means businesses can be bloatware-free as well.
4. Composable and Cost-Effective: Legacy and monoliths require high maintenance. But with a composable DXP, businesses have the benefit to select and buy only those technologies that they require.
5. Faster Implementation: Legacy and monolith systems often involve time-consuming upgrades that need system-wide testing. DXC makes adding new features to composable architecture easier, just plug in and out.

Make your Business Resilient to Disruptions with Composable DXP

Composability is a platform-agnostic approach that can help organizations boost flexibility and performance. It can connect businesses to different vendors and build a future-ready solution that allows them to create and deliver exceptional and personalized user experiences. Instead of investing in an all-in-one stack that would only make your business realize its limited potential, consider a composable, modular solution that allows you to scale and meet business, marketing, and technology needs. What a business at the end of knowing all this needs is a reliable and trusted partner. That’s where we come in. We can help you strategize and compose the digital experience your business needs. Let’s get talking!