Composable Enterprise: The New Business Architecture

With all the emphasis on the 'why' of digital transformation, there’s little clarity of what the end result should look like. And that’s on purpose, because transformation goals are different for each organization and a cookie-cutter model of successful businesses would only stifle innovation. But if there’s one term to describe the end-state of a digitally transformed business, it would be 'composable enterprise'.

Why Build A Composable Enterprise?

Business technology in the past meant long-term purchases and slow adaptation. Today, technology changes and adapts at an exponential rate. Customer expectations change with each new, innovative feature, and businesses have a responsibility to keep pace or drop out. Business models discard the long-term app purchase in favor of monthly subscriptions and multiple app integrations. 

Gartner recently identified the composable enterprise as one of many emerging trends in the tech world. The future of business is modular, allowing enterprises to pick and choose which functions do the most of them while keeping an eye out for newly evolving technologies. This is how the composable enterprise is born. It also means a blending of lines between IT and your day-to-day business functions.

While the main advantage of a composable enterprise model is its flexibility, you may also see improvements in your DevOps, security, and flexibility. A composable enterprise model also opens the door to automation and improved productivity as you learn to take advantage of new microservices and other technology.

This is because your business now has the power to pick and choose from the best apps and packaged business capabilities (PBCs) as they rise to the top of the market, without being chained down by the limitations of legacy processes.

Building The Composable Enterprise

Making the transition to a composable enterprise is a radical one, and not to be taken lightly. Like any digital transformation goals, you need a sound strategy to move forward. Gartner’s latest report about composable enterprises includes some key questions to consider and starting points for creating a solid roadmap for your transition.

Questions To Ask

For more insight into the direction you should take your business, consider these questions:

• How do I expect my market to change in the next five years? How will the needs of my customers change?

• How should my business adapt to these changes? 

• What functions can we add to our lineup to stay ahead of the competition? What new markets can we enter?

• What is our current technology level? What are the current limitations? What can we change?

• How can we make our current partner ecosystem more flexible?

• How will technological changes affect our business strategy?

• How can we define the relationship between business and IT going forward?

Creating The Roadmap

Once you have answers to the above questions, it’s time to lay down a foundational roadmap for the new direction of your business. Gartner’s report recommends keeping these points in mind:

• Define business outcomes that are in line with your goals and mission.

• Plan to modernize your app portfolio by replacing legacy monolithic processes with more flexible apps.

• Create a vendor strategy that reflects the business direction of your current key vendors as well as the direction of your own organization.

• Visualize a new target architecture that serves as the foundation for your new composable enterprise.

• Create a plan to review and adapt your app delivery to gauge progress and adapt to market changes.

A modernized API is the key to modernizing your business’ technological offering. Learn how with a free 14-day trial of DreamFactory.

API Management With DreamFactory

The true foundation for any composable enterprise is a functional, flexible API. Application Performance Interfaces give businesses the framework to incorporate new apps and services in an easy, cost-effective way. The importance of an API in your transformation strategy cannot be understated, nor can the benefits of effective API management.

DreamFactory can help you build a fully-functioning, no-code API in minutes. We can also help you convert your old SOAP API into REST for upgraded security and simplified workflows.

But while APIs are a critical component of modern tech infrastructure, they can be complicated to update and maintain. That’s why API management tools should also be a part of your composable enterprise transition plan.

Did you know that you can develop a successful API with little to no coding expertise? DreamFactory can help. Sign up for a free trial and get started today, creating a fully functioning REST API in minutes.