Modernizing Monolithic Commerce Engines: Optimize, Go Headless, or Re-platform to Composable Commerce?

Monolithic:

While headless and composable architectures have numerous advantages over monolithic architecture, that in no way implies a monolith can’t be the right choice for some businesses. Generally speaking, monoliths can be a good choice for:

• Smaller Businesses with Simple Needs: If your business operates in a stable industry with limited requirements for functionalities and doesn’t anticipate rapid growth or frequent changes, a monolithic platform can be efficient and cost-effective.

• Businesses with Limited Technical Resources: A monolith can be easier to manage than a headless or composable solution for companies with smaller IT teams or budget constraints.

• Businesses with A Low Tolerance for Risk: If minimizing risk is crucial, the simpler change management required for a monolith might be preferred.

Optimizing a Monolithic Platform: For organizations that aren’t set up to manage headless or composable architectures, but want to maximize the value, performance, and functionality of their legacy monolithic platform, there are several ways a skilled systems integrator (SI) can help them optimize it:

• Performance: Over-customization can lead to performance bottlenecks. An SI can identify and refactor unnecessary customizations and implement best practices and standard extensions to streamline your setup. An SI can also leverage pre-built connectors, build robust APIs, and ensure data consistency across all systems to facilitate the process.

• Scalability and Flexibility: If your platform struggles to handle sudden surges in traffic or data, an SI can optimize your system architecture, implement cloud-based infrastructure, and leverage microservices for better scalability and flexibility.

• Personalization and Omnichannel: Built-in personalization features may not be enough for some businesses. An SI can implement advanced personalization tools, help you effectively utilize customer data, and ensure a consistent omnichannel experience.

• Maintenance and Support: Managing and maintaining the platform can be resource-intensive. An SI can establish clear maintenance processes, provide managed services, and offer dedicated support to ease the burden and help deliver better ROI.

Headless:

Organizations with legacy, monolithic eCommerce engines and robust IT capabilities can enable even greater flexibility, agility, and a better overall customer experience – while avoiding the change management and complexity involved with re-platforming to a composable solution – by integrating various headless components with their monolithic backend. A headless approach isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution and depends on your specific needs, resources, and technical capabilities, but it can be particularly beneficial for several types of organizations:

• Businesses with Evolving Needs and High Omnichannel Demands: Companies with diverse offerings and rapidly changing landscapes can benefit from the flexibility of headless architecture to adapt to market trends and consumer demands, in addition to the ability to scale individual components independently to handle growing traffic or data volumes. Furthermore, delivering content across various platforms like websites, mobile apps, and streaming services becomes easier with the ability to decouple content and presentation.

• Businesses Focused on Customer Experience: Headless architecture empowers retailers to offer personalized shopping experiences and product recommendations and integrate loyalty programs across different channels. Manufacturers can showcase complex products with interactive features to deliver engaging customer experiences across devices.

• Organizations with Technical Constraints: Integrating headless components can modernize the frontend experience incrementally without disrupting the core functionalities of outdated backend systems or requiring a complete system overhaul.

Composable:

Building on the strengths of headless architecture, composable architecture offers additional advantages that cater to a specific set of businesses, especially those seeking a high degree of customization, flexibility, and scalability, that have the technical resources to manage a more complex architecture and a culture of innovation to exploit its potential. Here’s who benefits most:

• Businesses with Unique and Evolving Requirements: With the ability to build with best-of-breed components from various vendors to tailor the platform to your specific needs, composable architecture is ideal for businesses with complex or niche product offerings. Components, like product configurators or personalized recommendation engines, can easily be integrated for businesses selling highly technical products, customized goods, or unique services. The modularity of the architecture also facilitates quick testing and implementation of new features, allowing businesses to adapt to changing market demands and customer preferences quickly.

• Complex Businesses Requiring High Scalability, Extensive Integrations, and Robust Omnichannel Capabilities: Composable architecture enables independent scaling of individual components, like payment processing or content delivery networks, without affecting other functionalities. This is crucial for businesses experiencing fast or unpredictable growth and/or that require extensive integrations with various third-party services like CRM, ERP, or loyalty programs, which can be accomplished seamlessly with the architecture’s API-driven approach. It’s also ideal for companies that require a high degree of customization and enables connecting your eCommerce platform with other touchpoints like mobile apps, social media, and physical stores.

• Businesses with Strong Development Teams and/or Support from Systems Integrators: While composable platforms offer greater flexibility and a host of valuable advantages over both monolithic and headless platforms, they also require more technical expertise to manage and maintain. Companies with dedicated development teams can immediately leverage the composable approach to build a highly customized and efficient eCommerce platform, while systems integrators can also be leveraged to spearhead implementations or augment resources required for ongoing production and maintenance.

• Technical Agility and a Culture of Innovation Focused on Customer Experience: Businesses with a culture of embracing change, continuous improvement, and creating unique, personalized customer experiences can benefit significantly from composable architecture’s adaptability and future-proof design.