Insights
The Composable Advantage: Unlocking Agility for Modern Companies
Find out how Apply Digital positions companies to succeed with composable tech.
- Article
- 4 MIN READ
- Nov 12, 2024
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Dom SelvonChief Technology Officer
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Brian LloydChief Platform Officer
Summary
This article is part of our ‘Connected Thinking, Connected Results’ series at Apply Digital, where we bring to life our unique approach to driving impact for clients.
In part one, we outlined the key principles that underlie our ‘Connected Thinking, Connected Results’ approach that brings together strategy, tech and data, and operations seamlessly for our clients. In this article, we’re taking a closer look at how tech and data fit into the whole approach.
With spending on digital change expected to hit $3.4 trillion by 2026, it’s clear businesses are focused on keeping up with customer expectations and competitors. For many, this work also involves evolving their technology capabilities — saying goodbye to rigid legacy technology and getting teams on board with (and onboarded to) new tools.
While the upfront cost of change can be significant, the long-term value generated by investing in digital change is hard to overstate: improved customer experience, more conversions, and faster time to revenue are all among wins for companies like Kraft Heinz who embrace composable tech.
However, utilizing composable tech without understanding its impacts on your organization can lead to difficulties scaling up, disjointed objectives, and inefficient operations. Instead, start your change journey with a customer-led strategy that unifies your tech capabilities across business lines, goals, and KPIs, and then implement the best composable tools for your business.
This is the approach we take with our clients at Apply Digital, and our years of driving multi-year digital transformation initiatives have allowed us to hone our methodology to help brands create smarter change.
Strategy-led composable technology
Clients often ask us, “Can you build me an app?”
While the answer is yes, that request usually illustrates a need for change that goes deeper than an app itself. Do you actually need an app? Or do you need a cohesive digital experience platform connecting mobile to your web, in-store and contact center channels so you can better connect with users and drive business outcomes?
These are the kinds of questions we pose as we help clients develop strategic roadmaps and technical architectures with the right technologies (see part one of our series here). We believe technology should work in service of your organization’s goals, not the other way around.
But what is “the right technology”?
We strongly advocate for composable tech, which offers flexibility, efficiency,, and cutting-edge functionality, and enables connected solutions across all business verticals.
As we build out your composable technology and operations, we filter through many third-party vendors, each with their own unique offerings and strengths. With a strong roadmap in place, we can consider your specific needs and build a tech stack that works horizontally and vertically across your organization.
IT leaders are concerned with the number of relationships they have to maintain — and the number of integrations they have to support. As their partner, we can help sift through the sea of options and arrive at a fit-for-purpose solution.
Move at speed with CAFE
To support this process, we launched the Composable Accelerator For Enterprises (CAFE): a way of working that leverages a flexible, pre-built suite of tools and integrations to get your composable solution live, quickly and easily. CAFE does the heavy lifting around accelerating digital transformation, so you can concentrate on the differentiators that make your business unique. It’s an innovative approach designed to help leaders arrive at the flexibility and creativity they’re aiming for — fast.
The heart of a composable approach blends people, processes, and technology to meet specific objectives. Prioritizing the way you go about digital transformation is as critical as the technology you implement to achieve it.
People are our superpower
Strong processes and new tech all have a common denominator: people.
This is why we embrace a highly connected way of working across business lines and capabilities. It’s at the heart of our ‘Connected Thinking, Connected Results’ approach: align people’s thinking, processes, and KPIs to ladder up to your company’s overall objectives.
Part of that approach means having a senior tech director available to provide expertise and insights every step of the way. This allows us to leverage the right tech at the right time and for the right reasons, ensuring transparency across your ecosystem and decisions aligned with your goals.
Implementing composable tech also requires a team that is constantly learning about existing and new tools and the way they work. We encourage our developers to acquire accreditation and certifications so they can maximize their skills and expertise to implement the tools for each client’s tech stack. Our team comes equipped with many certifications, including but not limited to those from our partners:
We’ve also integrated AI tools to support our teams. We know that AI cannot replace human capabilities, but it can enhance them — and we follow our three AI principles to ensure we’re implementing AI effectively, responsibly, and thoughtfully. By using the right AI tools, our devs can automate repetitive tasks and turn their attention to more innovative and valuable work for our clients.
Final thoughts
Going composable, and doing it well, requires strong alignment across your team, partners, and technology vendors. This is why we lead with the approach of highly connected thinking, through to results, with people-first practices guiding every step of the way.
Partner with us
Together, we can deliver innovative solutions and drive your digital change journey.
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