How composable architecture helps tech startups innovate

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Composable architecture is a modern approach to building software systems using reusable components. This architecture provides the following benefits:

• It makes your startup more agile, flexible, and scalable
• It helps you overcome vendor lock-ins
• Increases the speed and innovation of development and reduces time to market
• Offers a cost-effective approach to building systems

Embrace composable architecture today and set your startup on the path to success and future growth.

Keep reading to learn more!

More and more businesses, from Silicon Valley startups to large enterprises, are moving toward adopting composable architecture. It’s easy to comprehend why there’s a sudden urge to shift. With technological innovations happening more quickly than expected, remaining vigilant and staying on top of technological advances is the way forward. 

For startups, embracing composable or modular architecture becomes even more important because it makes their business agile, flexible, and scalable.

Let’s explore composable architecture and why you should take advantage of it. 

What is composable architecture?

Composable architecture is a modern way of designing and building software systems using reusable components. You can assemble best-of-breed software solutions for your startup using this modular architecture. Customer experience is central because you can reuse or replace components based on business requirements. This is particularly helpful in the startup ecosystem, where conditions and business requirements change in the blink of an eye. 

Let’s understand with an example:

As a retail startup, you want to automate your inventory management process, so you use an inventory management tool from vendor A. You’re comfortable using the tool because you have already used other tools they offered. But, as your business scales, you might want to add new functionalities, such as using AI to interpret the customer’s purchase pattern. 

You want this integrated into your current inventory management system. So, you search for tools that are compatible with vendor A. However, because of vendor lock-in with vendor A, you cannot find a tool that suits your requirements. If vendor A cannot fulfill your scalability requirements, you probably need to investigate other options.

Do you know why this happened? This occurs when the vendor tech stack does not follow the composable approach.

That’s where composable architecture slowly seeps into your technology stack! Modular architectures eliminate dependency on on-premise software and help you overcome vendor lock-ins. 

What makes composable architecture ideal for startups?

Now that we have explored what composable architecture is let’s look at its advantages in the startup environment:

Speed and innovation

By using a composable architecture, businesses profit from an agile approach. Depending on their requirement, developers can work on the same components simultaneously, increasing the delivery speed. This reduces the time-to-market and drives productivity. A retail startup, for example, can quickly and easily deploy an inventory management solution while another team works on deploying the recommendation engine. 

Cost-effective solutions

In the long run, going composable can lead to significant cost reduction. Startups can plug in new components without spending thousands of dollars on traditional system overhauls or purchasing on-premise software for every business requirement. 

Developers can address issues with specific components without affecting the performance of others. 

Modular approach

As market dynamics shift, startups need to respond to these changes, and that’s precisely what composable architecture helps achieve. Startups can reuse the same components, reducing the need to overhaul the system. For instance, a travel company can scale its payment solutions during the holiday season without impacting the recommendation engine or the booking platform. 

In the competitive landscape, flexible and scalable systems aren’t just perks but a have-to-have requirement. 

What is composable commerce and infrastructure?

Composable commerce is a modular approach to e-commerce based on the principles of composable architecture. With this approach, commerce platforms can comprise various services that meet their requirements. For instance, an e-commerce startup may use different technologies for payment, store checkouts, and inventory management. 

One of the benefits of composable commerce is that it unifies these technologies into a single system, decreasing the need to wrestle with three differing technologies.

Conversely, composable infrastructure is an IT technology supporting the composable architecture. When companies adopt a composable infrastructure, they abstract the computing, storage, and network resources from their physical locations. They manage these abstracted resources through software-defined interfaces.

But how does it help startups?

Using these resources, startups can create a technology stack, imparting flexibility and resource optimization. As this framework allows startups to modify their infrastructure at will, it helps them become more efficient and responsive to changing market dynamics.

Composable e-commerce and infrastructure make startup life much easier as they can achieve landmark transformations. Businesses can select and integrate various platforms, enhancing the digital customer experience and providing omnichannel strategies.

Advantages of composable infrastructure for tech-driven startups

The world of composable infrastructure has changed tech-driven startups like never before. With this framework, companies can manage all their IT resources as services, eliminating the need for a physical infrastructure. Other advantages include:

Ensures dynamic allocation of resources

Composable infrastructure takes virtualization to the next level, allowing startups to allocate and reconfigure resources in real-time. This dynamic resource allocation ensures that it is only allocated when a requirement arises, preventing wastage. 

Scalability

In traditional or monolithic architecture, start-ups can manually scale up or down by adding the required physical hardware. Composable infrastructure is scalable, allowing startups to add new resource pools such as storage, server, and networking resources. As a result, startups can scale up or down their operation depending on their requirements. 

Reduces dependencies on manual processes

As composable infrastructure uses software-defined technologies, it reduces the startup’s dependency on manual processes. Startups using this architecture successfully minimize human error and increase innovation. 

Composable business model

The concept of composable architecture extends far beyond the operational and technical domains, giving rise to the “composable business model.”

According to Gartner, “Composable business means creating an organization made from interchangeable building blocks.” Startups can use these building blocks across the company among various departments. 

As a result, these building blocks help implement novel applications in response to market changes. These applications have multiple reusable independent components. You can reconfigure them using the application programming interface (API).

By choosing a composable enterprise model, startups can easily meet market volatility and navigate the constantly changing digital landscape. Because of this, startups witness higher agility, resilience, and innovation. 

Building a resilient business model with composable technologies

Composable technologies form the backbone of a resilient business model. Using the principles of composable architecture, these technologies offer packed business capabilities (PBCs). PBCs are pre-packaged and standardized business services representing specific functions or capabilities. 

Using these PBCs, startups can easily adjust business processes based on market conditions or customer preferences. 

Let’s understand how composable technologies help build a resilient business model using the following example:

A health and fitness startup operates in a dynamic environment with changing customer and market demands. The fitness startup uses composable technologies and PBCs to adapt to market demands to stay ahead of the competition. 

With the rise of home workouts, the health and fitness startup re-arranged its PBCs and moved from a gym-based to a home workout. They partnered with a digital dietician startup to integrate an additional diet plan module. 

Recognizing customers' interest, the startup integrated yoga modules from another vendor. 

This example shows how startup companies can use composable architecture and technologies for their IT infrastructure and extend it to their business model.

Overcoming challenges of composable architecture

While composable architecture offers many benefits, knowing its potential challenges helps a startup overcome them. Here are some challenges of composable operations:

Complex integration and workflow

Integration becomes challenging in composable architecture as components have different interfaces, data formats, and processing requirements. Moreover, startups even find it difficult to manage and control their workflow.

How to overcome: Use standard protocols, data formats, and interfaces for all the components. Also, adopting an API-first approach allows communication and interaction between different components.

Security risks

With components sourced from different vendors, security constantly threatens composable architecture. Vulnerabilities in one system can affect the others.

How to overcome: Conduct regular audits, implement access control, and adopt secure coding practices.

Vendor lock-in

Reliance on one vendor for more than one component leads to vendor lock-in. This limits the startup’s flexibility, resulting in lower bargaining power with other vendors and higher costs.

How to overcome: Use open-source and standard interfaces to ensure vendors are compatible. Startups should focus on a vendor-agnostic approach to reap the maximum benefits of the composable business architecture.

Continuous IT delivery in a composable architecture

A composable architecture is successful only when it ensures continuous IT delivery. This calls for the implementation of an effective management system. 

The job of these management systems is to monitor the dynamic allocation and reconfiguration of various components. 

Effective management ensures an automation-first approach, which minimizes manual tasks and ensures efficient operations. 

Another way startups ensure IT delivery is by using automated resource management, which dynamically allocates resources based on real-time business or market requirements.

Similarly, many startups use automated monitoring tools for real-time insights into the system's health and performance, helping them troubleshoot and minimize downtime. 

Lastly, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) practices can ensure startups remain up-to-date with the latest improvements and new functionality.

Use cases of composable architecture

From digital commerce to virtual machine deployments, composable architecture can help startups in every field. Here’s how Contentstack helped companies realize their dream of continuous growth:

Media & Entertainment 

Contentstack helped LADBible.com reduce its editorial time to half and helped them scale. 

After using Contentstack’s headless content management system, Tom McGiveron, Lead Software Engineer at LADBible.com, said, “Contentstack gives us a solid base that’s easily extensible. We’re now able to turn out new features quickly and implement them in an elegant way.”

Read the complete case study.

Technology 

Elastic used Contentstack to move from WordPress and speed up the development process by 500%. The composable architecture reduced dependency on third-party template developers. 

Happy with Contentstack’s composable architecture, “Sylvie Shimizu, Webmaster at Elastic, said: 

“Contentstack scales to meet our needs. As we localize and add sub-domains for new regions, we can rely on the system to grow with us, no matter how big our site becomes. Contentstack provides us with peace of mind through both its technology and its team of highly experienced and responsive MS experts."

For more on this example, read the complete case study.

Travel 

Composable architecture helped Icelandair.com reduce their time pushing out promotions by 90% and improved their automation workflow. This allowed the creative and technical teams to work together.

As Contentstack helped Icelandair achieve its goals, Hallur pór Halldórsson, UX writer and Content Designer at Icelandair, said:

"I don't have to depend on the developers to do everything. I can go in and make the changes instead of them having to do all the work. Simplicity in the UI for content editors and technically savvy people has helped us."

Read the full Icelandair case study. 

Check out our case studies' success stories to see how companies in other industries benefit from adopting a composable approach.

The future of composable business

The future of composable businesses is bright. It offers numerous opportunities for businesses seeking flexible, agile, and scalable systems. 

With 60% of finance companies looking to composable finance applications, more and more companies are likely to invest in microservices and APIs to adjust their digital capabilities. 

Interestingly, with the rising trend of remote work, there’s a growing need for systems that companies can reconfigure to change their workflow, project requirements, and team structures. 

In short, composable businesses will be better positioned to navigate the complex digital landscape. 

FAQs

How does composable architecture reduce time to market?

Composable architecture breaks complex systems into manageable components, empowering companies to adapt to market changes rapidly. This reduces the time to market. 

Can composable architecture improve customer experience?

Yes, composable architecture improves customer experience through omnichannel strategies and flexibility of business operations.

What are packaged business capabilities (PBCs) in composable architecture?

PBCs are modular business services you can reuse and reconfigure to create unique capabilities, processes, or functionalities.

How does composable architecture differ from traditional IT infrastructure?

Traditional IT infrastructure is rigid and inflexible, while composable architecture is the opposite, allowing businesses to reuse and reconfigure components based on specific business needs.

What role does headless commerce play in composable architecture?

Headless commerce, an application of composable architecture, separates the front-end and back-end layers of an e-commerce platform. This makes the e-commerce platform more flexible and delivers consistent customer experience across all digital touchpoints.

Learn more

Composable architecture has a transformative effect on startups. By going composable, startups drive cost reduction, ensure rapid market adaptation, and elevate customer experience. As technological innovations continue to surge, the need for agile, flexible, and scalable systems will increase. With composable architecture in the driver’s seat, startups can achieve growth, which otherwise would remain an unfulfilled dream. Are you ready for future growth?

Schedule a demo with Contentstack to understand the full potential of composable architecture, including how it can make your startup more agile, scalable, and future-proof.