Composable DXP Buyer’s GuideBuild Future-Ready Digital Experiences

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IntroductionBuilding a Composable Digital Experience Platform (“composable DXP”) is an exciting approach to customer experience delivery that is rapidly gaining ground with marketers, delivering a best-of-breed digital marketing ecosystem with a range of benefits. Instead of being locked in to one large “monolithic” digital experience platform, savvy marketing teams are building their own “composable” platform from a variety of different marketing solutions and tools, resulting in a more agile, flexible and scalable marketing capability.

Although the idea of a best-of-breed marketing ecosystem is nothing new, various trends are now making the composable DXP a viable and highly attractive option. Easier approaches to integrating different platforms and tools via APIs, as well as opportunities presented through cloud-based SaaS offerings, means that marketing teams can now start to build up their own experience platform from preferred tools.

The sheer pace of change and the high expectations of B2C and B2B customers for targeted, personalized customer experiences across multiple channels means that the ability of marketing teams to respond rapidly and flexibly has never been more critical. Leaner approaches to delivering compelling digital customer experiences are ticking the boxes for under-pressure digital marketing teams. A composable DXP supports the agility that marketers need.

Composable technology strategies are rapidly gaining traction in the market. Gartner® suggests that:

“By 2023, 60% of mainstream organizations will list composable business as a strategic objective and will use an increasing number of packaged business capabilities (PBCs).”

Further it states,

“By 2023, organizations that have adopted an intelligent composable approach will outpace competition by 80% in the speed of new feature implementation.”1

The composable DXP is about to go mainstream but for many marketing teams and their colleagues in IT this is still an unfamiliar area.

In this guide we’re going to cover what a composable DXP is, the numerous advantages it brings, what marketers need to bear in mind when thinking about a composable DXP, and what it takes to get started.

Good luck on your composable DXP journey!

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A composable DXP can involve both familiar and unfamiliar terminology and concepts. Here, we explore some definitions.

What is a composable DXP?

A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) can be defined as an integrated set of core technologies whose goal is to support the creation, management, delivery and optimization of customized digital customer experiences (DCXs).2

Composable means taking a highly modular approach to designing a system with different independent and interchangeable components that can be assembled together to make a whole system that works.

A composable DXP fuses these concepts together, building a DXP based on separate components with different capabilities that can work together but are independent from each other. These combine to build a best-of-breed digital ecosystem.

This approach is very different from a monolithic DXP, which is a highly integrated suite of capabilities from one solution provider. This is the traditional model of most of the market-leading DXP platforms. The individual tools and capabilities within a monolithic DXP cannot be used or are difficult to use independently, often limiting platform flexibility and agility.

How does a composable DXP work?

A composable DXP works by each of the different, independent components within the ecosystem being able to “talk” to each other seamlessly. These independent components are called Packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs). Gartner states “These PBCs are defined as discrete, task-oriented and independently deployable capabilities.”3

Each PBC has a discrete set of capabilities that can be deployed independently within your composable DXP set-up. For example, one PBC might relate to content management and another to personalization. It’s very possible that a separate PBC may provide more than one capability.

The different PBCs must have a level of interoperability to work together. This is a characteristic of a piece of technology or application that means it can work successfully with other applications by exchanging data. Each of the PBCs within your composable DXP uses an Application Programming Interface (API) for the successful exchange of data.

One of the key PBCs within your composable DXP will be a headless CMS or hybrid headless CMS such as Crownpeak.

A headless CMS is a content management system that can operate independently of different frontend experiences and interfaces by delivering content to the “presentation layer” by API. This allows for a much wider scope of omnichannel delivery and composability than a traditional, monolithic CMS, however it has certain drawbacks for marketers: notably programming assistance is often required to make changes to the frontend, compromising speed and agility.

A hybrid headless CMS combines an API-driven headless architecture with the frontend elements of a traditional CMS. This approach has several advantages for marketers as it delivers the agility and composability of headless systems, while enabling marketers to manage the digital experience directly — without IT — effectively a “best of both worlds” approach.

What is a composable DXP and how does it work?

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Marketing teams are under constant pressure to deliver. The pandemic has led to a highly volatile environment and fragile global economy where digital marketers are expected to achieve more with less resources. The relentless real-time pace of digital marketing activity, high expectations of customers, and omnichannel complexity, mean increased agility and flexibility are essential.

A composable DXP can solve some of the biggest headaches for digital marketing teams.

Budget and resource constraints

Budgeting and resource constraints remain a significant challenge for digital marketing teams. In the 2021 edition of SMG’s authoritative “State of Digital Customer Experience” report, marketing executives listed this as their biggest challenge, with nearly half of all teams experiencing budgeting and resourcing issues.4 The post-pandemic economy means this may continue for some time, with budget holders reluctant to commit to significant levels of investment.

Digital Experience Platforms can be expensive and a traditional, monolithic DXP will require an initial investment that may be prohibitive and price some teams out of implementation. Marketing budgets can get quickly swallowed up through huge upgrade bills, ongoing maintenance and infrastructure costs, effectively destroying marketing ROI. Finding experienced marketing and IT resources required to unlock the potential of most monolithic DXP platforms also prohibits adoption.

An urgent need for agility

The relentless need for speed in the marketing space has never been greater. A daunting mix of customer expectation and heightened competition is putting marketing teams under extreme pressure to deliver quickly. In particular, the high degree of personalization required to deliver competitive, high-converting customer experiences also requires more omnichannel dexterity. COVID-19 has also raised the stakes as businesses and their customers go digital-first, ramping up the multitude and frequency of digital touchpoints and interactions with customers.

Most marketing teams are simply not as agile as they need to be. A survey commissioned by Crownpeak and Vanson Bourne found that 73% of marketing and IT professionals believe they need to improve their speed of digital experience delivery. Missing opportunities is proving expensive; improving agility could result in a rise in revenue of up to 38%.

The digital experience technology and tools in place are a huge factor in limiting the agility of marketing teams, including:

· Fragmented systems that don’t talk to each other, resulting in broken processes and additional effort required to implement changes

· Platforms with multiple dependencies that require careful planning and high levels of resourcing for deployments

· Systems that lead to an over-reliance on the IT function, causing bottlenecks and a longer time to market.

High-level challenges for marketing teams

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Flexibility across multiple channels

Customer experience operates in an omnichannel world; from static web pages to e-commerce engines to mobile apps to social media channels and more. The channel mix where customers digest brand content are still evolving quickly, evidenced by the rapid growth of TikTok.

Delivering and then coordinating customer experience and content across all these channels is challenging, particularly for smaller teams. It requires flexibility and a level of dexterity that is not always supported by every digital experience platform; opportunities can be missed by platform constraints and introducing new channels can take far longer than necessary.

Technology that constrains creativity and limits autonomy

Technology is there to serve marketing teams, not the other way around. All too often DXP platforms limit the natural creativity and flair of marketing professionals and simply can’t deliver on the ideas and experiments they would like to implement. This can be down to dependencies between features that smother the art of the possible, gaps in capabilities and even confusing and poorly designed interfaces.

Some technology platforms also require significant ongoing involvement from in-house IT or digital agency partners, particularly in deployments. While some reliance on the IT team is inevitable,

a monolithic platform can significantly limit the autonomy of marketing functions. This is inefficient, frustrating and limits agility. The dependency can be equally frustrating for maxed-out IT professionals.

When marketing teams start to view their digital experience technology stack as a barrier that prohibits what they want to achieve, this only accentuates daily frustration with tools and can become an issue that festers.

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A composable DXP is an option that can relieve many of the pain points encountered by customer experience teams. Below we explore the key benefits of the composable DXP model.

Increased agility and speed

The lightweight approach of a composable DXP avoids many of the pitfalls of the monolithic approach, providing greater agility and speed to deliver new customer experiences. The reduction in interdependencies between different elements of a DXP is felt most strongly around deployments where a combination of less coordination, less testing, fewer risks and less resources required result in a faster time to market. This means teams can be far more responsive to customer needs and seize opportunities.

Increased flexibility and scalability

The less rigid constraints of a composable DXP also provides greater flexibility and scalability to support customer experience teams. Marketers have the freedom and confidence to experiment and innovate. It is also easier to scale-up or scale-down activity in response to need, for example ramping up e-commerce at short notice.

Less vendor lock-in

A monolithic DXP means you are highly dependent on one vendor and are effectively locked-in to a relationship, roadmap and licensing agreement that might not necessarily meet your needs. With a composable DXP you spread the risk between different providers, with more flexibility to change a supplier if they are not meeting your requirements.

Lower costs and barriers to entry

Some DXP platforms can end up being very expensive, with features that your team never ends up using. While market-leading DXPs come packed with an impressive feature list, invariably it’s more than most teams need. A team may also use an existing solution they prefer, leading to duplication.

A composable DXP means you can control all the Packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs) - effectively the different elements across your composable DXP - and pay for only the features that you’re going to use, avoiding redundancy and unnecessary costs. Because you can also integrate with existing solutions, it considerably lowers your barrier to entry when starting out. A related benefit is less reliance on the specialist marketing and development expertise that can be associated with more complex, monolithic platforms.

What are the key benefits of a composable DXP?

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Faster DXP implementation

Implementing a monolithic DXP takes a lot of planning. It’s certainly not plug and play – Gartner suggests “Integrations of DXP is also one of the reasons why a typical DXP implementation can take as long as nine or 12 months.”4 With a composable DXP you can take a more incremental approach and leverage existing solutions, meaning you can be up and running more quickly.

Assemble your perfect DXP

One of the most attractive aspects of the composable approach is that you can build the perfect DXP centered around the needs and preferences of your digital marketing team. This means you can include the best-of-breed tools of choice. Monolithic platforms provide a range of native capabilities, but these features may not be a good match for your requirements, be effective as dedicated solutions, or be well supported by the vendor. A composable DXP means you can include the very best features in your ecosystem. It also means your team can keep using solutions they love or have deep expertise in.

Evolve at your own pace

Building a composable DXP is a journey, but one you have more control over. You can evolve the platform in direct line with your digital strategy, introducing different capabilities and changing tools within the overall ecosystem when you want, taking into account existing licensing agreements, investment priorities and busy periods. This puts the marketing team in the driver’s seat rather than the technology or vendor.

Autonomy from IT teams and partners

A composable DXP also allows you to build up a system which provides marketing teams more autonomy from the dependency on IT resources associated with more complex, monolithic DXP platforms.

When a solution requires substantial IT involvement in experience delivery, it can limit agility and be frustrating. The more lightweight approach of a composable DXP puts power back into the hands of marketing teams and frees up IT resources to work on more value-add activities. It also potentially reduces fees paid to outsourced IT partners.

Be future-ready

The future is highly unpredictable – we’ve all seen how circumstances can change rapidly and dramatically, meaning teams need to fundamentally pivot their customer experience strategy and implement a corresponding change to their marketing technology stack. As Gartner states:

“Application leaders can not meet market needs or business objectives with monolithic digital experience platforms and must update tech stacks, decompose monoliths and deliver task-oriented capabilities. To future-proof the stack, a composable DXP must be used to deliver composable user experiences.”5

A composable DXP provides a more future-ready platform than some monolithic DXPs, swerving issues such as vendor lock-in and enabling the far quicker integration of additional capabilities and evolving channels. The result is a more flexible platform that’s ready for whatever hits tomorrow.

Composable DXP vs Monolithic DXP

Increased agility & speed

Lightweight approach allows for increased speed and reduced effort for experience delivery

Dependencies and resourcing issues limit overall agility and speed in experience delivery

Lightweight approach supports greater scalability, while more �exible approach allows for innovation

Increased �exibility & scalability

Dependencies across the platform limit and slow down opportunities to scale, and do not support teams experimenting with new approaches

Risk spread across multiple vendors with less reliance on one vendor where change is dif�cult

Less vendor lock-inReliance on one provider with risk of vendor lock-in and less control over the roadmap

Requires less overall investment and initial outlay to get operational, potentially leveraging existing solutions, and avoiding paying for features you don’t need

Lower costs and barriers to entry

Requires more overall investment to get operational, with signi�cant initial spend and paying for features you don’t use. May require speci�c platform experience, particularly for development

Quicker implementation by taking incremental steps and using existing products

Faster DXP implementation

Typically, longer implementation time with greater planning required

More granular control over different elements, using the tools your team loves and the best-in-class tools for each capability

Assemble your perfect DXP

Reduced opportunity to mix and match the features that suit your needs. Teams may be forced to use features that are not mature or best-in-class

Provides more control to evolve the pace of your DXP in direct line with your digital strategy, bringing in new PBCs as required

Evolve at your own pace

Less control of the pace of change, with a reliance on the main vendor roadmap

Less reliance on IT teams and partners, providing more autonomy for marketing teamsMore autonomy

More reliance on IT teams and partners, limiting the autonomy of marketing teams

Provides a more �exible approach with more freedom to make changes to meet future challenges and opportunities

Be future readyCommits to one solution with less �exibility to meet all future challenges and opportunities

Feature Composable DXP Monolithic DXP

8

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There are a multitude of different capabilities and features that can make up the PBCs within a composable DXP. Some of these will be core features of all DXPs including a CMS, personalization, analytics and experience delivery. Others may not be a part of every DXP – for example e-commerce solutions.

In a composable DXP each set of Packaged Business Capabilities (PBCs) is a discrete, task-driven set of capabilities that can be deployed independently within your composable DXP set-up and might be provided by different suppliers, or even be a custom build.

The typical PBCs that make up a composable DXP may include:

• Web content management• E-commerce• Personalization• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)• Experience testing & optimization• Omnichannel experience delivery and presentation• Analytics• Security• Customer data management• Privacy and consent management• Search• Digital asset management

And more!

One key element of a composable DXP is the separation or decoupling of content management and experience delivery, with the latter potentially having multiple experiences across websites, social media channels, mobile apps and even voice delivery.

Here a “headless” content management system is critical, meaning that it can operate independently of different frontend experiences and interfaces. However, increasingly a hybrid headless CMS like Crownpeak is mandated as it provides all the advantages of headless plus the ability for business users to make content changes and drive the digital experience directly without the need for support from IT. The completely seamless integration between the frontend experience and the CMS provided by a hybrid headless approach drives value for marketing teams and IT practitioners alike, and plays to the strengths of your core CMS, providing a single PBC within your composable DXP ecosystem.

Typical elements of a Composable DXP

PRESENTATION LAYER

ORCHESTRATION LAYER

CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE

CMS

ANALYTICS

CUSTOMER

SEARCH

MULTIEXPERIENCE

PERSONALIZATION

MONOLITHIC DXP COMPOSABLE DXP

MULTIEXPERIENCE

PRESENTATION PERSONALIZATION

ORCHESTRATION

CONTENT ANALYTICS

CUSTOMER

SEARCH INTEGRATION

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FIGURE 1:

Monolithic vs Composable Digital Experience Platforms

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A composable DXP is relatively straightforward to implement, but there are some things to bear in mind.

1 Have a core platform at the center

A composable DXP is a set of independent PBCs but in practice there is usually a core, interoperable platform like Crownpeak’s Hybrid Headless CMS at the center of it. This provides a more focused user experience for administrators and supports the orchestration between different PBCs, driven through APIs.

2 Stay consistent with SaaS

Architectural consistency across the different PBCs within your composable DXP is important. To enable consistent flexibility across your DXP, each part needs to be available on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis, avoiding the dependencies that can be associated with on-premises solutions and leveraging the full power and scalability of the cloud.

It’s also important to beware of “cloud washing” and make sure the PBCs you do include are truly available as multi-tenant, SaaS-based applications, rather than on-premises solutions hosted on cloud infrastructure, particularly if they are to be consumed as part of a wider platform. Cloud-washed software does not benefit from the efficiency advantages of SaaS and often has hidden costs, limitations and dependencies, so you need to read the small print here.

3 Ensure each PBC has the right elements

Each PBC within your composable DXP needs to have the right elements including a good API, support for interoperability and minimal technical dependencies so it can both be independent but also operate with the other PBCs across your composable DXP. IT teams should be involved to ensure feasibility and compatibility of each PBC.

Six essential ingredients of a composable DXP

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4 Access the right technical experience and support processes

Having the right technical resources in place is an ingredient for success. Access to the right technical expertise during the set-up stage of your composable DXP can prevent issues further down the line.

Technical support for your composable DXP is now spread across more than one product rather than one platform. To fully leverage the flexibility that a composable DXP provides, you will need an agile approach to improving, supporting and replacing capabilities, ideally rooted in robust DevOps processes. This can be a change in approach for some IT support teams who may have previously been more geared around digital projects or where DXP support was provided by an agency and has now been brought in-house. If you are continuing to rely on implementation partners or agencies, then make sure they are familiar with the new approach and the technologies that make up your composable DXP.

5 Joined-up teams with the right mindset

Joined-up thinking and harmonized approaches to product ownership and support between marketing and IT teams will help establish your composable DXP with clear lines of responsibility established. The ideal mindset is a can-do attitude that focuses on the product maturity of each individual PBC but always considers the evolution of the composable DXP as a whole.

6 Set up the right licensing and pricing arrangements

Flexibility and agility are at the heart of a composable DXP. These should be matched by the flexible, usage-based pricing models and licensing agreements more characteristic of SaaS solutions that avoid commitment and lock-in.

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Seven steps to get started on your composable DXP journey

Building, evolving and then managing a composable DXP should prove to be a highly positive move for marketers, who will enjoy significant benefits going forward. When making this significant change it can be difficult to know how to get started. Here are seven key steps to getting a composable DXP off the ground; note that these steps may overlap and are not necessarily linear.

1 Define your strategy and scope

Articulate what you are trying to achieve and define your strategy and specific goals. Work out the high-level objectives and the pain points you are trying to eliminate, as well as the scope of the channels and potential future channels it covers. A clear strategy and scope will help to align thinking across different stakeholders and support a potential business case.

Knowing the key reasons to implement a composable DXP will help define the detail behind your composable DXP architecture and roadmap and set the framework for planning, prioritization and implementation. Defining your strategy may also identify other issues that impact marketing agility, flexibility and scalability. A composable DXP provides enormous value, but it doesn’t necessarily solve all your issues.

2 Involve stakeholders early

For most organizations, a composable DXP is a new approach. It will require buy-in and input from customer experience teams and IT partners. Having early conversations helps bring everybody together, build consensus and get input on the details of the composable DXP.

3 Undertake research

Take time to research different capabilities across your marketing technology stack and the relative products in the market. What platform is at the heart of your composable DXP? Where are the gaps? Where are there overlapping features? Which solutions would your team keep and which would they change? Which solutions will fit into your composable DXP architecture from a technical perspective? All these questions and more need to be considered.

4 Plan your perfect composable DXP ecosystem

From your research, start to work out what your perfect composable DXP ecosystem looks like. Map out the different capabilities and then list the potential or preferred solutions for each. From here, you can start to see the separate, independent PBCs that will make up your composable DXP.

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5 Work out your roadmap, costs and any dependencies

Define a high-level roadmap and identify relative costs. There will be multiple inputs into this including dependencies relating to current and future solutions. Pricing, licensing agreements, data privacy and compliance regulations and technical issues may all have an impact. Involving your IT team here will be essential as the roadmap will also need to consider support, an area which can involve change.

6 Make your business case and line up providers

Armed with the detail, line up your providers and make any necessary business case to pave the way for a composable DXP. Data and insights from your research phase will be valuable here. Tools such as Crownpeak’s CMS Carry Costs Calculator can help establish the true cost of your existing solution, including the often overlooked infrastructure and maintenance costs, helping sell-in the cost and efficiency advantages of a composable approach to your business and IT stakeholders. Note that at this stage, you may also need external technical help initially to implement the composable DXP.

7 Start your composable DXP journey

Starting your composable DXP journey is a change. Expect bumps in the road. Remember, that the incremental nature of a composable DXP roadmap is a real advantage, allowing you to make changes based on real-world usage and feedback, working around the pressure of busy operational periods for your team, learning as you go and scaling when the time is right.

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AppendixNotes

1, 3, 5: Gartner, “Adopt a Composable DXP Strategy to Future-Proof Your Tech Stack.” Irina Guseva, Yefim Natis, Mick MacComascaigh, Mike Lowndes, Gene Phifer, 16 December 2020.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission

2: CMSWire, “DXP Market Guide.” 24 May 2021.

4: CMSWire, “State of Digital Customer Experience.” 28 September 2020.

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About

Crownpeak’s leading, enterprise digital experience platform (DXP) equips teams with the powerful tools they need to create inclusive, omnichannel experiences with speed and simplicity.

Our suite of composable applications is designed to support every stage of the customer journey and includes best-of-breed hybrid headless CMS, AI-powered personalization & experience optimization, digital quality & accessibility, content-driven commerce, privacy & consent management, and more. And, with our unique, zero-infrastructure approach and #CustomerObsessed support, we ensure the industry’s fastest time-to-market — up to 80% faster than typical enterprise DXP.

Headquartered in Denver, USA and Dortmund, Germany, we are proud to help many of the world’s most iconic global brands, including Unilever, Bosch, ASICS, Nintendo and American Express move faster, grow their brands and turn customers into lifelong fans.

For more information, please visit www.crownpeak.com.

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