By Mac McClelland
In a recent IDC InfoBrief sponsored by IFS and Boomi, “Global Study of Composability in Enterprise Software and Evolving Business Needs,” composability emerges as a very important consideration for organizations pursuing greater IT flexibility — which, let’s face it, is just about every organization. In this blog, we’ll take a look at how composability increases flexibility and the greater agility it supports, as well some of the study’s other compelling insights.
What Is Composability?
The IDC study, which surveyed more than 1,000 C-level respondents, defines composability somewhat differently. IDC’s definition focuses on the idea of “assembling or configuring an app via pre-built components.” The components are connected via APIs so they can be assembled and configured quickly and easily.
On the other hand, client organizations (89%) define composability “as application programming interface (API)-driven innovation followed by seamless integration between process workflows (51%).
These are not radically different perspectives, but on the client side improved operational outcomes such as greater efficiency (51%) and scalability (51%) are top of mind. There were some (1%) who admitted to not understanding composability. That’s not a lot, but also not what you’d expect from C-level executives.
Global Disruptions Place Renewed Focus on IT Flexibility
To some extent from a business perspective, what constitutes a “disruption” is in the eye of the beholder. But certainly the COVID pandemic, Russia-Ukraine war, Brexit, severe weather such as extreme heat or massive flooding have affected most businesses at an operational level. Among study participants, inventory imbalances (58%), demand volatility (53%), and supply chain issues (48%) were the most troublesome consequences from these disruptions.
While most organizations (85%) represented in the study felt they handled disruptions “very well” or “well,” the consensus was that room for improvement definitely still existed. Aging legacy systems, primarily on-premises, were a clear barrier to greater agility in the face of disruptions and to a faster path to innovation. In modernizing these systems, composability was a major consideration because it addresses three crucial issues created by legacy IT infrastructure: inefficiency, waste, and a slow pace of innovation and new product delivery.
What Are the Barriers to Entry for Composability?
More than half (57%) of organizations in the study maintain they have a composability strategy and 45 percent consider composability a priority. Yet several barriers to implementing a composability strategy remain. The biggest barrier (54%) the study uncovered is a lack of understanding at the executive/board level. This shouldn’t be surprising. When organizations were first considering moving operations to the cloud it was a barrier. When Big Data, digital transformation, and moving to best-of-breed applications instead of monolithic software suites were the “new, new things,” it was a barrier.
Coming in a close second (50%) to lack of executive/board understanding was insufficient progress in moving to the cloud. In commenting on the study, Boomi Chief Product and Technology Officer Ed Macosky pointed out that, “…organizations… must overcome considerable barriers, such as the lack of understanding of composability’s value at the executive level and inadequate progression within cloud journeys.”
Composability — a Pillar of the Future-Focused Organization
There is so much upside to composability that, like AI, it will help define winners and losers in the marketplace of the future. The InfoBrief lists eight drivers for adopting a composable approach to IT infrastructure:
- Improved efficiency and scalability
- Democratization of information
- Reusability of digital assets
- Speed to market
- Embracement of emerging tech (e.g., event-driven architecture)
- Ease of system migrations
- Enabled connectivity of complex systems
- Reduced tech debt
Composability influences software purchases today and will continue to do so in the future. That’s why right now CIOs and CTOs are the most ardent cheerleaders for composability, but as the business and operational value of composability gains greater recognition, CFOs will see its importance to accelerating digital transformation initiatives. And this will be true across all industries.
To learn more, download your copy of the IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by IFS and Boomi, “Global Study of Composability in Enterprise Software and Evolving Business Needs” (doc #US51992524, June 2024) now.