Today, a website platform is more than just your website but your company’s Digital Experience Platform (DXP), managing all the online elements for your business from social media channels to analytics, your CRM and ecommerce functions. Through this your customers will enjoy a more personal user experience, which is continually being tailored to meet their own very individual needs.
There are two types of DXPs:
* Monolithic Suites – this is an all-in-one platform which includes all the technologies a business needs, such as ecommerce, email and its CMS integrated into a single suite purchased from one vendor. While these solutions are different technologically and function-wise, they all have the same look and feel and integrate seamlessly with each other. Each individual element may not be the best on the market but it can be convenient.
* Composable DXPs – this is a more flexible approach which allows companies to bolt on the tools which they think suit their business best. These tools work together via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to deliver a customised digital experience. It could be described as a ‘best of the breed’ strategy, where you choose the best possible digital solutions for your business.
Here’s an analogy to describe the difference between the two and one which was a familiar story during the pandemic. A restaurant has two business functions – to create food in the kitchen and, front of house, to serve that food. When Covid hit, the ability to serve this food was taken away and the business couldn’t function.
At this point the restaurant either shut its doors – and some did – or they decided to find a way of continuing to cook food and deliver it to their customers’ homes. This involved a fair bit of work – creating menus for the website, sorting out online ordering, as well as delivery tracking, stock management, getting hold of drivers and making sure vehicles were insured etc. This could be considered the Monolithic approach.
Alternatively, other restaurants looked to bolt on the services of a food delivery business which already had the infrastructure and skills to deliver meals, such as Deliveroo. This would be the Composable DXP approach. Many would argue, why reinvent the wheel?
Both have their positive and negatives but, at the end of the day, hopefully customers received some delicious restaurant-standard meals to cheer up their lockdowns.
Here we look at some questions to consider before choosing between a Composable DXP or Monolithic Suite:
Will it grow with my business?
If your business is in the launch phrase or fairly new, then a Composable DXP can grow with you. You can start simply and then add in the functions you recognise that your business needs. There’s also the flexibility to swap out a function for one that more closely matches your changing requirements.
On the other hand, the Monolithic Suite approach could seem too complex for your needs initially. It might seem more streamlined and, arguably, easier to use – as all the tools are there already and they look familiar, as they are from the same provider. However, the chances are that your business won’t get round to using all the products available and there’s no flexibility.
Will I have to change my business process?
Using the Monolithic Suite approach often means changing business process to tooling rather than picking tooling which matches your business process.
How easy is it to integrate into other solutions?
Before a business moves onto a Monolithic Suite, the chances are that they will have already got, say, an email platform system in place which the team is comfortable using. This means that moving onto a new website platform using a Monolithic Suite typically sees the team having to replace that and start using something new. So, not only are they getting to grips with a new website to navigate, they could also be working with a whole new email system.
Using a Composable DXP approach means that teams can stick with systems they are familiar with and can also bolt on applications which are basically the best available, built by firms which specialise in that business application. In terms of the ‘bolting on’, Umbraco is putting a lot of effort into making connectors available for the various functions which a business wants to plug into its DXP and this makes the jigsaw puzzle much easier. A Composable DXP is designed to integrate with other best of breed solutions.
Can I start using it straightaway and is it user friendly?
A Composable DXP approach can start almost immediately with a more condensed functionality and feature set. While the look and feel will not be identical across the applications, your team will already be comfortable with the functions and any training can focus on utilising any new additions to your current tech stack.
How does the value and cost compare?
Composable DXPs can have a large impact on a business over a short amount of time. Thanks to faster development cycles, updates/fixes can be rolled out immediately. A Composable DXP gives freedom to design a digital experience tailored to match your business strategy, as it evolves over time.
The cost can be lower with a Composable DXP, as you only pay for the services your business uses and you can budget for any additional plug-ins that you might require in the future.
What about update speed?
Companies can get updates to Composable UXPs at any time, because the best of breed vendors focus on their own solution.
Will security be an issue?
Security updates and patches can be implemented outside normal development cycles and without affecting other systems. With a Monolithic Suite, features and updates for suites are provided by a single vendor and can take a long time to be implemented.
Both solutions have their benefits but we think a Composable DXP offers a solution for businesses which want a low start-up and switching costs and no need to replace a company’s current architecture.
As we mentioned above, we recently attended a conference hosted by Umbraco and Ucommerce.
As Umbraco explains: “A CMS might be the foundational software for digital identity, strategy, and engagement, but digital experiences require a suite of independent tools powering the delivery of personalised experiences that can scale and connect. With a Composable DXP, you have full control over your tech stack, how each component interacts with each other, and how it scales.”
“Instead of being limited to a Monolithic Suite by a single vendor who claims to have a blanket solution to everything, we help tie everything together into one flexible solution that works with hundreds of best-of-breed integrations that you can then pick from in order to succeed with your digital project.”
If you want to find out more about how a Composable DXP can benefit your business, do get in touch on tel: 020 3397 3222.