I’ve been doing a lot of reading about the concept of “composable.” A composable approach involves combining individual building blocks together to make a whole. With the near-constant volatility and uncertainty in the world, it’s a sensible approach that provides greater flexibility and resilience.
For example a composable business can be thought of as having many parts, each with their own expertise (e.g. paying invoices, procuring materials, manufacturing widgets, answering customer calls). The emphasis is on re-imagining the business model and then assembly and re-assembly of pieces to get a positive outcome. In a composable business, teams are empowered to compose as they need to in order to meet demand, seize opportunities or overcome obstacles.
When it comes to technology, composable means assets, applications or tools each having discrete functionality. Thanks to tech that supports interoperability and flexibility, such as APIs and cloud computing, independent systems can work together in harmony.
Composable technology architecture allows us to break free from the heavy monolithic systems of the past in favour of the right collection of systems for our specific needs. Composable architecture also provides for — and relies on — a robust role for data to power a business. But composable doesn’t stop there, it’s also a way of thinking about building software itself, in a way that makes the parts thereof more flexible and reusable.