The rise of the composable enterprise

It’s obvious that the way companies do business has changed forever. Online and app-based companies are replacing dated, manual business systems and processes that have been embedded in organizations for decades away – powered by cloud, open APIs, data analytics, mobile, and social.

Modern businesses are evolving away from being hierarchical and hardwired to being flexible and open to change. This emerging model is called the “composable enterprise,” and it’s built to be agile, scale globally, and provide new avenues for cost efficiency and revenue generation.

Download this whitepaper to learn:

• How transforming into a composable enterprise could help your business compete and win in the digital economy.
• How IT leaders are an integral part of the business strategies of the future.
• Success stories from CIOs who have shepherded their businesses through digital disruption.

The following is an excerpt from our whitepaper. Fill in the form to download the full version.

The shifting enterprise landscape

A recent survey published by MuleSoft confirms there are a growing number of companies transforming into composable enterprises, and they’re not just startups in Silicon Valley. Established businesses are responding to this new digital environment by structuring themselves as composable enterprises, built out of connected software services, applications, and devices. In addition, most are seeking to adopt the Internet of Things (IoT) and microservices technologies, further digitizing important aspects of their operations. These organizations are able to expose core competencies as digital assets that can be leveraged by others, thus extending the bounds of their enterprises. For example, Amazon has exposed its competency not only as an online retailer, but as an IT solutions provider through Amazon Web Services. Amazon repurposed its own hosting infrastructure as a sellable service, and now AWS is a billion-dollar business.

What is a composable enterprise?

A composable enterprise is a lightweight entity, capable of quickly mapping technology solutions to ever-changing business requirements. The business is built on services that are acquired and leveraged from APIs provided by outside providers, or through a company’s internal data centers. The services are connected through APIs, in the manner of building blocks.

The composable enterprise has the following characteristics:

• Business processes are assembled by APIs.
• Organizational processes and data are opened up to partners and customers via APIs.
• Business users can create front-end applications and access data, on demand.
• The architecture and infrastructure is highly scalable, 9 capable of accommodating new workloads and requirements on demand.
• Technology solutions emerge not only from top-down vision, but from bottom-up capability.
• Security is baked throughout the entire infrastructure, in every composable building block.

The people, process, and technology behind composable enterprises

The composable enterprise is not just about technology, but rather is built and functions on three essential elements: people, process, and technology. The technology fabric that binds this all together is essential for competing in a global economy and providing the information that decision-makers need.

IT leaders and their departments have key roles to play in this process, enabling the business to expose capabilities in new and innovative ways, such as designing and releasing digital products and experimenting with new approaches. It’s up to “central IT to become both a partner and platform to the business, working to expose more of the value of the business,” says MuleSoft’s Ross Mason.

Leading the composable enterprise

It takes innovation-minded, forward-thinking business leadership to transform from a staid, traditional enterprise to a composable enterprise, built by the business, for the business. “In order for us to be more agile and provide better visibility to our products, we have to engage our business,” says the roofing company’s enterprise architect. The path to the composable enterprise starts within the organization, engaging developers and employees at all levels, not just in the C-suite or in the data center. Often, the catalyst that first drives the movement to the composable enterprise begins with workarounds to IT departments, which may be not responsive enough to business requirements. The rise of cloud applications — commissioned by business users and developers outside of formal IT budgets — has become commonplace.

CIOs need to step up as chief innovation officers and provide guidance and vision to help lead the composable enterprise. Increasingly, organizations that leverage technology in innovative ways are disrupting their industries and gaining market share. CIOs and their staffs will drive this evolution to composable enterprises, providing solutions embodied as APIs.

Learn much more from our ebook: “The rise of the composable enterprise”

• Section 1: Executive summary
• Section 2: The shifting enterprise landscape
• Section 3: What is a composable enterprise?
• Section 4: The people, process, and technology behind composable enterprises
• Section 5: Leading the composable enterprise
• Section 6: Conclusion

Fill in the form to download the full version of our whitepaper.