Four principles for a composable customer data strategy
Composable technology is a highly debated topic, currently at its peak in terms of interest from marketing technology professionals. With the hype come inflated expectations, different interpretations and vendors using it left, right and centre to describe their solutions. In this last episode of our 3-part series, we break it down into the essentials and illustrate the 4 principles for a composable customer data strategy.
1. Conway’s law:
Any organisation that designs a solution will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organisation's communication structure.
2. Focus on intended use and business value.
Don’t go composable because it’s what all the cool companies are doing or because you like a technical challenge. Empower your teams to deliver personalised, privacy-friendly experiences first and look at the right tools for that job. Use a customer-centric approach like the Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) methodology.
3. Creative, not destructive approach
The flexibility of a composable architecture is perfect for companies
with a ‘test and learn’ or ‘fail fast’ ethos. Composable solutions can
be used to replace legacy components, but the most critical is they can
co-habit, enabling businesses of any size to start building a composable
architecture and switch out one solution at a time to avoid disruption.
Avoid the pitfall of the big bang approach, trying to change everything
all at once.
4. Law of diminishing returns
The incremental value offered by multiple specialised components must be greater than the increase in total cost of ownership due to incremental complexity (in workflows, integration, and maintenance). The cap will be different for every organisation.