Top 2022 resources on monolith
Best monolith resource in 2022.
Learn more about monolith to improve your e-commerce strategy.
A Deep Dive On Monolith Platforms vs. Ecommerce Microservices vs. Headless Commerce - These days, it's hard to spend too much time reading about ecommerce trends without stumbling on an article on microservice…
Topics: platforms, headless, ecommerce, system, monolith, systems, deep, vs, frontend, microservices, content, architecture, commerce, dive.
Full Suite Monolith or Best-of-Breed Solution- Part 2: Cost - Choosing between a Full Suite Monolith or Best-of-Breed Solution can be a difficult discussion. Some brands are looking for an all in one solution while other brands are looking for a more customizable solution. So which will be the right fit for you? In this episode of Taco 'Bout Composable Commerce, Devon Hillard from Black Magic Consulting gives us the first consideration for choosing full suite monolith or best-of-breed solution: Cost Shaneil Full suite monolith or best-of-breed solution. This can be such a tricky one for brands to decide on, because on one hand, some businesses want something that's quick and easy to set up, so they'd rather have one vendor provide everything only to find out that, that set up could be a bit too rigid for their requirements. Now, on the other hand, we have businesses that want something that's highly innovative and highly customizable, like best-of-breed solutions. But that's usually associated with more complexity and can seem a little bit more daunting to compose. So which one is going to be right for you? Well, today we have Devon Hillard from Black Magic Consulting, and he's here to Taco 'Bout It. The last thing that you mentioned, I believe, is costs. So what are your thoughts on that ? Devon Cost, obviously, super important to any business. It's a little tricky, I think, with eCommerce solutions that we're talking about because you can range from, you know, Shopify, which may be a great solution for certain companies. And that's, you know, $59 a month. Up to large, monolithic eComm on prem installations, that might cost you $5Million to launch with And so you have this giant range just on the monolithic side. And then, if you start looking at Composable options, we're talking about best-of-breed vendors. That could be a handful of relatively affordable SAS offerings, or it could be 25 or 30 disparate systems, some of which are quite expensive. And then you also have the integration work of tying all that together, figuring out how you deploy that glue in that front end. So there could be, you know, kind of any range of costs of upfront launch. I think in general, the Composable Commerce approach might have a higher up front cost than at least some of the cheaper SAS based, like Shopify, etc., solutions. But the big thing to look at isn't just what does it cost to launch? What does it cost to get going? But long term over the next five years? Over the next 10 years, what does it cost to roll out new features to stay competitive in the commerce landscape and to be agile, enough to be really successful and kind of grow that business? And that's where I think the best-of-breed approach, where you're leveraging flexible solutions, you have an integration layer. That could really buy you a lot of efficiency. And that means it takes less development time to roll out new features, and that means it costs less. So your overall kind of total cost of ownership for a Composable solution may well be much lower than a monolithic approach, even if the up front cost was lower for that monolith. Just because the ongoing development and maintenance of that platform might take a lot more man hours, frankly. So it's not an easy answer. There's no simple answer that this is cheaper and this is more expensive. But it's definitely something that every company should look at and figure out what they think that kind TCO looks like and where they're going to make a smart investment for the future. Shaneil Yeah, I think you said something that was so important Devon, and it's I think a lot of people get caught up with just thinking about the up front cost and you're right enabled for us to be able to keep up with our competitors and keeping up with our customer expectations as well. We probably will have to be rapidly iterating and making changes and adapting to the new world, like he had said with COVID. So it's so important to not just consider your upfront costs but your total cost. The cost of not just getting live, but staying live. Devon Absolutely. I think that if you look at most companies, especially ones that have sort of a larger technical force in house, where they're doing that development or they're using a third party extensively your costs, you're loaded costs, especially for your head count, and you're tooling to run the site to build new features, to do QA, to do deployments, to do your monitoring; that is not an insignificant investment and can easily out shadow your cost to launch on your up front kind of licensing fees. So I think it really is important to look at the longer term and to say, you know, hey, you know, if I'm gonna be pushing out 50 feature releases a year, you know, where can I save money or what's gonna cost me more or less? Based on the efficiency of the system and the ease of rolling out new features and making changes. And I think that's where Composable solutions and, frankly, more modern solutions where you have more of an API driven approach and you have folks who are, you know, the running headless, for instance, and you can make significant changes to the UI and UX, including even sort of business flows without doing back end releases, without touching back end systems is a huge advantage there. From both an agility standpoint, but that translates down to a cost standpoint as well. Shaneil So we've spoken about the three different points that brands need to consider. With your extensive experience, tell us how Black Magic Consulting will actually help us move towards these differentiated experiences for the future. Devon Certainly. So we I mean, like I mentioned earlier, I've got 22 years of experience in the Enterprise eCommerce world. The rest of my team has similar levels of experience in marketing strategy, all kinds of components to being a successful eCommerce business and direct hands on experience at dozens of Fortune 1000 companies. And what that allows us to do is to come in with a client and say, you know, look very carefully where they are, where they want to go, what the competitive landscape looks like, what their strengths are, evaluate their digital maturity and help figure out what the best course forward looks like. And that could be to stay the course with the platform they're on, that could be to jump ship entirely to something new. It could be a gradual transition, leveraging a headless approach. There's lots of options, and it really is all about finding the right solution for the right business. And I think that's something that our experience really gives us a leg up on providing the best kind, of course forward for large businesses. Shaneil Absolutely well, Devon, thank you so much for walking us through your thought process of choosing between a full suite and best of breed. If you have any questions of whether or not you should be taking a different approach, and if you want a consultation with Devon and please feel free to reach out to us, we would be happy to help you out!
Topics: think, know, cost, monolith, kind, right, bestofbreed, thats, costs, solution, solutions, approach, suite.
Full Suite Monolith or Best-of-Breed Solution- Part 2: Digital Maturity - Choosing between a Full Suite Monolith or Best-of-Breed Solution can be a difficult discussion. Some brands are looking for an all in one solution while other brands are looking for a more customizable solution. So which will be the right fit for you? In this episode of Taco 'Bout Composable Commerce, Devon Hillard from Black Magic Consulting gives us the first consideration for choosing full suite monolith or best-of-breed solution: Digital Maturity Shaneil Full Suite monolith or best-of- breed. This can be such a tricky one for brands to decide on, because on one hand, some businesses want something that's quick and easy to set up, so they'd rather have one vendor provide everything. Only to find out that set up can be a bit too rigid for their requirements. Now, on the other hand, we have businesses that want something that's highly innovative and highly customizable, like best of breeds solutions. But that's usually associated with more complexity and can seem a little bit more daunting to compose. So, which one is going to be right for you? Well, today we have Devon Hillard, from Black Magic Consulting, and he's here to Taco' Bout it! So with these pros and cons, what are the main things that businesses should be looking out for in deciding whether or not they should go with full suite or best-of-breed? So speed, flexibility, agility. Those are becoming even more important. So now that we've spoken about features, what's next? Devon I think the next thing really is for company to understand their digital maturity. And you mentioned that earlier in our discussion. But when we talk about Composable Commerce or best-of-breed commerce solutions, we are really talking about taking, you know, could be two or it could be dozens of independent solutions and weaving them together into a complete offering. And that requires either a kind of strong in house technical team and knowledge and investment in being a technology company, as well as, a commerce company and a retail company. Or it means a very strong partnership with a system integration partner who has that leadership, that knowledge and that technical skill set to design, build, and maintain that integration network of those kind of components to build the overall solution. So, I think digital maturity is a really big piece of whether or not a company could be successful with a Composable Commerce approach or not. And there's no shame in saying, "Hey, we're focused on being a retailer. We're not, you know, really invested in being a technology company, and we don't have you know, that level of strong technical team in house and we don't have that kind of partnership with a third party integrator." There's no shame in that. Better to admit that upfront than to stumble down a road that you simply can't maintain as you're going. Shaneil Absolutely, I think we've echoed that point so much, we're not saying one is necessarily better than the other. But based on the circumstance that you're in or the situation that you're in, you may not be at the level of digital maturity required to deliver a Composable Commerce approach. Absolutely. And the last thing that you mentioned, I believe, is cost. So what? What are your thoughts on that
Topics: suite, composable, youre, solution, really, company, bestofbreed, monolith, commerce, thats, right, think, digital.
Top 10 Commerce Headless FAQs - 1. What Is Headless Commerce?  Simply put Headless Commerce is the complete separation of the front-end code/ UI layer from the back-end engine where commerce functionality and business logic exist. This separation is essential to the flexibility of a Headless Commerce platform. It allows the rapid evolution of the omnichannel front-end customer experiences (whether that is across touchpoints or geos) while keeping the business logic for things like product catalogs, shopping cart, promotions, payments, etc. in place. Check out our comprehensive review a more in-depth breakdown of Headless Commerce. 2. What Are eCommerce APIs? And, How Do They Relate to Headless Commerce? Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are designed to enable an application to expose specific services (like order management, pricing information, catalogs, etc.) to other applications. In a Headless Commerce context, an API is what allows backend systems to "talk" and relay information to any front-end/ heads (think customer touch-points like mobile storefronts or IoT devices).  3. What Is the Difference between Traditional & Headless eCommerce? A traditional eCommerce approach, or monolith platform, was built with a strong 'coupling' between the front-end experience and the back-end commerce functions. A monolith approach delivers value by offering a multitude of out-of-the-box functionality directly connected to a frontend to quickly stand up a web-based/ desktop browser experience. Fast forward to now, monolithic systems are inflexible when it comes to adding new channels or updating customer experiences.  On the other hand, a Headless Commerce 'decoupled' approach allows for the flexibility to implement front-end changes, add new channels, and generate quicker release cycles (for example: testing solely the new addition in a Headless architecture vs. testing the entire tightly coupled systems pre-launch). The differences are tangible in your company's Total Cost of Ownership.   Ready to Get Started with Headless Commerce? Discover the steps for getting started, how to implement your front-end, considerations for choosing the right platform and more with our full guide. Read the Guide 4. How Much Does It Cost to Run a Headless Commerce Solution? While exact pricing will vary based on the details of implementation and your specific business goals, the cost of your core Headless Commerce software generally depends on order volume and GMV. In addition to your core Headless Commerce software cost, you will also have to consider the cost of any third-party software (like search, personalization, etc.), the cost to build your front end (this may be completed using internal resources for not extra cost), and the cost of integrating all these pieces together. Similar to your core commerce software price, this all depends on your goals, timeline, and scope. That being said, when evaluating the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), a Headless Commerce solution will result in savings from a resource allocation and potentially partner implementation perspective. For a detailed look at TCO, check out our comprehensive guide here. 5. Where Is the 'Head' in a Headless Commerce Solution? The flexibility of a Headless Commerce solution extends to the choice of 'head' or the customer-facing front-end. While some businesses will choose to build the front-end from scratch, leveraging the APIs of a Headless solution. Others choose to use a separate Content Management System (CMS) to attach one of the many heads (think customer touchpoints or desktop vs. in-store mobile check-out). A Headless solution allows for the freedom to choose which option aligns with your business-centric goals best.  6. Is Headless Commerce Future-Proof?  While no life cycle is infinite, the short answer is yes! While eCommerce trends- and more importantly- customer expectations change rapidly, a Headless Commerce approach allows you to quickly launch a new experience on the front-end (adding curbside pickup or voice-enabled chatbots for example) without impacting the core business logic in the back-end. In contrast to a rigid traditional monolith approach that can take months to implement costly changes, a Headless Commerce approach will allow your business to evolve with customer expectations and experiment with new experiences at an unparalleled pace.  7. How Does Headless Commerce Support Omnichannel?  By removing the traditional 'middle layer' that connects the front and back-ends in a tightly coupled monolith solution. A Headless Commerce approach relies on a single source of truth to simplify the architecture by removing the middle layer. Enabling each customer touchpoint to connect back to the same core logic & business functions in a 'decoupled' back-end.  8. Why Should You Care about Headless? Are Customers Going to Notice a Difference?  Most customers won't necessarily notice a difference between a traditional storefront vs. a Headless Commerce experience. What a Headless Commerce approach does allow is a brand to regain control of their customer experience and dramatically speed up experimentation cycles to keep up with customer expectations and company growth. This scalability also impacts overall site speed, a crucial factor according to Google as "53% of mobile visitors abandon a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load".  Why Is Headless Commerce Being Talked about More? The short answer: customer expectations! While the pandemic fundamentally changed how many businesses operate, it was essentially an exacerbation of the rapid change of pace in customer expectations in today's world. A Headless Commerce approach's flexibility, extensibility, and rapid time to market in order to better align with customer expectations and staying one step ahead of your competitors are what is driving the conversations around Headless.  10. How Can I Switch to Headless Commerce Solutions? A complete re-platforming to a Headless commerce approach can be achieved in weeks rather than months with Elastic Path's Pre-Composed Solutions™. There are a few other options for making the switch as well. A popular approach has been a staggered implementation if you are replacing a monolith solution. Where pieces will progressively be replaced while maintaining business-critical functions. For a more in-depth look at re-platforming, check out our whitepaper on re-platforming.
Topics: customer, solution, monolith, faqs, headless, business, commerce, approach, cost, traditional, frontend.