The FODcast Season 5 | Episode 6 with Rex Bigger

Seasoned professional Rex Bigger joined the composable conversation for this episode - the sixth of Season 5.

With over 25 years working in the tech and IT sector following a first-class degree in Astrophysics from UCL, Rex has a vast amount of experience with a varied career that has seen him work as a Senior Java Developer for the likes of MTV and Disney, before moving into Consultancy roles with Philips and e2x Limited where he led projects for high-profile clients including LEGO and Ikea. 

Rex then co-founded specialist headless commerce consultancy, Cabiri in 2017 where he is currently CEO.  

In our chat for the FOD, Rex spotlights the early days of composable (before the term itself even existed) and why the agency chose to join the MACH Alliance in late 2023. 
 
He also considers future developments within IT more generally, and whether its cyclical nature means a new generation of monoliths could be where we end up as businesses embrace composable, but with a desire for a homogenous interface – it’s another fascinating discussion and viewpoint.  

Please do share within your network and let us know your thoughts! 

Simply Commerce is the leading supplier of talent into digital commerce across technology, digital marketing, product, sales, and leadership.

Find our more about our approach and our services within digital commerce recruitment here: https://simply-commerce.co.uk/

Transcript

James 0:01

Welcome to the FOD, where we bring you insights into the future of digital commerce for free. Season five is all about the mood to compose bull architecture, and while it's not a buzzword anymore, there are still a number of unanswered questions, which is why I'm speaking to those who have the answers. In return, if you enjoy our content, we ask if you could like and share to spread the message far and wide. Hello and welcome to episode six of the FOD. Today I'd like to welcome Rex Bigger, co-founder and CEO of Kabiri. There are a few people out there with the experience Rex has, and seven years ago he co-founded Kabiri, a specialist headless commerce consultancy based in the UK. At the end of 23, Kabiri joined the Mac Alliance, making them one of 24 SIs in the group globally and just one of a handful operating in the UK. That's my highlights, Rex. Do you want to share a little bit more?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Hi James, yes. So yeah, 2017 was was the pivot point where we decided that um to band together and sort of focus on this whole headless, serverless environment. Um I mean, composable and Mac weren't even terms used back then. But we'd been working in the agency world for the past 20 years and we'd been lived through monoliths. And really around 2015, the death of the monolith was was visible to anyone who was who's working in that space. You could see that whole method of building out things just um wasn't gonna work, wasn't gonna work for most clients. And a group of us got together and thought, well, you know, well, we we've seen this happening, we know where this is gonna be going. If we focus on this technology now, I think we could be at the forefront of this. And that's that's why we formed Kibiri uh back then. And um we've always had that focus on what has become known as this composable um method of do of doing e-commerce. And I think um that's that's been it's been great for us, and we've seen that growth in the industry as well.

James 1:49

Nice. I guess when you formed it in in 2017, it that composable buzzword wasn't wasn't necessarily there. So so um, I guess what how did you uh define Kabiri at that point in time?

SPEAKER_00 2:01

So um I think the the word everyone was using back then was headless, uh, and um people kind of got what that meant. So we could talk about um having uh using headless technologies to build the site, we could talk about decoupling certain bits of functionality from uh other areas, and we could we could explain that to people about how best they could use um their tools. Uh and part of that was then looking at saying, well, we could build you a CMS, but you know there are CMSs out there you can buy. And I think it was that first sort of really was the probably driven by CMSs and building out front ends that really started making people think about how got people to think about how they could build out their site to fit their business needs. Uh, and uh, and that's really where we came in. And it was very much a uh starting from a technological uh point of view and talking to sort of the CTOs and heads of architecture uh and getting that information to them first and foremost.

What does joining the MACH Alliance mean for your business?

James 2:55

Okay, okay. Well, I know that um kind of during that period of maybe say uh 2012 to 2020, there was certainly uh a lot of demand for uh end customers to try and uh rip the head off their their monoliths and give them that flexibility that they need within the customer experience piece. And before we move into the the to to the next part, you guys joined the Mac Alliance uh the end of last year. Um they've grown from single figures to over 100 members now. What does that mean for Kabiri Rex?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

So it's it's very interesting for us because we I say we've been doing this for seven years now. And uh when the Mac Alliance formed, it was it was one of those weird things we think, well, we've been doing this. I'm not sure that the industry needs this because you know we've we we we know what it's what we're doing. We're we're telling people how best to look at this. Uh and the Mac Alliance seemed to be sort of coming along, maybe um just focusing on it from well, at the time we thought maybe it's just uh your marketing gimmick to try and try and promote a few companies. We've seen that though change over the years and it's become a sort of movement to really get that message out there and um promote uh the understanding of how sort of composable technologies and how this all sort of hangs together. And I think that's been really valuable um for it to be doing that. It's made our job easier being outside the Mac Alliance, explaining those terms. So uh last year um we decided that probably it's worth us uh going through the process of joining the Mac Alliance. Um we're both saying the same things to the same people, so we might as well be seeing from you know, be one team working together to promote that message out there. So, yes, we started that process last year, and um yes, we we've finished finalized that just before the end of the year and became one of those final few um to hit the hundred mark to get the hundred um Mac certified custom be one of those final Mac certified partners.

James 4:51

Nice, and yeah, and as I said at the start, I think there's about 20, I think that I looked yesterday, there's 24 SIs, there's a couple of GSIs. Um, so the lion's share of those uh members of the alliance are the the vendors of different shapes and sizes. Um they've obviously got quite a stringent uh qualification quite criteria as well, haven't they? So as a uh partner, what good do you guys have to show to qualify for that?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Well, it it's it's good. I mean, it should it puts a bit of um rigor into the process or especially from an SI point of view. I think from a from an ISV, um it's very easy to see how you could be Mac certified. There are certain criteria that you need to be as a as a cloud tool to hit that. But it's a bit more woolly when it comes to the SIs. And I think pushing uh pushing the requirement that you you have to have done uh composable projects, that you're promoting the whole composable Mac um themes out there, that you're you're uh helping the community, you know, do you're doing things like this podcast or you know, writing articles about the technologies and how they work together and how composable can help businesses and you know, doing outreach and meeting people, proving that you can do all that and you've been doing that, I think um shows that you are actually right for that space. And that's that's one of the key components from joining the Mac Alliance.

How have you seen the growth of Composable?

James 6:05

Nice. Okay, okay. Yeah, like you said, I guess for as an as an ISV, it's far more uh easy to define if they do follow the MAC principles, sorry. Um, but okay, um yeah, we just touched upon it. The the Mac Alliance has certainly brought a lot of uh um a lot of attention to to that movement, and I think it's helped um the educate the whole education piece within the composable transformation um substantially. Um that leads on to leads on well to the first question, then which is the talking about the growth of composable. And we've we touched upon it at the start and the reason why you set Kabira up in the first place. But how have you seen the the industry develop sort of from 2010 to to where we are now?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yeah, so I think I say, well, at the start of the of Kabiri, we were mainly talking to the CTOs and heads of architecture, and I think that was really back then, those were the people who were getting the the way that the the shift in technology was moving. They could see that um buying a one size fits all monolith um wasn't going to work for every business. And they they were already, those sorts of people were already trying to think of solutions of how best they could get um a great payment system implemented or uh or a PIM or or um or a CMS, and they were trying to work out how their stacks could be changed. So when that whole rise of of these cloud piece tools started to appear, they were the first people to really think, oh, actually, this could work for us, we could we could build on that. And that's how I say we originally would talk to people, we talked to those people, they would get they'd understand what we were talking about, we'd be able to say how it could work best for their business, and we could move it forward from there. What we've seen in the most recent years, probably in the last three or four years, and uh, and I suspect it's the outreach from the likes of the Mac alliance has helped with this, is that you're seeing not just the technology uh professionals of the company starting to hear these words, it's the it's the business people. And I think it started really with those marketing people. When you start talking to the marketing teams of how they can personalize uh content for customers and how best to serve those customers on a on a very fast turnaround. So, not like the days of the monolith where you had to maybe plan stuff months in advance, where you could now sort of think about making changes for that week or that day. When you start talking to those people and they see the benefits for the business, rather than from a technological point of view, they've started to become the drivers of moving in that direction. Uh, and that has spread out uh amongst sort of the wider platform. I think the CFOs are probably going to be the last people to convince because they were used to seeing one license fee for one product. Now they have like eight, ten licenses they have to negotiate. Uh, and those prices ultimately will be less than probably a monolith, but you've got you've got a lot more hassle around setting them up and managing them and doing that. So I think they'll be the last two people on board. But I think now we're definitely seeing that point from the businesses starting to push this agenda rather than just from the technology.

What advice would you give when it comes to getting the CFO on board?

James 8:57

Okay. You raise a valid point there with the the the CFOs probably being the last people to come on board. Um, my understanding is, and see, I'm not heavily involved in the space, is that you'd have multiple different licenses and they you have to pay them off in slightly different ways. So some might be based on GMV, some could be based on some are completely different, which then um obviously raises other questions internally as well. You I imagine you've been involved in tens of these conversations with with existing and potential customers. What advice do you give them when it comes to getting the CFO on board?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

So down the route that it's it's looking at the essentially the return on the investment you're getting. Um by going down this this Mac composable route, you're going to be delivering change quicker. Um, it's going to be more efficient to manage moving forward. Uh, so it's all those other costs. So it's not necessarily thinking about the license costs, it's the costs to you as a business for just doing the updates, just waiting for change to happen. The the missed costs by not implementing that new piece of functionality before your competitor. So all those sort of things, it's like where that bottom line is going to be and how you can pull, you can save money there. And that's going to be that's your long-term savings. You know, the hit from license fees and the hit from development is only going to be over those first couple of years, really. And then it will start become part of your your your yearly, year-on-year uh budgeting. But it's those, it's those savings across the board that you'll be making. Um, I think that's that's the way to that's the way to sort of promote the idea to the CFOs that yes, there might be more work initially setting up these things, but once everything's running, you'll start seeing savings across the board uh and the the benefit to business is is much greater in that way.

James 10:44

Okay, and I guess that that also links in then with trying to uh show ROI as fast as you can um to them so they can start to see some of that impact as well. Because I I think um maybe what what can happen is um you um you have this desire to move to a composable uh uh architecture, and um there's definitely a little bit of a misunderstanding in with regards to its complexity in the market. And I think a lot of companies maybe expect it to go from start to finish pretty quickly and without a huge amount of complications. And um, I guess what you I guess you need to remember then is that actually it's a journey, and the the key benefits of move of making this movement is are gonna come later down the line. You're gonna have that flexibility, you're not gonna be tied in, the costs are gonna get cheaper, but actually at the start, it is gonna be more challenging and complex and and hard and expensive. Is that kind of a fair summary?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah, and I think that's that's where the the speed of development comes into to its own. So one thing we would normally say is that that composable doesn't have doesn't have to be complex. There's a perception that it is this hard thing to do, and there's all these moving parts, and you have to understand how they pull together. But um if you're doing it right, and if if you're like several companies out there, we have accelerators, if you have that sort of groundwork in place to help make that easier, you're actually developing a lot quicker. If you're developing a lot quicker, the cost for that development is going to be lower than say in in the monolith days where you'd get maybe a GSI to come in, put in one of the large monoliths and spend two to three years doing that. That doesn't need to happen anymore. You know, you can you can build out sites in six months easily that are fully functional, fully featured. What you're looking for is a business. And you're at that six-month point, you're already making uh you know, you're already recouping those uh that cost from the customers because you're already putting out that change to the customers and you can start seeing that that money coming back into the company. You're not sitting on a project that's going to be two years down the line before you see any see any um recoup.

James 12:53

Yeah, okay. And you touched upon the accelerators there as well. And that was a point that I wanted to mention because I know Kabiri uh has its own accelerator. I think yours is called Ashiba. Um a number of the other uh SIs do as well, which shows that's a movement to try and get customers on um up and running quickly. We've also seen Commerce tools come to market in the last 12 months with their Connect product and and now Foundry, which I believe is similar. It allows the the vendors to talk to each other far quicker. So to me, that's a real uh development in the in in the making the movement towards a composable architecture. But um, I guess how much of a game changer really is it?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

So, from our point of view, I mean we we developed uh Sheba really early on, I think about 2020, um, when we started, uh when it sort of had its first sort of release. Um and the the way we looked at, there was a lot of, and I think this is where the tools like Foundry and Connect have come from, there was a lot of boilerplate. There's only a certain number of ways you can connect a CMS to a front end or a payment system to your to your commerce platform. Uh, and looking at um how those were, there's so much commonality there that really the focus needs to be on the business logic and the business rules that are going to be sitting outside that. The actual creating an order is always gonna be the same, you know, it's at its core, the way of creating order is gonna be the same no matter which platforms you're using. So it's more about what specific business rules need to be applied to that order. And that's where we saw the benefit of having an accelerator at that point. If we had done all that boilerplate at the back end, so that we could move really quickly with those connections and you could swap out different CMSs or different PMs or different payment platforms or searches or promotions engines, and you can just pull them all in. Because you've got that core uh connectivity at the back end, the actual the work you're doing is really towards the business requirements rather than just setting it all up. And that really does knock a large amount of time off of the off of the build uh build pipeline. I mean, we we would normally say tip for a typical composible project. We'd be looking at somewhere between three plus months being cut from the from the timeline just because we've got that accelerator in place.

James 15:06

Okay, well, that's that's a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah, I mean when you're talking less than a year for uh for a project, I mean it is a big chunk of that time that you're you're saving by by going down an accelerated route. And I think where Foundry and Connect come in, and they uh the commerce tools have seen where what where those tools are needed um again to answer that um complexity question that a lot of um customers have. And I think it's really it benefits those um agencies that don't have an acceleration place or haven't got that um long track record of how to build these projects or how to work with uh the platforms out there. So it gives them a step on the ladder. So it's their first step saying, okay, we we know how these connections work because we're we're being given them. So we can start from there. And it's kind of a shortcut for those guys to really, really get moving. And I think uh it helps um, I think people talk about digital maturity a lot when we talk about composable. And I help having a I think having a product like Foundry helps those sort of customers who aren't quite there with the understanding. And I think this comes back to looking at how composable has grown. So when you've got uh a company that is reading all the good um text out there about how this is going to benefit their business, but maybe haven't got that tech-driven focus to get there, it's more coming from the business side. It helps those people understand okay, it's not a monolith, but it's a here's a package solution that we can start working with. Uh, and I think that that that really helps those sort of businesses get get started. But um, yeah, I think from a from an agency point of view, having a tools like Foundry and Connect to help them kickstart that process as well. But let's say we've had an accelerator now for four years, uh, and we build an iterator on it every with learnings from every project to try and understand how best we can tailor it to the marketplace as it is. And that that always gives us that step up when we when we go into see a customer and say, well, yes, we can do this in X months because we know your business, you know, we've looked at what your business does, we see how that fits our accelerator, and then we can really we can start pushing those the speed to delivery.

Who do you pick first? Agency or Vendor?

James 17:08

Nice. Well, I it was in the last season I spoke to a guest and he he actually highlighted um he wished he'd spoken to the uh their delivery partner first of all, because they had actually had accelerators for some slightly different products which they could have used, but because they picked the they picked their vendors first of all, they then couldn't go back on that and it actually made it quite a complex uh implement uh implementation. But had he had that conversation first of all, they might have gone a slightly different route and they would have shaved a lot of time off their overall transformation. So something that's definitely worth thinking about, um, which I guess also leads nicely into the question of uh in if you were on the customer side, who would who would you engage first? The the vent the soft the the software vendors or the delivery partners?

SPEAKER_00 17:50

It's it's a it's an interesting question. I think as an agency, we'd always say come to us first. We can we can help you get get to where you are. I think the from a from a business point of view, it's very easy to go out there and get information about all these tools and try and work out what's best for you. I one of the one of the phrases that's used uh a lot in this uh in this industry is best of breed. And it's something that I I personally quite I hate. It doesn't matter how good a product is, if it's not right for your business, it's not the right product. So we we like to say best of need, you know. So if you were engaging us first, we would go in, we'd do a discovery phase, we'd look at your requirements, uh, we'd look through what you wanted to do in certain areas of functionality and say, well, actually, these tools probably best fit you here. Uh and and you know, say, have a look at these and move that way forward. We do find uh a lot of customers that um go first to the marketplace and look at the vendors. Um they're naturally drawn to the ones that have the better publicity, the better marketing, uh, and the better um you know, the better um visibility out in the marketplace, where sometimes they might not be the best tools for their for their business. Uh, and it requires them then to do a lot of that groundwork to really understand what those tools can do and what they can offer the business. So I guess if you're if you're have a strong technical department who are always looking at the new technologies, then I think it works for the the customer to really can do that. They can look at what their business needs and that team can do the deep dives into those technologies to make sure it is the right tool for them. But if you haven't got that focus, then I think um engaging the agency first who has experience with with a lot of tools um is is a good way to go. I mean, we're we're part of a Mac Alliance, but um, you know, we're partners with about 40 different ISVs in that space, some of some of whom aren't even Mac Alliance members. Um, but we you know we understand their technologies, we've worked with them in the past. So it gives us a broad range of um understandings of crowd across the technology stack of how those different tools can help different businesses. So I think it swings around about. So if you're if you're a if you're very much a tech-driven company, I think your your tech team probably have a good understanding of what they need uh and and can help make those decisions. But if you if you need help on that, I think going to an agency who has experience with a lot of vendors is a good is a good path to go down.

What is the number one reason that Composable transformations fail?

James 20:08

Okay, okay, all right. Um I guess let's move on to the next question. Uh, and this is one of my favorite questions um that I ask everybody. Uh surprisingly, the answers do differ. In your opinion, Rex, um, what is the number one reason why uh composable transformations fail?

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Uh in my in my viewpoint, I think it's it's it's there's twofold, and it all comes down to culture. I think to to make get a successful composable transformation, you have to work with the business of the customer you're working with. And that's not just at the at the technical level, it has to work at all levels from the C level all the way down to the people who are going to be using the tools day in and day out. Because it's a very different mindset using going composable. You're you're essentially saying to the person, you don't need to know how the whole platform works, but what we'll do is we'll give you the best solution for you to do what you need to do. For example, the merchandiser, you know, we really tailor the search and merge solution to them, to their business needs, uh, and have make sure that they have the right tool and the right experience and and all the all the utilities there to really to really make the most of that. Um but they might not have access to the PIN or they might not have access to the CMS. But then it's more of a question of do they need to have that access? Is that part of their role, or should they should they really be working with the CMS team to make sure the right content is going out with the right products and uh uh and merchandising tools? So that's one aspect of it. I'd say if you haven't if you can't work with the business and get them to understand how it's going to work, there's always gonna be problems getting that that project out to market. But then the the flip side of that is with this move to composable, and I think it's something like 30% of new projects are starting to be pushed out there in the composable space. That means there's a lot of agencies who've been around longer than us who who have experience building websites are naturally going to be picked to do some of this work. Now, if you've been working on monoliths for 15 years and you're suddenly working in the composable space, you have built up a team that understands how to deliver an e-commerce platform. But the way composable projects work, you kind of have to flip that on its head. So if people have come, if you've got a large ACC in who've been doing this for Donkey Cheers, they'll come in and they'll talk about your customer and they'll talk about the the what your customer needs to see in the customer journey and the experience around that. And these are all things that you need to consider. But in the composable space, you first of all you've got to think about how you're going to plug everything together before you can think about that. If you start from the customer first and then try and shoehorn the composable products in to make that work, you're always going to be playing catch-up. You're never going to be in the right space. It's better to understand how the business works to make sure that the underlying architecture is there. And then you can apply the customer journey over the top. And I think this comes from the fact that in the days of the Monolith, you didn't have to worry about that underlying architecture. It was already there and you already knew how to do it. So you could jump straight into the customer side of things. But here you have to really think about how the business is going to be served by those tools first and foremost, and then start thinking about the customer journey and the experience and all the stuff that really makes the site. And that sits around that.

unknown 23:32

Okay.

James 23:40

Yeah. Okay. So you you mentioned two points there. The first one was the cultural element of the business itself and having everyone uh bought in and aware of the change and how that's going to impact them, which, which, yeah, I completely agree with. And I know that has proven challenging for some businesses, and they've had IT oppose other other areas. Um, but the the point you mentioned there about the the delivery partner, I find really interesting as well, because ultimately that goes down to an educational piece from the partner and and making sure that they they know what they're doing in the first place. Um you kind of think maybe you would you would check that out first of all, maybe with a few case studies and uh see what's going on in the market, but you know what? I guess maybe not. Um are you seeing much of those um problems yourself in the market where a delivery partner's gone in and they haven't educated the client in the right way, and actually they're they're they're they're doing exactly what you said you shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Oh, yeah. I mean, I say when we've gone into a couple of projects to try and turn them around. Uh, and I'd say 99% of the time, it is that that is going on where you'll have the an agency coming in and doing the thing, doing it the way they've always done it. Uh, and I think uh because of this huge education piece you need to do with the business as well, doing it the way you've always done it from an agency point of view normally means leaving the client in the dark until it's done. Uh, and those two factors together really are, you know, they're a they're a recipe for disaster. You're not going to achieve what you need to achieve by going down that route. So having that dialogue with the customer, that education piece of the customer is critical to understanding how you can deliver a composable project. And if you don't understand yourself how to do that or how to deliver a composable project, that's never going to work. Uh and I think the majority of those fail cases are those sort of companies that have gone in with um, and and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those agencies. You know, if they were doing a um, say a SAP Commerce Cloud or a Salesforce or even Shopify, you know, they're all pretty much out-of-the-box tools. And they can they can really run with those. And if they've been doing them for the years, they can probably do them fantastically well. But because it's a different way of thinking about the technologies and a different way of utilizing those technologies, unless you've done that, it's always going to be tricky unless you've worked out the right approach to doing it. It's it's going to be a shift in the way your teams work, but also the shift in the way you you build out the stuff. And I think even from a GSI point of view, your you know, oh, you know, the business model of GSI is to make sure that the customer has the right resources available to them over an extended period. And you know, one of the benefits of going composable and using up this sort of Mac framework is you can deliver really quickly. You don't need to be there three, four years. That's so again, it's it's working at how best that's going to work with their business models to to understand what it is that customer's gonna need moving forward, not just a technical solution. There'll be other things that need to be factored in there.

James 26:43

Okay. You something you you spoke about there was uh um SAP commerce, Shopify, etc. being predominantly out of the box. Um there's there's obviously been a lot of talk over the last couple of years of of SAP in particular trying to break down their platform. And for many in the SAP world, they would now say SAP Commerce is is composable. What was your first thoughts at that?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Yeah, I mean, I think it's you can look back uh in history and look at how Oracle did it with ATG and Oracle Commerce. They went composable with Oracle Commerce Cloud, or they went headless, as they would call it back then. And it was it was just Oracle sitting in a cloud somewhere. There was nothing different about uh and I think the way the likes of SAP are sort of decoupling their tools and same, even Salesforce saying that they've got this composable front end, it's like the reality is it's still that monolith there, and you'll still have all that connectivity. To if you went to down the route of using um an SAP or a Salesforce and went down their composable model, and a year into it, you're thinking, you know what, the search just isn't working for me. I need to plug this in. It's not gonna be a simple matter of just saying, okay, I'm not gonna use that search anymore, I'm gonna use this search. It it there is a lot more work that's gonna need to be done there and of pulling it apart and decoupling those those tools almost uh almost like a strangulation method in itself, just to pull it away from that search, you can plug in a new search. And and I think I with the likes of Salesforce anyway, you're still gonna be paying for that old search, even though you've now plugged in something else. So so until I think until they truly take a step back uh and rebuild their platforms from the ground up to and to be truly modular and composable, I don't think we're gonna see I don't think we're gonna see that shift. I don't say you know, doing it in this half-hearted way to keep the old platform alive, keep the new platform and moving forward that way. I don't think that's gonna truly get them to that composable point that they they want to.

What are the top three tips you would share for a successful transformation?

James 28:47

No, it's funny. The first, whenever I I've raised that question any anywhere, the almost all of the time, the first part of the response is uh to do with ATG's uh device uh over about 10 years ago or so. So uh the comparisons are always gonna be there, I believe. Um but it's fair to Chapo spoke to recently he he referred to the the bigger vendors um uh adding different layers to their product almost as in like um a system onion. And if you want to get rid of it, you're gonna have to peel back all of these different layers to then strangle it, like you said. So so yeah, it's just interesting because you've you've you obviously got guys like yourself who very much use the best of need, uh I should say, uh, in terms of the technologies and and and the the products that are built API first, and you've got the vendor, the the bigger vendors like your SAPs and the Salesforces that uh they're obviously fighting hard to uh make their platforms more modular and and more modern, but um I mean they're never gonna build it from the ground up again, right? There's there's there's far too many customers already using using them and it's been far too much of an expense for them. So, okay, so when you're speaking to a customer, what are the uh the the top three things that you would advise them to ensure a successful transformation?

SPEAKER_00 30:02

So depending on who we're talking to the customer, again, it'll be talk to the people who are gonna be using it. So if we're talking to like a CTO, be an understanding of which business people are gonna be using it, how they're gonna be moving forward with the platform, uh, and get an understanding of their their requirements. Uh, and getting those people involved early and keeping them in the conversation throughout the project is gonna is gonna help make that more of a successful uh approach. Um, I think then choosing the um choosing ISVs that are gonna help you get there as well is is a key to that. Um you know, work with them, find out what their almost find out what their requirements are for you as a customer so that you can understand if your model fits with with one of the one of the platforms you're looking at. For example, if you if you want to move fast, but the platform you're looking at wants to do uh a three-month deep dive into your architecture to make sure that they can tailor it perfectly to you, that might not be the right solution for you, even though it's a great product. So you need to start thinking about how they they're gonna work with you. Uh and again, I guess this is one of the supposed complexities of Composable. Each of those ISVs is going to have a slightly different way of working. So it's about understanding how they're going to work with your platform, how you they're going to support you moving forward, and how they're going to support your your business users. And and and it's I think the the key to success in composable is all about this communication bubble, about having everyone understanding what needs to be done across across all those different moving parts. And I think that getting that right will will ensure a successful project.

What is the number one thing that you would advise an end customer to check before finalising an SI selection?

James 31:36

So moving on to question number four, and we touched upon this one in question number two. Um, however, what would be the number one thing that you would advise a customer to do before finalizing that SI selection?

SPEAKER_00 31:50

I think look at uh what that SI has done in the past. Um look at yeah, I think case studies are key to this. Uh I mean they're always going to be they're always gonna be rose tinted, but it it's good to look at what's what that company has achieved, how what how those projects have gone, and if there are any sort of you know um accolades in the marketplace about it. If the it's not just it's not just them telling you they're giving you a great case study, but other people out there saying, oh no, that was a great project, you should look at these guys because of that. Um, I think having that experience behind any SI is is key. And this goes back to you know to try and ensure you've got a successful project coming along, have it have an SI who has done this in the past, who has the built composable projects, and who have clients who are willing to say, you know, no, that was really good, that worked for us, we were able to move fast, uh, you know, we're seeing it the uh we're seeing the benefits already. I think moving forward that way, that's that's where you need to be talking to those SIs and understanding how they've got to that point.

James 32:51

Okay. I think I think you uh made a good point there. I mean, this isn't a a new thing anymore. We've been doing this for some time. You guys have been doing this now for the best part of seven years. Uh, you also mentioned uh a stat earlier, which I hadn't heard of before, but I think you said about 30% of new projects um are sort of composable in in mind. So um there's obviously a lot of new projects coming through year on year as well, which which means there's a lot of people you can be speaking to uh in the market. The digital commerce space is is pretty small, um, and a lot of people know each other. So I definitely agree. I think if you are going to be kicking off a project, the first thing you want to be doing is looking at okay, who have you guys worked with before? Who who do I know there, or do I know anyone that knows someone there? And and let's get the the lay of the land, let's see, let's see, actually, did it go as as well as maybe they say it did.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

No, exactly. I think um talking to people at the Mac Alliance as well is is good for that because they're they've got a a breadth of case studies that they've worked with, and and they haven't, you know, they've seen those projects come over the last few years. So you could you could go to those guys, talk about what well what projects have happened that um were successes, and they can point you at those companies. And uh, and I think you know, at at a very high level, most companies will want to talk about successful projects. So, you know, I think it's uh a matter of reaching out if you're uh if you're a senior exec in one company, talking to a senior exec in another, and saying, honestly, how did it go for you guys? I think you you you can have those sort of honest conversations. I think. Um, and people are more than happy to talk about when things go well.

James 34:24

I guess maybe what you want to know though is when things don't go so well, because that's when you get to understand exactly exactly who you're working with and how it was dealt with. Um, but maybe it's a bit harder to get that that information.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Yeah, you might have to read between the lines for that one.

Where do you see the market going from here?

James 34:38

Yeah, uh definitely. Um, okay, cool. So last question then, Rex. So, where do you see the market moving from here?

SPEAKER_00 34:45

I can only see more composability happening, uh, more tools out there that really enable you to to build up the stack that you need for your for your business. Um, I don't see that that change in anywhere. I think there's going to be a movement towards more sort of commoditized accelerator type type things that um do a lot of that wiring up for you to start off with. Um, I think Connect is like is Commerce Tool's version of that, but you can look at stuff like patchworks to sort of going down that route to enable you to do that that connectivity without having to have um that initial build out or or an acceleration back end. You can start working early on to getting those products talking to each other. So I think you'll see a movement that way to consolidate things. I think also you'll start to see, especially over the next year or so, you'll start to see tools that manage that platform. I think people still love the fact that with a monolith, everything looks the same, everything's in one place. I think you're going to start to see people developing uh products that sort of sit above all these tools. And because everything's headless anyway, and all all the all the actual admin screens are API first. It's not a mile, a million miles away to build out that layer of you know uniform dashboards for the business to be able to get to any component. People don't do it because, of course, that's development times to build it all out, which it is more cost. But I think we're going to see um companies develop their own sort of homogenous interface so that people can have that layer above everything, sort of a management panel for your composable stack.

James 36:21

I I think that's um definitely something that would would go down well in the market. I mean, one of the things that I one of the frustrations that I hear regularly is is people have gone from having um one system to log into for everything to having multiple and they all operate in a slightly different way and and what have you. So actually having that one layer above that can almost put them back to some, it means not see not what they're used to, but just having one system rather than seven, eight, nine, ten is certainly going to be well well perceived internally. So that would that would definitely be uh uh a good movement. Do you are you hearing of that happening at the minute, or do you think that's maybe something that's slightly slightly longer away?

SPEAKER_00 37:02

I would say I started hearing about it about a year and a half ago when uh a couple of uh vendors we were talking to were starting to think about how they could do it. Um, but then AI hit, and I think everyone pivoted from doing that to getting the AI bandwagon. So everyone has the AI tools that have been developed over the last year, and I think all that that other side of things have been put on the bat phone. So I think we might see that again once once everyone has their own AI integrated into their systems, doing something, I think then we'll start to see more of that user interface stuff coming back again.

James 37:33

Got yeah. Although I feel like the we're still very much at the start of the AI journey, and I think once uh I mean every every year or so we're gonna start to unlock more and more of its potential, and I can just see that really just taking over everything over the next few years. It's gonna be interesting to see where it goes for sure. Um, but um going back away from AI and back to how you said about um consolidation of the different vendors, but where does that end in your opinion? Because if you can keep consolidating and and whether they acquire different vendors or they just link them together via the APIs, I mean ultimately you could argue that they're moving back towards a monolith, albeit different vendors. So, where where does it where does that end for you?

SPEAKER_00 38:20

I mean, it's a good point, and I think we could, I mean, you see these cycles in IT anyway, and it could be that there is a new generation of monoliths about to appear, but um like a generation of monoliths where you can just plug and play as you as you need. Um, and it could be that that would be the deaf knell of the of your traditional monoliths, your sales force and your SAT. Because why buy this large monolith that you can't change anything? When you can buy this monolith, that you can change everything in it you want to, and it's already built out for you to be able to do that. So that could be a direction that we end up having, and um we're with companies developing these suite of tools that they can work together, but you don't have to use them all, and you can you and they have partners that work better with them. I think there might be that sort of angle of things going, and I think that will work for a lot of customers who who don't want the perceived complexity of having different tools, they want sort of a one one size fits all solution, but that they can change as they need. So the we could see that happening, and I I think that that's definitely something that probably will occur in the in the future, but um, I think it'll be more from a from a point of view that you can chop and change everything, uh, whereas your sales sources you can't, and I think that's gonna be the differentiator between those two things. And it might only appeal to certain types of enterprise that just want you know one check going out per month, uh and they'll take that on board that way.

James 39:47

Dangerous phrase that is, Rex. Um, but no, I like it, and and I I kind of see things going that same way. I think with what we're seeing at the minute is is an indicator to to that continuing. And um, yeah, how far it goes, I'm not sure. Um, I'm nowhere near as educated as someone like yourself, but if I was a better man, I would say we're gonna continue to see that for the next couple of years. And and uh yeah, I mean ultimately if you can give the customer a product that does pretty much everything that they want and they have the ability to chop and change it easily or fairly easily anyway, then uh it seems like it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Yeah, and I guess that's our that's our job as an SI is to ensure that what the customer has at the end of any work we do for them is a platform that enables them to do that and that they understand how to do that with and can grow with them uh and works for their business. Um at the moment, you know, that will be composed of uh a bunch of different tools to work for their business needs. Uh, and in the future, that might be more your go-to a vendor who can say, well, I I'm partner with these guys and this is a this is a solution for you. But um yeah, I think ultimately it's our job to make sure that our customers have that when we when we when we leave them, that they are in that position to make those decisions and and to swap out tools as they see fit.

James 41:04

Nice. All right. Well, I think that leads us nicely to the end of the episode. So um, yeah, thank you very much for your time, Rex. It's been great talking to you. Um and yeah, obviously shared some great insights today. And I think that my key takeaway um across a lot of the conversation has been communication, whether that be internally and making sure the whole business is brought into the journey, um, or whether that be with your delivery partners um both and your vendors, both at the start of the process and throughout that whole process through to go live, communication is is absolutely fundamental to a successful transformation. Um so yeah, thanks for joining me. Thanks, James.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

It's been a pleasure.

James 41:44

Awesome. And to our audience, if you're still there and you're listening, then uh thanks again for tuning in. Um please do subscribe, like, share, um, and just get this content in front of those that need it. Uh, as I said before, if it helps one person make the right decision moving forward, then it's doing its job. And I'll see you again soon. Thank you.