Journey from Sitecore XP to Composable

By 2023, organizations that adopt a composable approach will outpace their competition by 80% in the speed of new features that they can implement.

– Gartner

“Going Composable” is a real buzz word now a days. Everyone is talking about it and excited to go composable. But not necessarily everyone is ready to go composable as of today and might need sometime to strategize, prepare migration plans and off course budgets to move away from monolith to composable.

Being on Sitecore XP, doesn’t matter on-premise, IaaS, Private cloud or any other hosting platforms OR even if you are new to Sitecore! The real question is – Where you should be 3-5 years down the line?

Here is the decision tree which helps you making right decisions whether if you want to stay on Monolithic or ready to go composable with Sitecore DXP.

Before talking about the journey let’s identify first where you are starting from?

Are you new to Sitecore Ecosystem?

Starting with the low hanging fruits about customers who are new to Sitecore and may be starting a Greenfield implementation considering Sitecore DXP as an integral part of their Marchitecture. If that is the case than I would highly recommend this the right time to start your Composable Journey rather going with Monolithic DXP. Therefore we might have two type of potential scenarios here:

1. Are you looking for a Lightweight Headless Composable CMS?: Customers who are looking for a simpler CMS that can help build Content Types, populate them and access them via an API. Mainly not looking for any complexities or Customizations on XM. If yes that Sitecore Content Hub One is the right fit for your needs.
2. Are you looking for a futuristic scalable Composable Headless CMS?: If you are looking for an enterprise level composable headless DXP which can help in create, manage, and deliver relevant content everywhere with wysiwyg experience the definitely you are looking at Sitecore XM Cloud. Sitecore XM Cloud provides marketers with an end-to-end, SaaS-based solution that not only helps them meet consumer expectations but also deliver a best-of-class customer experience.

Are you already on Sitecore XP?

Being already on a Monolith Sitecore DXP impacts and changes the decision tree path based on various scenarios. Based o your current Sitecore version, usability on XP features, readiness/openness to go Composable the decision will differ. I used the word Openness as there are a lot of clients who are still on-premise model due to various restrictions in terms of data security etc and will be never/rare open to move even to Cloud where Composability is a big question for them. But the customer who are already on Cloud (IaaS/PaaS/Docker/Kunernetes) or who are still on-premise and ready to move to Cloud following are the factors affecting the roadmap for them.

1. Are you already on Sitecore Version 10.x? If yes then your path towards Composable is relatively easy. All you need to do is follow three steps:
   • Move your Product Ownership to Customer Experience Ownership.
   • Make sure your content if granular and atomic so that it can be assembled more efficiently.
   • Decouple the front end from back end. Go Headless. Please note that Next.js is the only supported language so far on XM Cloud therefore your headless approach must be around Next.js.
   • Then your path to XM Cloud should be smooth and pretty straightforward.
2. Are you on any Sitecore version lower than 10? If yes then there are certain pre-requisites you need to follow to be composable ready.
   • As a first step plan to scale down from XP to XM as that will make the upgrade to 10.3 easy and we must upgrade to 10.3.
   • Once scaled down, upgrade your XM to Sitecore version 10.3 which is latest as of today compatible and with Next.js. Most importantly Sitecore 10.3 is focused on extensibility and interoperability to make smooth integration with Sitecore SaaS solutions and to ease the path towards composable once you are migrated to 10.3.
   • Now you are ready to follow the steps mentioned in the Point#1 above.

Note to be eligible migrating to XM Cloud, you must be on a Sitecore version which supports Next.js reason being any version below Sitecore 10 doesn’t support Next.js and on the other hand XM Cloud supports only Next.js.

Interested in other Platform Offerings on Sitecore Composable DXP?

A DXP is not only about content but also involves Personalization, Analytics, Marketing Automation and Commerce as well. We talked about the path towards XM Cloud but what’s next?

1. Are you looking for Personalization at Scale? Improved and optimized customer experience is a path towards ROI of all the efforts and investment we do to any system. XM Cloud provides OOTB Personalization capabilities with limited data retention whereas Sitecore Personalize (another SaaS offering) help you effectively optimize and personalize every customer interaction on scale.
2. Are you looking for 360 degree view of Customer interactions? Sitecore CDP helps transform data silos into winning customer experiences by connecting and activating customer data across your ecosystem to drive relevance with an intelligent customer data platform. Sitecore CDP can connect your data for relevant and holistic customer experiences that turbocharge conversions and revenue.
3. Are you looking for a Composable Commerce Platform? Sitecore Order Cloud offers Commerce capabilities to scale your business. It connect your products, services, and supply chain to your customers — whatever your business model. Whereas Sitecore Discover provides personalized e‑commerce search and merchandising by amplifying customer conversions with hyper-relevant search results and AI‑driven, automated merchandising.
4. Are you looking for a Composable Marketing Automation Platform? Sitecore Send Manage, scale, and automate your email campaigns with ease by Create meaningful email campaigns that make an impact by getting your brand closer to your customers. It provides Customer-centric messaging for lasting connections and helps Automate personalized email engagements that build trust and foster long-term relationships.
5. Are you looking for a AI Powered Composable Search experience? Sitecore Search is an Intelligent, blazing-fast search helps us build searchable experiences from scratch without the need for complex code. It surfaces hyper-relevant content through AI-powered search, Predict search intent and display individualized results with a personalized search experience.
6. Are you looking for a Composable DAM platform? Sitecore Content Hub DAM helps you organize and maintain all your digital assets in one place. Centralizes all your digital assets and deliver them to any customer touchpoint with an automated digital asset management (DAM) solution and take control of all your digital assets
7. How about a Composable platform for your Content Strategies? Sitecore Content Hub Operations streamlines your content strategy. It collaborates effortlessly on content strategy, creation, and distribution with an end-to-end content operations solution and fine-tune your content machine.

Courtesy Sitecore.com for the content about platform briefing.

Hope this helps!