Creating a composable business
In my Vision for 2021, which I shared in January, I said we needed to build a composable business: “Composing – flexible, fluid, continuous, even improvisational – is how we will move forward.” Little did I know just how much “flexing to change with composure” would be needed.
While IBM brought the phrase to prominence back in 2014, the idea of composable business has re-emerged as the business world finds better ways to work during a pandemic. COVID-19 highlighted the cracks in many business models that focussed on rigid efficiency, but which came unstuck the minute flexibility was needed.
Gartner defines a Composable Enterprise as “An organisation that delivers business outcomes and adapts to the pace of business change” and another Gartner article offers four principles of composable business:
- Discovery: React faster by sensing when change is happening.
- Modularity: Achieve greater agility with interchangeable components.
- Orchestration: Mix and match business functions to respond to changing needs.
- Autonomy: Create greater resilience via independent business units.
By making use of digital technology, we can be far more agile in our approach to work, allowing us to adapt easily to the changing needs of our company and our customers. By pivoting to a more modular, composable structure, we are able to prepare ourselves to adapt to multiple future scenarios.
Since I announced my vision at the beginning of the year, we’ve taken great strides towards being a composable business. This type of thinking enables a business to survive, and even flourish, in times of great disruption.
Keep up the great work. You’re doing so well.
Werner Engelbrecht - General Manager - KYOCERA Document Solutions South Africa
