Addressing the Polarization in the DX Community

In the last few weeks, we’ve witnessed a flurry of posts that sound very polarized in relation to how to build digital experience stacks: Hot topics include monolith vs. composable, centralization vs. fragmentation, headless vs. hybrid, MACH vs. Monolith, and so on.? It’s almost starting to sound like the debates between Left vs. Right, Freedom of Speech vs. Hate Speech, Gun Control vs. Second Amendment Rights, Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice and so on.

The debate is so emotionally charged that we’re not even willing to consider opposing viewpoints.? As humans, we love to label things.? Once we’ve publicly admitted to taking a side on a topic, we have a hard time changing our minds due to the fear of appearing inconsistent, or the fear of being ostracized from a group that we identify with.? If we are to make any real progress on the state of current affairs, it’s imperative that we don’t fall into this trap.

Thought leaders and experts in general must qualify our statements before we make them publicly because they have an impact on how this landscape is perceived.? While it may not be as entertaining or ‘click-baity’ to provide context when making grandiose statements, failing to do so undermines our credibility.? Without providing enough context to our arguments, the audience could easily perceive our arguments as rants.

Now, coming back to the debate between these seemingly polar ends of the spectrum when it comes to digital experience architectures, the reality is that the stances presented are all true and all false at the same time.? This paradox is present because every organization is different, which means that their needs are unique.? Something that works for one organization may not work for another.? So, when we say that organizations are not looking for fragmentation, but instead would rather consolidate or centralize their architecture, who are we really talking about?? Are we talking about a 5-people digital team or a 300+ team with 100s of engineers and marketers.??

Let’s take a step back and consider the following before making a call about which way you want to go, or if you even need to pick one side:

• When thinking about composable vs. monolith, consider that this may not be a black and white or binary choice.? Composability is a spectrum.? Think about how much flexibility in your tech stack you need?? Is it just that you need to extend your content management and search capabilities or is the entire tech stack flawed and you need to re-platform?
• Think about the capability of your backend vs. what you’re offering as an experience to your customers.? Perhaps your backend fits your needs, but you just need flexibility in your frontend because the presentation layer of the all-in-one suite (DXP or commerce platform) doesn’t provide enough flexibility to roll out new features and experiences.
• Think about how digitally mature your organization is before jumping head-first into a headless architecture.
• When thinking about whether you need a visual editor for your CMS, determine where you need that control and where you don’t.? Is it just a few landing pages or your website or is it also the dynamic pages such as product listing, product detail, cart, order, etc?? Perhaps a headless CMS that offers visual editing and preview capabilities (i.e a hybrid CMS) is enough?? Maybe it’s not and you need a standalone DXC?

There is no silver bullet or one-size-fits all solution here.? The answer could be in a combination of several approaches.? For brands looking for guidance, I’d suggest going with unbiased, thoughtful SI partners who are willing to give enough thought to the nuances of your individual landscape and not tied to just one or two commerce platforms, CMSs, etc.? Examples of such SIs include Orium , Apply Digital , Valtech , EPAM Systems , Royal Cyber Inc. and Enterprise Knowledge, LLC .