Exploring what headless and decoupled content management means for the business

1. July23, 2020 – Decoupled Days
Headless and Decoupled Content
Management: The Good and the Bad for
the Business.
Roland Benedetti

2. A bit about me
Roland Benedetti
SVP Strategy at Ibexa
prev. Chief Product eZ Platform, Nuxeo and eZ Publish
Confined New Yorker
Create
Run
Wine
Travel L

3. This is not a developer talk

4. Different ways of building digital experiences

5. Going Headless,
why would the business care?

6. In a physical world

7. In a physical world
Front of the houseBack of the house
Roasting facility
Leadership / Management

8. In a physical world
Front of the
house
Roasting facility

9. In a physical world
Front of the
house
Roasting facility
Mgmt

10. In a physical world
Front of
the
house
Mgmt
Roasting
facility
Roasting
facility
Front of
the
house
Front of
the
house

11. What's the value for the business?

12. Business Value?
Front of
the
house
Roasting
facility
Roasting
facility
Front of
the
house
Front of
the
house
Mgmt
• Agility
• Extensibility
• Flexibility
• Scalability
• ...
Pros

13. “In the last 40 years, the whole
supply chain was optimized for cost.
Today, most customers are
optimizing the supply chain for
speed.”
S. Fung

14. Business Value?
Front of
the
house
Roasting
facility
Roasting
facility
Front of
the
house
Front of
the
house
Mgmt
• Complexity
• Governance
• Overhead
• Maintainability
• ...
Cons

15. Back to Software,
building digital platforms
to create digital experiences

16. CONTENT
CREATION
CONTENT
DELIVERY
Is that all?

17. Three families of solutions to build your Digital Platform, that slightly overlap
DXP/ CMS
ALL-IN-ONE
BUILD YOUR OWN
STACK APPROACHE-COMMERCE

18. So what when Enterprises are
researching solution
for their digital platform?

20. All-in-one & monoliths
• Can do everything (on paper)
• Rarely Open, even less Open Source
• Quite expensive
• Heavy and complex
Promises & profiles
• CIO, CFO, COO.
• Business consultant.
• Large S.I....
Champions and typical buyers

21. Best of breed, service-based architecture
• Can do everything (on paper)
• Very agile and fast (on paper)
• Cost efficient (to be checked)
• Evolve quickly
Promises & profiles
• CTO, CDO.
• Lead dev.
• Software Architect
• Top notch digital agency sales exec.
Champions and typical buyers

22. Reality Check
Is a service-based approach really the best?
Is Headless & Decoupled the solution
to your digital project?

23. Invariably,
digital projects keep failing...

24. Why?

25. • http://www.codingthearchitecture.com/

26. Complexity

27. Different levels of complexity
all-in-one
essential complexity
tecnology complexity
accidental complexity
unnecessary complexity
complexité intrinséque
complexité technologique
complexité accidentelle
complexité du découplage
les “microservices” coupeurs de têtes

28. Different levels of complexity
all-in-one
essential complexity
technology complexity
accidental complexity
unnecessary complexity
service-based architecture
essential complexity
technology complexity
accidental complexity
decoupling complexity

29. “if you can’t build a well-structured
monolith, what makes you think
microservices is the answer?”
Simon Brown

30. Other criterias of complexity
all-in-one les “microservices” coupeurs de têtes
Complexity
Scope
Complexité
Nombre de services

31. Other criterias of complexity
all-in-one service based
Complexity
Scope
Complexity
Number of services

32. Agnostic?

33. Minimizing complexity
pragmatic & agnostic
Complexity
service basedmonolith
faith

34. So what's the value for the business?
Is that just one more buzz?

35. Digital Maturity?

36. For Mature Audience Only?
https://go.forrester.com/blogs/rated-h-for-headless-is-headless-cms-for-mature-audiences-only/
source: Mark Grannan

37. Business Value
Value of going headless
Digital Maturity

38. 5 questions quick evaluation
• Our DX team proactively recruits and develops talent (e.g., via community outreach, university
programs, hackathons, continuing education, mentoring programs, and documented career paths).
• Our DX strategy supports a broad set of channels/touchpoints/experiences (e.g., web, mobile, email,
social, or chat).
• Our DX content strategy focuses on reuse and optimization via connected repositories, composable
components, and content analytics.
• Our DX team dynamically composes experiences and journeys based on customer, historical, and
situational data.
• Our DX architecture focuses on reusable core services accessible via open APIs.
If you can confidently answer a 4 or 5 on these statements, then a headless approach is probably a smart
move. If you’re averaging 2s and 3s, then maybe reconsider.
(1 = strongly disagree; 3 = neutral; 5 = strongly agree)
https://go.forrester.com/blogs/rated-h-for-headless-is-headless-cms-for-mature-audiences-only/
source: Mark Grannan

39. Strategy
• Be able to combine Headless & Traditional
• Go progressively, decoupling piece by
piece
• Evaluate
• Iterate
• Learn
To maximize the potential of a
Decoupled CMS, DXP and e-
Commerce approach

40. Four suggestions for architecting
the business digital platform

41. Drivers for architecting the business digital platform
• Enable core functionalities but don't try
to deliver on all requirements.
• This in order to remove the complexity of
the "unnecessary" and "essential"
Focus on what is essential

42. Drivers for architecting the business digital platform
• To reduce the complexity of the
unnecessary.
• But also control the complexity of
decoupling.
Build modular, but at the right level
of granularity, not to small.

43. Drivers for architecting the business digital platform
• Offers extension point to allow to extend
from the core essential capabilities to any
business specific.
• In a way that allows maintenance (fwd
and bwd compatibility...), to insure
minimum impact on complexity
Focus on extensibility

44. Drivers for architecting the business digital platform
• To allow a platform to fit with different
project context
• Example: Headless Vs Traditional
Example: on-prem Vs IAAS Vs PaaS
Allowing different approaches and
models

45. Drivers for architecting the business digital platform
Simon Brown - http://www.codingthearchitecture.com/presentations/devnexus2016-modular-monoliths

46. Our vision at Ibexa: at the intersection of Suite, Stack and e-Com approaches to building a DXP
DXP/ CMS
ALL-IN-ONE
BUILD YOUR OWN
STACK APPROACHE-COMMERCE

47. eZ Platform DXP by Ibexa
Content Engine Website Factory Personalization e-Commerce
Awareness Consideration
Interest
Evaluation
Purchase
Service Support
Re-Purchasing
Advocacy
Application Engine
MarTech Solutions Commerce Solutions
Business Systems
(ERP, CRM)
Custom &
Bespoke Apps
… *****
eZ Platform DXP Version 3

48. Hybrid Architecture for Content Management
Benefits of Traditional & Headless CMS Combined
Content Authoring Content Delivery

49. Thank You!