Composable in Practice: Five Real Stories of Change, Challenge, and Competitive Edge
Inside the real-world transformations of five global enterprises using composable architecture to unlock agility, scale, and resilience.
What does composability actually look like inside real organizations? Not in theory. Not in vendor pitch decks. But on the ground, inside complex enterprises wrestling with legacy systems, evolving customer expectations, and the pressure to deliver outcomes now.
Through five interviews conducted at The Composable Conference with leaders from The Vitamin Shoppe, LKQ Europe, Diageo, Zoro.com, and James Hardie, one pattern emerged: Composability isn’t something you buy. It’s something you build. And it’s built not through big bang replatforms, but through smart, strategic decisions made over time.
These organizations are showing us what composable commerce looks like in the real world— pragmatic, incremental, and focused on business value.
Start with Reality, Build Incrementally
Transformation begins with constraints—timelines, talent gaps, legacy systems, budget ceilings, and more—but the companies succeeding with composability aren’t waiting for perfect conditions, they’re solving what’s in front of them.
Uman Chan’s team at The Vitamin Shoppe didn't start by dismantling their entire Java-based monolith. Instead, they incrementally decoupled from it by targeting high-traffic, low-risk services like search and product listing pages. It wasn’t a grand replatform. It was a proof of concept that grew into a long-term plan.
Similarly, at LKQ Europe, Nuno Sousa put it simply: “We just needed to move faster and simplify a highly distributed business.” The key wasn’t scale—it was sequencing. Instead of flashy rollouts, the team delivered small wins that built confidence and trust. More importantly, they built a better architecture, one decision at a time, and created lasting transformation.
Composable success grows from manageable steps, building confidence through repeated, visible progress.
The Biggest Transformation Isn’t Tech, It’s Trust
Composable systems reshape how teams operate, but the deepest transformation is cultural, not technical.
Diageo reimagined its digital ecosystem through reusable components, but it wasn’t the components that unlocked speed and scale, it was governance. Shared libraries, design councils, and clear escalation paths created a foundation for autonomy that didn’t devolve into chaos, and their transformation took off once digital initiatives moved from experimental side projects to integrated business enablers with clear governance.
Zoro.com’s technical approach flourished when they shifted their culture to emphasize autonomy and rapid iteration, driving ownership and sustained growth. Success demands more than the right tech stack, it needs an aligned, empowered team ready to embrace change, and the Zoro team embraced growth not only as a business imperative, but as a team and individual one as well.
Strategy First. Stack Second.
If there’s one trap every leader warned against, it’s starting with technology.
Zoro.com’s Andrew Goodfellow was quite clear when he said, “Technology is key to what we do.” But the way they were able to scale from 2 million to 15 million SKUs in just a few years wasn’t just because of modern tech solutions. It was clarity of purpose. Their MACH foundation was designed to support a growth engine, not just a better website.
LKQ Europe took a similarly strategic route, carefully deciding where to build or buy capabilities, and viewing their B2B and B2C operations as layered business solutions rather than separate channels. The strategic clarity prevented costly missteps and simplified governance and continues to support their initiatives as they evolve.
As Danson Huang shared, Diageo had best-in-class platforms early on, but not enough structure to guide their use for a global suite of over 200 brands. With help from KPMG, they reset around a clear governance model, defined what “good” looked like, and built a component system that empowered brands while reducing redundancy.
Aligning around a north star has always been an important part of moving towards a composable architecture, but as agentic commerce takes centre stage in the near future, it will be an imperative.
Data Is the Enabler, Not the Afterthought
It’s tempting to get swept up in composable tooling, but none of it works without a disciplined data layer.
James Hardie got this right. Before rolling out new platforms or integrations, Sophia Zlatin and the team mapped the data, defined shared taxonomies, and aligned business users around what was—and wasn’t—possible. “If you don’t have your data mapped, then you don’t even know what you can accomplish,” she explained.
Zoro’s composable maturity is anchored in data, too. Their custom ingestion engine processes millions of SKUs per hour. Classification models personalize content at the industry level. And search is tuned not for generic ecommerce, but for how procurement pros actually shop. Good architecture doesn’t just support better experiences, it operationalizes intelligence at scale.
Composable architectures live or die by data clarity and consistency. Without strong data foundations, even the best tech can't deliver the intended agility and scale.
AI Is Already Here—But the Use Cases Are Practical, Not Pretend
Every leader is thinking about AI, but whether they’re exploring, experimenting, or scaling, one thing they had in common was none of them are chasing the hype.
Early explorations include practical tools like translation automation, redirect optimization, and internal workflow enhancements, all aimed at quick, tangible wins with measurable impact. Similarly, more sophisticated solutions—such as confidence-scored AI pipelines for data enrichment, product categorization, and product fitment (with embedded human oversight)—as well as AI-driven content creation and partner negotiations, are also measured not by novelty, but by value.
The key insight: AI doesn't replace the composable foundation, it amplifies it. Successful businesses approach AI as an accelerator of established strategies, not as the strategy itself.
There’s No One Path to Maturity
Each company’s journey looked different: The Vitamin Shoppe built for speed. Zoro scaled for growth. Diageo empowered global agility. LKQ Europe focused on trust and delivery. James Hardie led with data clarity.
What unites them isn’t a shared stack or even a shared roadmap to success. It’s a shared mindset: solve for the business.
Composable maturity isn’t a milestone. It’s a muscle. And the more you flex it—by building trust, sharpening governance, aligning teams, and focusing on what matters most—the stronger your business becomes.
Leigh Bryant
Editorial Director, Composable.com
Leigh Bryant is a seasoned content and brand strategist with over a decade of experience in digital storytelling. Starting in retail before shifting to the technology space, she has spent the past ten years crafting compelling narratives as a writer, editor, and strategist.