Composable architecture promised flexibility, speed, and future-ready tech stacks. But for too many organizations, the dream has morphed into something far more painful: composable extremism.
But how can you tell if your commerce architecture is becoming a liability rather than an advantage? Here are five red flags that should make you stop and rethink your strategy.
1. Your Team Spends More Time Managing Vendors Than Building Roadmaps
Composable architecture was supposed to accelerate innovation — not drown you in vendor meetings. If your progress keeps getting delayed because you're busy scheduling orchestration calls, chasing vendor SLAs, or troubleshooting multi-party integrations, your stack may be over-composed.
Simplicity is a feature, not a flaw. If "collaboration" looks more like "coordination chaos," it's time for a change.
2. Fixing a Bug Takes Weeks, Not Days
When a single bug triggers a weeks-long investigation across multiple vendors, you’re feeling the orchestration tax. Delays like these don’t just bog down your development team; they impact revenue, brand reputation, and customer experience. A properly-composed stack should speed up fixes, not slow them down.
Fast recovery time isn't just a technical metric — it's a business advantage.
3. Nobody Can Explain What Most of Your Apps Actually Do
If internal stakeholders are asking, “Wait, what do we use [insert tool name here] for again?” — it’s a clear sign your composable strategy has spiraled. Redundancy, overlap, and tool fatigue creep in when adding ‘best-of-breed’ solutions outweighs strategic needs.
Every tool in your stack should have a champion, a clear use case, and a measurable business impact.
4. You’re Paying Orchestration Fees to Orchestrate Your Orchestrators
Are you layering middleware on middleware just to make basic functions work? Are you paying extra for "integration platforms" just to keep your vendor stack talking to itself? Congratulations — you’re subsidizing complexity.
Integration should be built-in, not paid for piecemeal after the fact.
5. Your CFO Brought Up ROI and You Changed the Subject
If conversations about ROI turn into awkward silences or rapid-fire jargon defenses, something’s wrong. CFOs (and the broader executive team) expect technology investments to deliver measurable business outcomes, not endless "enablement layers" that inflate costs and timelines.
If you can’t tie your stack to tangible results, your composable dreams may need a dose of pragmatism.
