Enterprise Application Development at a Global Scale with the Mendix Solutions Kit

That’s not so easy if you’re a large enterprise. The drawbacks to both methods only get magnified when you have multiple IT teams serving different locations or business units and they have different team structures, work in varied processes, rely on differing core systems, and comply with localized regulations. Built or bought, you’re customizing and deploying different versions of the same solution to the same business problem. There’s difficulty in data governance. Control is lost. Problems proliferate. Maintenance and updates are nearly impossible to keep track of. Costs go up. Shadow IT sprawls.

If you want a clearer image of your IT landscape, you need to start building composable and adaptable solutions that can be reused and customized based on specific needs.

Composable and adaptable business applications

You have multiple teams solving for the same business problem with many solutions. Building one solution isn’t the answer because they need customization. So what do you do?

My answer: build one solution.

Sorry, forgot a word. Build one adaptable solution.

No matter the business unit, every solution solves common needs. Generally differences crop up in language, compliance, core systems, and access. If, let’s say, 80 percent of an app is usable across an organization, it’s inefficient to build a new application from scratch or rely on COTS to address those different business issues. Delivering global applications while allowing for local needs may sound like an expensive endeavor. And it is, if you continue to use traditional development methods.

Organizations should be creating and leveraging software solutions made from composable building blocks.

Composable applications are ones built from simple, interchangeable building blocks that represent different packaged business capabilities. These building blocks can be created and shared across an organization.

This is important to note, because when it comes to making adjustments with UI/UX, logic, data, or integrations with core systems—variables that often come up when dealing with many different business units—a composable application makes for a much more adaptable solution.

Making sure that other 20% is adaptable and extendable gives each specific unit the ability to make the solution meet their specific needs without re-building it from scratch or seeking out alternatives.

In this scenario, each solution has an immutable core (shared across units), an adaptable core (shared across units) and then unit-specific extensions (delivered by a local IT team).

The beauty of an adaptable solution is that it makes maintenance more streamlined. Rather than several IT teams upgrading and maintaining several solutions, Central IT now manages one solution, which may have multiple instances. This means they can push out an upgrade to the immutable core, and local IT can update their local enterprise architecture without breaking their customizations.

Managing it all with the Mendix Solutions Kit

Many organizations are turning their focus toward building composable applications. In Gartner’s report “Predicts 2023: Composable Applications Accelerate Business Innovation,” the analyst firm estimates that “by 2025, 60% of new custom business applications will be built using reusable business services via a shared curated component catalog or marketplace.”

Businesses are using marketplaces or curated catalogs to create a base app built for reuse across business units. This base app can be adapted and rolled out across regions in a controlled manner. What this enables organizations to do is global software development using Central IT resources with local knowledge and expertise. In other words, you’re delivering the exact right solution without making central IT a bottleneck.

Let’s take a look at what this looks like. First, you create an original model, it has common, generic functionality, but is also open for adaptation. Some business units can use the original version, but others can adapt it based on their needs. They customize, then deploy to a dedicated cloud node. This would ensure data isolation per implementation and decouple operations.

The Mendix Platform helps you build better applications faster. Throughout the years, we’ve honed our low-code development capabilities and collaboration tools to help organizations deliver software faster than ever before, and keep pace with current technologies and development best practices.

This is why we’ve developed the Mendix Solutions Kit. This new capability allows organizations to build composable applications and stay in control.

With the Mendix Solutions Kit, you can build protected modules, where you can lock down certain functionalities and control what can be adapted.

Once those modules are ready for consumption, you can then continuously upgrade implementations while preserving modifications. That means local deployments don’t break when you send out global updates.

Governance is a huge part of composable applications. Which is why the Mendix Solutions Kit gives you adaptation insights where you can see changes made to solutions at the local level and at a central or global level.

You can view changes, see when they occurred, and get solution insights to help you make product management decisions and predict future maintenance efforts.

Thinking big(ger) picture

The value of Mendix’s low-code platform is better apps more quickly and all the benefits you derive from that. But that’s only half of it. Imagine just building one solution versus many.

• You can leverage investment done in one implementation in all other implementations.
• You enable lines of business/local teams to co-innovate with central IT, allowing them to develop at their own pace – faster then central IT if they want, while keeping central IT in control.
• There’s a reduction in total cost of ownership on of all applications in your portfolio
• Application sprawl dissipates, making it easier for you to maintain and govern on a technical and operational level

That’s why Mendix Solutions Kit for adaptable solutions is an exciting new capability as organizations move more toward composability for adaptability.