The Hidden Cost of Inefficiency:
Why Digital Leaders are Turning to Composability

Your business moves fast. Your systems do not. That gap is costing you.

Teams spend too much time fixing, waiting, or working around systems that should be making their jobs easier. Instead of accelerating execution, legacy workflows and disconnected platforms create unnecessary friction.

A study by McKinsey & Company found that employees lose 9.3 hours per week searching for information due to disconnected systems and inefficiencies. Marketing teams chase down campaign data scattered across tools. Sales waits on manual reporting. Developers dig through outdated documentation. These aren’t edge cases—they’re everyday inefficiencies costing real time that should be spent on strategic work.

Digital leaders are under pressure to fix this. But the solution is not just more tools or another replatforming project. At WOW, we’ve found that true efficiency comes from intentional, modular, and well-integrated digital operations—something we help clients achieve through our Rapid Economic Justification (REJ) process and composable solutions. This eliminates friction, reduces complexity, and frees teams to focus on high-impact work.

A composable approach makes this possible. It allows teams to work faster, smarter, and with fewer resources without sacrificing quality or control.

The Real Cost of Operational Inefficiency 

Inefficiencies don’t always show up in a dashboard, but they slow execution at every level and make even simple tasks harder than they should be.

Symptoms of Digital Inefficiency

• Routine updates take too long. A simple website change requires multiple approvals, outdated CMS workflows, or IT support.
• Systems don’t communicate. Data is scattered across platforms, forcing teams to manually export, clean, and sync reports.
• Technology creates bottlenecks instead of solving them. Teams structure their work around system limitations instead of business needs.

A report by IDC found that companies lose 20 to 30 percent of revenue annually due to these kinds of digital inefficiencies.

They don’t just create internal slowdowns, they impact customer experience, delay decision-making, and drive up operational costs. Organizations stuck in this cycle can break out of it with a composable strategy tailored to their goals.

How Macy’s Transformed Its Digital Operations with Composability 

Inefficiencies like this cost real businesses millions in lost productivity and customer frustration. Macy’s, one of the largest U.S. retailers, recognized that its technology stack was holding back eCommerce growth.

Its legacy systems made it difficult to scale, update product catalogs, and personalize customer experiences. Adding new brands or making website changes required complex IT workarounds.

To stay competitive, Macy’s launched a modular, API-first digital marketplace that allowed third-party brands to sell directly on macys.com. In just one quarter, they nearly doubled their marketplace sellers and saw a 50% increase in revenue between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023. This composable foundation also drove engagement with active customers growing by 2% for Macy’s, 9% for Bloomingdale’s, and 15% for Bluemercury.

By embracing a composable approach, Macy’s was able to:

• Separate its frontend from backend systems, making it easier to add new features without disrupting operations
• Seamlessly integrate third-party brands , rapidly scaling product variety without major overhauls
• Improve personalization and real-time inventory updates through better data integration

Instead of relying on a rigid, one-size-fits-all system, Macy’s built a flexible and scalable foundation. This shift enabled them to move faster, adapt to market changes, and deliver better customer experiences without a full replatform.

At WOW, we help clients take a similar approach through our Rapid Economic Justification (REJ) framework. REJ prioritizes high-impact improvements and helps teams make informed, business-aligned technology decisions, often without requiring a full replatform. Like Macy’s, it’s about reducing friction and scaling smarter.

A study by Deloitte found that organizations with highly integrated tech stacks experience 40% faster project completion times. Composability works and Macy’s is proof that it doesn’t have to be a massive transformation to see measurable results.

WOW’s 3-Step Approach to Digital Efficiency 

Digital operations should be built for speed, collaboration, and flexibility. Our three‑step approach provides a modular, composable path for workflows and technology selection.

1. Why – Understand the Why

Clarify the business goals you’re trying to achieve and use them as the foundation for any system changes. Then audit existing workflows to see if they help or hinder progress.

• Eliminate redundant software, optimize inefficient workflows, and reduce friction and complexity.
• Standardize how data flows across the organization. Fragmented data means fragmented decision‑making.

A lean, goal‑oriented tech stack empowers your teams to deliver strategic, high‑quality solutions that drive measurable business impact.

2. Optimize – Fit to Your Goals

A system should align with your business objectives, not the other way around. Many teams adopt new tools because:

• They lack the skills to fully utilize what they already have
• A prior owner left, and no one knows how to optimize or migrate the system
• The legacy system truly can’t support new requirements, so disconnected tools are layered in

By starting with your Why, streamlining for impact, and choosing systems that work the way you do, you create a composable setup that flexes with your goals.

3. Win – Reclaim Control

Reclaim ownership of your tech environment so it adapts as your business evolves.

• Own your roadmap. Assign clear system stewards and establish a lightweight governance process, so upgrades and integrations happen by plan, not by accident.
• Measure what matters. Track turnaround time for feature requests, reduction in help‑desk tickets, or percentage of automated handoffs to prove you’ve cut friction.
• Swap rigid for flexible. Replace at least one monolithic tool with a modular service such as decoupling content or personalization—and validate that you can ship updates without full‑stack redeploys.

By winning back control, you’ll see fewer firefights, faster feature cycles, and a technology platform that flexes with your goals.

Why a Composable Approach Isn’t Out of Reach

Composable doesn’t mean starting over. It means designing a digital environment that supports evolution. Businesses often fear composability because:

• Their systems are tightly coupled and hard to disentangle
• They worry it requires a massive transformation
• They aren’t sure where to begin

You don't need a massive overhaul to get started. Composability often begins by decoupling just one function like personalization, content management, or inventory updates and integrating it into a more flexible stack. The key is solving real problems with measurable value, not boiling the ocean. Start small, prove the concept, then scale what works.

The ROI of Digital Efficiency 

Companies that optimize digital operations see measurable improvements:

• 40% increase in operational efficiency by reducing tech bloat and automating workflows (Deloitte, 2023)
• 50% reduction in IT maintenance costs by eliminating redundant platforms (Gartner, 2023)

If your systems cost more than they contribute, it’s time to rethink how they work together.

Your business moves fast (because it must), but your systems often don’t, and that gap costs you time, money, and the ability to tackle high‑impact work. A composable approach bridges that gap and removes bottlenecks, so you spend less time wrestling with tools and more time driving strategic initiatives.

Let’s identify your short- and long-term goals, uncover hidden costs, and find your fastest wins. We’ll show you what to prioritize and how to prove the value.