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Composable vs. programmable communications explained
Composable and programmable communications offer flexibility, customization and cost savings compared to traditional UC. But they also risk complexity and governance challenges.
The IT industry is moving toward the next wave of unified communications -- composable and programmable UC. Industries that don't have traditional desk jobs, such as on-site electrical engineering, manufacturing and mining, require quick, intuitive 360-degree tools to assess domain knowledge databases for past histories, customer data and vendor data and to connect with colleagues in case of emergencies.
For example, a designer at an engineering firm wants to share design files, such as Gerber files, with the IT team. Traditional UC platforms require converting files to PDFs for sharing, creating a communication bottleneck. A composable or programmable UC deployment creates a tailored communication stack that eliminates app fragmentation.
Composable communications interlinks and assembles already developed UC services from different vendors through APIs. Programmable communications enable developers to program and build, control, customize, and automate UC services by embedding voice, video, messaging, and other capabilities through APIs and SDKs. Let's explore the benefits and challenges of composable and programmable communications.
The business benefits of composable communications
A composable architecture assembles independent and modular components to create specific applications. Composable communications refers to integrating UC services through APIs rather than a large, vendor-specific communications stack. APIs offer organizations telecom-like functionalities, including calling, routing, recording and messaging. Organizations can use APIs from vendors, such as Twilio and Vonage, to build various communications-based microservices.
The benefits of composable communications include the following:
- No vendor lock-in. Enterprises can tie together communications services from multiple vendors. By implementing composable communications, enterprises can select best-of-breed UC tools and services.
- Budget factor. Composable communications is more budget-friendly than traditional UC infrastructure. Many API services run on credits and can be scaled up or down, which is a more cost-effective option for startups or companies with greenfield UC deployments.
- Enhanced customer experience. Composable UC enables omnichannel customer communications, including voice calls, text messaging, chat and conferencing. An example is a CRM that enables staff to call the customer while accessing data, previous conversations, purchase history, and other critical information at the same time.
- AI pipelines. In the context of composable communications, agentic AI orchestrates and manages contact center operations. For example, an agentic AI agent can interact with customers, enable intelligent routing, perform VoIP analytics, trigger follow-ups and manage logs.
The business benefits of programmable communications
In the late nineties, enterprise communication vendors were telcos and hardware companies that manufactured or outsourced devices such as PBXs, fax machines and pagers. Cloud-based UC eventually replaced these legacy devices.
Early UC offerings were off-the-shelf services that bundled all enterprise communications in a single stack. Many UC vendors today still use the all-in-one approach on a SaaS subscription basis.
The next wave of UC began when enterprises sought greater customization. The option for enterprise customers was either to build their own UC application or subscribe to one -- that's where the programmable approach filled the UC gap.
Programmable communications introduce developer control over telephony infrastructure through tools, such as APIs, SDKs, event management tools, embedded scripts, backend code, headless interfaces and, in some cases, new programming languages for controlling and automating communication pathways.
- Three tools in one. Programmable communications interlink UC as a service (UCaaS), communications platform as a service (CPaaS) and contact center as a service (CCaaS) to build entire applications. UCaaS is a vendor's tool, while programmable communications offers customization. Like CPaaS, IT leaders can choose programmable communications to build flexible contact center workflows.
- Better integration. Programmable communications integrates with enterprise tools or other vendors at the system level and builds services on the backend. On the front end, enterprises can access a single dashboard for all-in-one UC services, rather than stitched-together, disjointed composable communications. The result might be improved collaboration, productivity, and customer satisfaction.
- Business mapping. IT leaders invest in technologies that align with business objectives. Integrating voice, video and text messaging with business processes is increasingly common across various industries. IT leaders can use programmable communications to develop new communications systems and deploy advanced AI and machine learning workloads to gain better insights than from standard market services.
Challenges of composable and programmable communications
Both composable and programmable communications can become a bottleneck in large-scale enterprises. For smaller organizations and startups, a growing number of customers and partners can further disrupt these connections. Third-party integrations enabled by composable and programmable communications become disjointed, with increased developer complexity resulting in operational overhead.
Integrating multiple services from different vendors can create the following challenges:
- Increased governance and compliance risks for multiple services.
- Increased operational costs due to multiple licenses and usage-based costs. While composable and programmable communications are often highlighted as affordable options, API costs can increase with a high volume of users.
- Increased system complexity creates interoperability issues and the need for additional staff training.
Another major limitation is the risk of exposure, especially in healthcare and payment data, as composable and programmable communications integrate with enterprise data on a system level.
Choosing the right approach for your organization
Years ago, it was very difficult to build a composable or programmable communication stack. The introduction of low-code and no-code platforms enabled basic drag-and-drop functionalities for staff without a technical background. Generative and agentic AI have pushed UC vendors to enhance functionality, and growing interest in vibe coding has made it easier to develop communications platforms.
IT leaders should consider the following to determine whether composable or programmable communications is best for their organization's needs.
Composable communications: A modular approach
Enterprises using microservices and containerized architectures must choose composable communications to future-proof their systems as they adapt to ever-changing business and customer demands. A composable communications approach could support bring your own device policies in such growing enterprises.
In certain industries, such as architecture and product development, image and video sharing is critical. IT leaders can implement composable communications to add augmented and virtual reality capabilities in a single dashboard.
Programmable communications: Advanced control and operations
IT leaders can choose programmable communication if they want developers to fully control enterprise communications. In such cases, programmable communications can enable communication across unrelated workflows.
Programmable communications can empower advanced contact center operations, such as AI-based serverless IVRs, dynamic call routing and omnichannel communications. Virtual contact centers, for example, could translate and transcribe lesser-known regional languages -- gaining a competitive advantage.
Venus Kohli is an engineer turned technical content writer, having completed a degree in electronics and telecommunication at Mumbai University in 2019. Kohli writes for various tech and media companies on topics related to semiconductors, electronics, networking, programming, quantum physics and more.
