What is the MACH alliance?

We’re living in a digital reality; the pandemic has caused a huge societal shift, moving all aspects of our working and home lives online. The rapid rate of change has highlighted the good, bad and sometimes painful elements of enterprise technology systems. One of the key takeaways of the situation for both businesses and individuals, is that agility is paramount.

Our digital activity is now more connected than ever and modern technology has evolved at rapid pace, enabling new ways to think about and do business. According to Gartner, ‘total experience’ is one of the key strategic technology trends for 2021, combining “multi-experience, customer experience, employee experience and user experience to transform business outcomes…and improve the overall experience where all of these pieces intersect, from technology to employees to customers and users.” 

The move towards ‘total experience’ has the potential to highlight the limitations of monolithic tech systems, which may struggle to meet the needs of the new, more agile, digital world. 

Enter the MACH Alliance, a group of independent, future-thinking tech companies advocating for open, best-of-breed technology ecosystems that have the capacity to propel current and future digital experiences. 

Introducing MACH

The MACH Alliance is driving a paradigm shift, helping companies take advantage of the most innovative and flexible enterprise technologies available. The group believes that to be at the forefront of this shift, industry needs a new approach to tech solutions.

Taking its name from the acronym of the tech it advocates (Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, Headless) and “inspired by the supersonic speed at which software ecosystems can better serve enterprises”, the MACH Alliance exists to encourage a shift from monolithic enterprise technology suites to more composable, modular architecture that better aligns with the digital-first world. 

Utilising traditional single vendor tech platforms, organisations run the risk of trapping themselves in a set of limited capabilities, waiting for upgrades to the latest release in order to make advancements. As their pace of progression is paused, user and customer expectations continue to disrupt the market at record speed. Evidencing this, a McKinsey study found that on average, digital offerings have leapfrogged seven years of progress in a matter of months as a result of the pandemic, proving it’s no longer viable to act slowly. 

MACH solutions support an interconnected enterprise in which every component is pluggable, scalable and can be continuously improved through agile development; giving businesses the flexibility and freedom to choose the best tools on the market and and the ability to repair, replace, remove and replenish elements in the future to meet evolving business requirements. 

Partnership approach

The Alliance’s collective voice represents the next generation of technology and business. One of DEPT®’s tech partners, commercetools, founded the MACH Alliance alongside a small group of other firms, with their CTO, Kelly Goetsch, taking the helm as President. He hails the membership as “the present and future of enterprise software and services.” 

One of the Alliance’s top priorities is to expand its footprint by welcoming like-minded independent technology and services companies to be a part of the first-of-its-kind technology collaboration. 

Leading the charge

Although many businesses were already on the path to true digitisation pre-Covid, the pandemic has been a catalyst for digital transformation across all industries and sectors. With growing urgency for agility to meet evolving end user demands, the MACH Alliance is a welcome disruption to the digital landscape that has traditionally been dominated by few big players with monolithic offerings. 

Demand for more modular, composable architecture is expected to grow 21.3% by 2026 and businesses that stick with traditional, more rigid setups will be less able to adapt with the necessary speed to keep up with their more progressive competitors. 

With an ambitious mission to future-ready enterprise technology and propel current and future digital experiences, as well as a clear manifesto for making MACH mainstream,  the alliance certainly has the monopoly voice on the potential future agility of enterprise technology.