by Janus Boye
Casper Aagaard Rasmussen from Valtech introduced the MACH Alliance to our community
The MACH Alliance’s mission is to future proof enterprise technology and to propel current and future digital experiences with open and connected enterprise tech.
Still, as Casper Aagaard Rasmussen from Valtech said in a recent member conference call, many companies don’t know about the MACH Alliance, don’t understand it or find it an uncertain multi-vendor play.
Besides several notable software vendors, the alliance has also been joined by leading agencies, including Valtech. Casper heads up the global strategic activities within Valtech’s MACH and Composable Enterprises business.
Below are my notes from the recent member call, where Casper shared why the MACH Alliance matters, what it means to the marketplace at large and how it impacts agencies and customers.
The MACH Alliance is changing the game
During the past year, several Boye & Co members, also on the customer side, has shared how the MACH Alliance is changing the game, but let’s start at the beginning.
MACH stands for:
Microservices
API-first
Cloud-native SaaS
Headless
Magritte's most famous painting - This is not a pipe. As Casper said: Today cars are not cars and stores are not stores. It’s about a shared ecosystem with innovative new parts
The Alliance was formed in June 2020 as a non-profit co-operation to introduce a new, open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem. Founded by commercetools, Contentstack, EPAM Systems and Valtech and counting 15 members at launch, the MACH Alliance has since then grown and expanded.
In his slide deck, Casper opened with Magritte's most famous painting. This is not a pipe. It’s a painting of a pipe. Similarly, Casper continued, today cars are not cars and stores are not stores.
Specifically, he mentioned Klarna, who originally started out as a payment provider, but today is morphing into being a fintech and a marketplace. Fueled by innovation and gig economy, the MACH Alliance is enabling to move from what Casper labelled the 1st party economy towards a shared ecosystem.
A shared ecosystem is the future of commerce
Casper said it bluntly in the call:
The MACH Alliance enables the future of commerce
He illustrated it using the slide below, where you see how elements like:
a car assistant
a phone wallet
a social media boutique
and other elements circle around the consumer.
A slide from the call: The shared ecosystem with the consumer in the middle
To quote Casper:
The Future of Commerce is interconnected, flexible, and reactive at its core.
He also called it composable commerce, which the MACH Alliance makes feasible using a composable architecture.
Your last replatform?
When Casper called the MACH Alliance ‘your last replatform’ it clearly sparked a reaction in our member call.
This is the real pain that many large, complex and global organizations have been facing, in particular with monoliths. Whether you are upgrading from a legacy CMS, a DXP suite or whatever, replatforming is expensive, risky and a lengthy exercise.
While the MACH Alliance is rapidly gaining traction from clients, and several in the call confirmed this, awareness remains low, and so does the understanding among clients. Also, the textbook for implementations doesn't exist yet, so keep that in mind when you start going MACH!
Learn more about the MACH Alliance
The Alliance drive awareness among enterprises of the benefits of modern, vendor-neutral software ecosystems that provide flexibility and openness as a key differentiator.
It’s not a marketing alliance, but it is a non-profit and a neutral ground focused on making it easier for customers to make the right choices with a best of breed space.
Besides looking on machalliance.org a quick look on @MACHAlliance on Twitter can also give you a good glimpse into recent progress.
The conversation continues in peer groups, in particular, these chapters:
Finally, you can also browse the slides from the call (PDF) or lean back and enjoy the entire 28-minute recording below