Recently the MACH Alliance welcomed its<a href="https://machalliance.org/newsroom/mach-alliance-surpasses-100-members-as-it-closes-out-milestone-2023"> 100th member</a> and both the Alliance and its members have seen incredible traction in the last few years.It continues to amaze me how fast ‘composable’ has gone from a whisper in the corridors of the cool developer kids to what is quickly becoming a default architecture for digital experiences created for and by enterprises.To understand how composable architectures arrived in the marbled halls of enterprises, we have to look back around 10 years where it all started with the decoupling of the front-end and back-end.Back then, it is fair to say that the web was in trouble. The architecture didn’t scale well, security concerns were rampant, it wasn’t performant enough, and it was all starting to lead to walled gardens such as App Stores and company pages on social platforms.At the time my co-founder of Netlify and I were toying around with different ideas of building something to try and address this when we started looking deeper at the concepts behind standalone frontends.I’ll admit that at first the notion of not having the backend render the presentation layer or UI for every visitor seemed like a technical curiosity at most, but I soon started realizing the potential impact of this decoupling could be tremendous.First off, it would allow for removing the dependency on a single origin server for the websites themselves. Instead, you could have multiple points of origin, and you could distribute the front-end leading to higher scalability, better security and faster load times.Secondly, it could give developers superpowers. Instead of having to send off frontends for implementation into monolithic backend systems, you could instead just pull data IN from those systems. That would mean no more squeezing frontends into templates that didn’t fit, and no more waiting around for implementations. Just push the code live and you’re done.Lastly and perhaps most impactful, it could pave the way for a composable architecture. Not having a monolith dictate the digital experiences and touchpoints would leave one free to compose best-in-class components into nimble solutions that could be upgraded interchangeably and continuously. This would greatly enable omnichannel solutions as digital touchpoints multiplied and could create a whole new digital experience economy.This approach promised to be a fundamentally better way to build digital experiences, and we embarked on creating the first front-end cloud in the market.Of course, back then you really couldn’t build digital experiences of much significance as the ecosystem of services needed simply didn’t exist yet. An example of a lacking element was enterprise-focused e-commerce as that existed as monolithic offerings only.However, the market quickly started evolving tremendously. In fact you’d be hard-pressed to find a single CMS or e-commerce solution that has come to market in the last few years that isn’t natively headless, and today the notion of decoupling the front-end has become the default.This saturation of the category also meant that in the last few years, we’ve started seeing enough services to cater to building out complex digital experience platforms in a composable manner.That in turn meant that the large analyst firms feeding enterprises insights into tech trends started leaning in, and composable architectures started becoming crystalized from a business point of view.<a href="https://www.forrester.com/report/understanding-the-architect-of-your-digital-experience-platform/RES178363">“DXPs… are built by enterprises, not bought from vendors”, wrote senior analyst from Forrester, Joe Cicman,</a> in 2022, referring to the notion that enterprises would now piece together their platforms from best-in-class providers rather than just buy a huge monolith from a single provider.<a href="https://www.gartner.ca/en/articles/gartner-keynote-the-future-of-business-is-composable">“The Future of Business is Composable” wrote Gartner. </a>The reasoning is that “building blocks of composable business enable organizations to pivot quickly, provide resilience, and make development faster, easier and more effective”.But if the analysts provided the “Why” of using composable components in your digital architecture, the enterprises were still to some extent left wondering “How?”.What should a “composable” component actually look like and how should it operate? The trademark of a burgeoning category that in essence is deeply technical and has a broad reach is that it necessarily contains a certain amount of murkiness to start with. The path hasn’t been beaten, and guardrails are something that is typically built out gradually.Clarity was needed to help enterprises along, which was the reason for the birth of the MACH Alliance.There was a clear focus from the outset. To cut through more or less substantiated vendor claims, and provide real clarity for anyone looking to adopt composable components for digital experiences.This led to a rigorous process to certify the companies providing the needed cloud-native, API-First, multi-tenant SaaS offerings, and the enablers and service companies to implement them.Today, thousands of hours are spent every month by an army of dedicated volunteers and a core MACH Alliance staff to bring the best education, events and certification processes to help enterprises start embracing composable architectures and there are now MACH Alliance ambassadors working at many of the most prominent companies in the world helping to spread best practices to an ever-growing audience.And it’s the success of this movement that leads us to this next step of composable implementations and the next step of the MACH Alliance.Composable and MACH are no longer just employed for single projects and stand-alone solutions. With scale more enterprises find themselves needing to integrate larger solutions with ever more components and to find ways to work together with existing technologies.To solve for that we need to turn our gaze towards interoperability.After onboarding almost 5 million developers and businesses I’ve had countless stakeholders share why they want to go composable and headless. Amongst the top reasons are always faster time to market, greater flexibility and better conversion rates.However choosing the right components like a CMS or commerce solution, doesn’t in itself deliver on those promises.If they don’t interact well, and if operations are kept as usual, with the same way of siloed groups manually running infrastructures in a traditional waterfall structure - then even the best headless APIs on the planet can’t give you a fast time to market, nor a performant digital touchpoint.If a company wants to stay agile enough to be able to implement new solutions and upgrade them gradually instead of lifting and shifting monoliths, then it needs to reconsider how it operates those digital experiences and to what standards those solutions will interact.This is why I’m so incredibly excited to be involved in the second phase of the MACH Alliance - The Interoperability Standards.The Interoperability Task Force was launched with several key technologists at member companies and a mandate for 2023/2024 to produce assets that will help buyers understand the landscape.This year the task force will release a number of assets on a regular basis, covering audiences ranging from architects to business stakeholders.<h3>We’ll cover areas including:</h3><ul><li>How organizations can manage change in this digital transformation:- Who should be involved in a re-architecture using MACH principles?</li></ul><ul><li>How does this architecture unlock business goals?- What a composable workflow actually looks like (including high-level current common practices such as “infrastructure as code”)</li><li>How parts of the system interact:- What composition/orchestration layers are needed to be successful? How does this all fit together?- At a lower level, how are individual components expected to interact with one another? How do they work in tandem to unlock end-to-end scenarios?- How are legacy components integrated into a modern, composable architecture?</li></ul>How can architects be sure that individual components follow MACH principles? How can they avoid monoliths?<h3>Assets will include:</h3><ul><li>Podcasts</li><li>Whitepapers (such as “<a href="https://machalliance.org/content-hub/how-to-evaluate-and-integrate-composable-solutions-mach-interoperability-1" target="_blank">How to evaluate and integrate composable technologies</a>”) and</li><li>Reference architectures, including a “code first” model in GitHub so organizations can create their own as needed for internal planning or building RFPs.</li></ul>We’re excited to bring about a focus on this next set of best practices to help ensure successful MACH projects as they continue to scale inside in size and complexity!<h3>Author:</h3><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianbachdk/"><img alt="Chris_Bach_(1).png" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltb9eff0ec0532965e/bltc2cda08e264c0cc1/65cf363ea35e3be30822a3f7/Chris_Bach_(1).png" width="571" height="314" style="height: 314;"/></a>

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Phase II of the MACH Alliance: Interoperability Standards

The MACH Alliance was established with a clear mission: to help buyers navigate a complex technology landscape, to sort through the noise and find modern, best of breed technologies that drive business success. The landscape continues to evolve and with that, we are implementing changes to the MACH certification criteria.We’ve spent the first three months of the year researching enterprise technology buyer requirements and gathering input as part of a <a href="https://machalliance.org/content-hub/mach-alliance-s-commitment-to-clear-guidance-amidst-big-tech-acquisitions-and-developments" target="_blank">certification review</a> we announced in December.Respondents confirmed the need for clearer guidance in an increasingly intricate market, characterized by market consolidation, changing marketing trends, and modernization efforts by legacy and larger vendors. As MACH solidifies its position as the industry standard, we are committed to meeting that demand effectively. <h3>Recognizing Independent Offerings within Larger Companies</h3>Notably, we are redefining the criteria for company certification. Instead of solely focusing on standalone legal business entities, we are changing the criteria to recognize substantial independent offerings within larger vendors, where the MACH solutions are actively branded, offered and sold separately, and take part in an ecosystem of software from other MACH Certified® vendors. This shift will help us provide a clearer, more comprehensive view of the MACH application and services landscape, offering buyers more choice and the assurance that these solutions will ensure the longevity and adaptability of their technology stack.By changing our criteria to accommodate for this, we stand by the importance of MACH principles while creating a clear path for Software Vendors, Enablers and Systems Integrators with a committed, distinguishable MACH offering. <h3>Understanding Buyer Perspectives</h3>At the heart of this review were countless discussions within the MACH community, and a comprehensive survey to gather end-users' perspectives. We received 102 responses from enterprise technology buyers in the UK, USA and Germany. Through this survey, we sought to gauge the value placed on existing MACH certifications, identify any perceived limitations, and explore desired areas of evolution.Key findings from the survey highlight the evolving complexities buyers face in today's market. While the majority recognized the importance of certification, respondents expressed a growing need for guidance in navigating a landscape characterized by a mix of legacy systems, MACH Certified® technologies, and emerging product innovations. Notably, buyers emphasized the importance of MACH architectural principles and vendor interoperability, hallmarks guaranteed by our MACH certification - the sole industry standard offering such assurances. As such, enterprise technology buyers want to see the MACH Alliance play a more active role in helping them navigate this complex landscape, including:1. Creating the know-how and awareness for buyers to distinguish MACH-washing from MACH-compatible solutions2. Helping buyers to navigate the landscape as new and innovative product technologies emerge3. Providing a more comprehensive and realistic view of the total landscape <h3>Independent Brands</h3>To maintain clarity and uphold MACH principles, we outline five specific requirements for independent brands seeking certification:<ol><li>Distinct Brand and Identity: Independent brands must possess a distinct brand identity, separate from other offerings within the parent company. The parent company will not use the sub-brand’s relationship with the MACH Alliance in any marketing or other content.</li><li>Distinct Product(s) and/or Services: The brand should offer distinct products or services, separate from the parent company offering, showcasing its unique value proposition and MACH credentials.</li><li>Independent brand Executive Team: To ensure autonomy, brands must have their own dedicated leadership team.</li><li>External Brand Presence: The brand product/s or service/s should be marketed and sold independently, with its own external-facing presence and website.</li><li>Adherence to MACH Principles: Certified brands must align with the open and 'best of breed' approach advocated by the MACH Alliance demonstrated through customer examples. This also includes demonstrating interoperability with products and engaging in thought leadership and strategic partnerships. </li></ol><h3>Examples of criteria applied</h3>The table below provides potential outcomes for some example applicants showing how the new criteria can be applied. Sample applicants have been anonymized, but represent acquired past members, previously rejected applicants, and new applicants. This would be in addition to a 90% pass of existing MACH standards (MACH architecture and open and best of breed criteria). <img src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltb9eff0ec0532965e/blt14109769bce7dace/661421fe0482bc00264ec5f0/image.png" height="auto"/> These changes mark a significant shift in certification principles, ensuring complete transparency with MACH buyers regarding available offerings in the market. By embracing independent brands within larger companies, we expand choice for buyers building composable technology architectures, with the peace of mind that the solutions meet MACH standards. Through this initiative, we are giving buyers the clarity they need to navigate an increasingly complex market, while offering companies a clear route and a roadmap for certification.We welcome your valuable feedback on these changes. The application process for prospective members seeking assessment against these criteria will open on May 1st. Get in touch via <a href="mailto:info@machalliance.org" target="_self">info@machalliance.org</a> to ask questions and share your thoughts.<hr/><h3></h3>

<h3>Author: Jon Panella</h3>Jon sits on the Executive Board of the MACH Alliance as a Chairperson. He is the Group Vice President at Publicis Sapient.

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Expanding MACH Certification Scope for Clear Buyer Guidance in a Complex Market

Discover the latest insights into IT innovation with the release of our fourth annual global survey. Our report dives deep into the evolving landscape of IT infrastructure, highlighting the growing importance of MACH technologies. Join us as we explore the key trends, insights, and implications shaping the digital landscape in 2024 and beyond.

<h4>Key Findings</h4><ul><li>MACH adoption sees stable growth despite economic volatility</li><li>91% of IT decision-makers say MACH and composable technology will be instrumental to the success of their organization in the next five years</li><li>85% see clear evidence they are achieving ROI on MACH investment</li></ul>

<ul><li>U.S. Leads the Way: Witness the U.S. surpassing Europe in the pace of MACH adoption, showcasing a significant increase in MACH integration across IT infrastructures.</li><li>Industry Leaders Embrace MACH: Discover how retail, professional services, and financial sectors are leveraging MACH to drive innovation and streamline operations.</li><li>Leadership Support Soars: Experience a reduction in internal resistance and a surge in leadership backing for MACH adoption, reflecting its tangible benefits and strategic importance.</li><li>Competitive Advantage: Learn why more IT leaders view MACH as a driver of competitive advantage, fueling improved customer experiences and faster innovation cycles.</li></ul>

Uncover these important trends and so much more

MACH technologies are critical to ensuring resilience and agility for businesses navigating swift market changes now and in the future.

The MACH Alliance’s fourth annual survey had 551 completions from IT decision makers of director level and above. Its aim is to examine trends in MACH adoption and the internal and external factors influencing it. Thirty-seven percent of respondents were c-suite executives. The USA, UK, Germany and France were represented in the research. All respondents represent companies with at least 5,000 employees.

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MACH Global Research 2024

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M - Microservices: Individual pieces of business functionality that are independently developed, deployed, and managed.A -API-first: All functionality is exposed through an API.C -Cloud-native SaaS: That leverages the cloud, beyond storage and hosting, including elastic scaling and automatically updating.H -Headless: Front-end presentation is decoupled from back-end logic and channel, programming language, and is framework agnostic.

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