Innovation and Agility Start with MACH

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Tech Insights for ProfessionalsThe latest thought leadership for IT pros

Thursday, October 29, 2020

With customers becoming more digitally connected, businesses are beginning to realize the need for the continuous evolution of their technology. Companies can’t always depend on outdated automation or enterprise software solutions; they need to find better ways to remain customer-centric, futureproof and agile. As a result, many businesses are digitally transforming with MACH architecture to achieve their goals.

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Innovation and Agility Start with MACH

MACH (Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless) is a set of principles that underpin organizational growth, agility, and flexibility. 

  • Microservices are independent components that communicate using APIs. Each service can develop, update, deploy and maintain independently.
  • An API-first approach allows development teams to connect microservices and enable the flow of data between them.
  • Cloud-native leverages a SaaS model to support hosting, storage, and on-demand scalability with minimum effort. 
  • A Headless approach allows organizations the freedom to create the user interface they want to support a connected omnichannel experience across devices and channels. 

Changing the way a business operates

A composable architecture provides the modern infrastructure required to accelerate digital transformation and support the next-generation of customer experience. With this innovative approach, businesses can be ready to scale and break the replatform cycle. 

Best replatforming solution

MACH architecture provides the final replatforming solution for organizations that want to keep up with technologically advancing and digitally fluent consumers. With a modular design, MACH architecture gives organizations the freedom to choose the best tools to achieve business objectives while creating a structure that you can easily add, remove and replace technologies. It reduces the costs and efforts involved in replatforming, and the headless approach provides more flexibility for businesses looking to evolve in the future.

Increased flexibility

An architecture with decoupled front- and back-end processes gives developers the flexibility to make a change without having a negative effect on any other components, enabling businesses to keep up with consumer demands and speeding up development time. Combining this with the ability to create a customized platform by choosing the relevant microservices gives more flexibility, allowing businesses to gain insight into processes, adapt to changing consumer needs and address performance issues.

Embracing digital transformation

Monolithic off-the-shelf solutions would be the perfect solution if change wasn’t inevitable. But the dependency on legacy systems due to the development and adjustments that are required can leave businesses locked-in to specific solutions that are no longer helping the growth of the organization.

Instead, businesses that know they need to shift simply don’t know how. While tech is an enabler, it can be difficult to understand exactly how to introduce digital transformation into the business, how to remove silos and how to maintain momentum on this journey. Organizational transformation is the only way to replatform a business and introduce a composable architecture model.

Yet doing so provides the organization with greater clarity on the future strategy and puts them in a stronger position when it comes to navigating turbulent times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Streamlined deployment

The use of microservices means individual components can be upgraded and changed to meet changing needs of the business or its customers without disrupting the wider operations. This allows organizations to make rapid alterations and prioritize innovation.

How does MACH fuel innovation and agility?

Organizations find they experience restrictions in agility and innovation due to traditional monolithic platforms. There are additional complications with an all-in-one legacy system that includes difficulties in rolling out patches and upgrades as well as dependency on a platform that requires considerable amount of development time and upkeep to keep it running. 

However, a composable architecture approach such as MACH can help to scale for next-generation digital experiences by leveraging tools that fuel agility, innovation and flexibility in the following ways:

  1. The headless approach provides the flexibility to choose any front-end technology to build channel applications that help to eliminate channel siloes and deliver a continuous customer journey across traditional and digital touch points. 
  2. Cloud-native enables continuous deployment, improved reliability and the ability to scale up or down based on demand. 
  3. Microservices and the headless approach both give you the freedom to experiment and choose the tools that suit your needs. It has a high potential for optimization, allowing the freedom to design and innovate engaging digital experiences.

MACH: Futureproofing your business

MACH architecture is the kind of approach that’s designed for change. With the rate of digital evolution unlikely to let up any time soon, a composable architecture such as MACH can become a fundamental part of the future of your business. The four principles of MACH provide a futureproof business strategy built for customization, growth, agility and speed. With it, developers and marketers can deploy the best-in-breed microservices they need and prioritize the key services to accelerate innovation and create a unique customer experience. 

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