Learn how MACH architecture is revolutionizing retail, enabling brands to adapt swiftly and efficiently to modern commerce demands.
Becky, please provide a brief overview of your role and expertise within Orium, particularly in assisting commerce and retail brands with their digital transformation journey?
I’m the VP Digital Programs at Orium, which means I’m the executive sponsor for all projects and programs that fall within this line of business. The duties of an executive sponsor on a project or program at Orium involve providing strategic guidance, oversight, and support throughout the project lifecycle, with specific internal and external duties. Here are some key responsibilities of an executive sponsor in this context:
- Program / customer alignment
- Leadership and support to clients, teams and internal stakeholders
- Strategic decision making
- Stakeholder management in programs
- Risk management in programs
What is the role of composable commerce and MACH architecture, and what is its significance in today’s digital transformation landscape?
When digital commerce first emerged, brands operated two separate sales streams: in-store and online. This isn’t the case anymore, and as the where, when and how of commerce experiences has evolved, retailers have started leveraging a MACH approach (Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud native, and Headless) to overcome the rigidity of older technology stacks and enable them to serve their customers better.
With the growth of the MACH ecosystem, brands are recognizing the value of a composable approach. Composable architectures mean every component is independent, and they’re brought together in a curated, best-for-me system. This means brands can choose each element of their digital services to best meet their specific business model needs. The realities of modern commerce require brands to be able to respond effectively and efficiently to changes in the marketplace and the ability to custom curate and seamlessly integrate solutions is a core part of how brands will grow and thrive in the future.
What challenges do you believe organizations face when considering a transition to MACH architecture, based on your experience working with various brands?
One of the biggest challenges brands face is understanding how to work within this new paradigm. Monolithic solutions can be overly rigid and limiting, but they do take a lot of the decision-making out of the equation. One of the areas I work most closely with our clients on is helping determine both the what and the how— where do they need new tech today to create or seize opportunities and how should they approach implementation to maximize success.
Accelerators are an extremely effective way for brands to take advantage of the interoperability of a composable architecture while streamlining a lot of the early decision-making and integration. Orium’s Composable Accelerators, for example, provide a pre-integrated framework to operate from, which enables brands to launch on a new system in as few as 6 weeks, without compromising the ability to select the vendors that make the most sense for their unique business needs.
Could you elaborate on the key insights from the “Get MACH Ready” report regarding the importance of understanding the motives behind transitioning to MACH?
Making a move to a new tech stack — and especially to a new approach to how you architect and manage your tech stack — requires complete organizational buy-in. As with any investment, it’s not to be taken lightly. It will change not just the technology, but the ways in which teams are structured and how your organization operates, what skills your team members need and how you think about and approach challenges. Because of that, it is imperative that everyone is bought into the initiative from the start. And to secure that buy-in, you need to be aligned on why this matters.
How will making a move to MACH improve the function of the organization? How will it help teams in their day to day work? What impact will it have on helping everyone meet the strategic goals of the company? Understanding what you’re aiming towards is crucial. It’s often referred to as the “North Star”— that future-state of org-level functionality that means you are able to achieve what you want, how you want, when you want it.
How essential is it for organizations to garner support from all impacted departments before involving the C-suite in the decision-making process, as outlined in the report?
Gaining universal buy-in, especially when people are entrenched in the status quo, can be really challenging. By digging into the challenges of each department and helping them understand how a move to a MACH-based composable architecture can positively affect their day-to-day work and help them achieve what they need to, you can start to build a groundswell of support. The C-Suite, especially the CEO and CFO, are going to be extremely motivated by results that can drive revenue or decrease costs. When you connect directly with impacted departments, you can present real data about what to expect from the improvements that come with MACH.
In your opinion, what are the critical components of building a compelling financial case for transitioning to MACH, and how does it contribute to the success of the overall strategy?
I talk a lot about the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), because I think it’s one of the most critical parts to understand about the move to MACH. With an all-in-one monolith, people have always looked at cost as just the number on the contract. One year of this solution costs X amount of money, the end. But that has always been an overly simplistic view of cost. Understanding things like time to first value and ROI are important, but don’t overlook the impact of efficiency gains. Does your marketing team have the ability to adjust messaging without the support of developers with this new approach? How does that contribute to revenue? Are developers building new features instead of wasting days, weeks, and even months on maintenance and bug fixes with a legacy platform? How does that impact revenue? TCO doesn’t just look at the cost of the solutions, it also looks at the gains, because these things aren’t separate from one another. Even things like employee engagement should be examined— hiring and training new staff because employees are frustrated by a lack of growth opportunities or bad experiences with outdated software is an expensive way to justify keeping your legacy stack, and long term can have a terrible impact on your company culture. It’s all connected and the more you’re able to reinforce the holistic view of the financials, the better.
Could you discuss the significance of talent and change management in the context of transitioning to MACH, and how can organizations effectively address these aspects?
As I noted earlier, switching to a composable architecture isn’t just about the technology. Because technology doesn’t operate itself (at least, not yet…). Ultimately, there are people at every single level who will be working with and impacted by the adoption of this new approach. There will be new skills to be learned and old skills may no longer be relevant. Your team and organizational structures may need to shift. Operational routines, in particular, will change. These are challenging things for people! Change is challenging! But when handled thoughtfully, when planned for and communicated clearly at every stage, this kind of change can present incredible opportunities for growth. Communication is key— listen to the team’s concerns and do your best to address those issues head on. Don’t be afraid to be open and honest throughout the process. These are the people who are going to either embrace or reject your new approach. Why not make it as easy as possible from them to embrace it?
What are the potential pitfalls of implementing MACH architecture out of order, and how can businesses navigate these challenges based on the clear seven-step process outlined in the report?
In any transformation, there are going to be risks. Adopting a MACH approach is no different. Broadly speaking, there are three categories of risk:
- Lack of buy-in
- Lack of planning
- Lack of communication
Buy-in:
I’ve already talked about how important it is to get align around the North Star and garner buy-in before you even commit to making the move to MACH, but this isn’t something that’s done at the outset and then is done forever. Buy-in is an ongoing process. Ensuring you not only get, but maintain, support from the whole team is crucial. Even one or two powerful naysayers can tank a great program, so take the time to check-in regularly, gauge where people are at and how they’re feeling, and address concerns quickly before they become the freight train that has no brakes.
Planning:
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: you can’t stumble into success here. A transition to a new tech approach is extremely doable, but only if you’ve taken the time and care to do it well. A trusted systems integrator is invaluable in this, as they’ll be able to help you think through what you don’t already know, identify potential areas of concern and roadblocks with your specific circumstances, help you select the solutions that make the most sense for your needs, and guide you through the process of change management. We’ve seen it all before, we can help you, too!
Communication:
Keep, People. Informed. It sounds so simple, but it proves, time and again, to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks for brands. It’s not enough to talk to team members once at the start, or to just tell them what’s happening and not include them in the decision making process. You want and need diverse perspectives to ensure you know where your most pressing issues are up front, and then to know where things are going right, if things are going wrong, and how to fix them. Maintaining stakeholder support only happens with effective communications. Expectation setting, sharing of wins, timeline updates… all of this needs to happen on a set cadence so everyone knows where and when they’ll hear news and have the ability to ask questions. Don’t leave people in the dark.
Following the launch of a MACH implementation, what strategies do you recommend for organizations to monitor and optimize their performance, particularly in terms of metrics and analytics?
Each organization will care about and want to examine different metrics, depending on what they were investing in and focused on, and part of the aligning on a North Star and setting expectations early on process should include identifying key metrics you’ll measure to understand what success looks like. Maybe your experiences had terrible performance in the past and you were losing customers because of that— page load speeds are going to be a key metric to measure. Or maybe you replaced your checkout experience, and you identified average order size and checkout completion rates as the key metrics. The important thing is you examine what matters most and refine your approach if you’re not hitting your benchmarks. When you do, you can move on to focus on other aspects of the experience for improvement, but don’t stop monitoring those key first areas. You want to ensure that once you hit those targets, you keep hitting them and where and when possible, set new targets to work towards.
Lastly, how can organizations ensure they maximize the return on investment (ROI) of their MACH transition, and what ongoing strategies do you suggest for continuous improvement and adaptation?
There are two things I would suggest for getting the most out of your MACH architectures.
- Monitor and optimize. Just because you improved page load times by 300% doesn’t mean you never need to think about it again. Monitor, refine, check in again. Composable is inherently capable of supporting a strong, cross-platform data infrastructure. Dig into it and find the areas of opportunity!
- Leverage the experts. The advantage of a composable approach is you have access to support from the people who know search (or checkout, or front-end performance, or order management and inventory oversight… you get the picture) the best! Your SI and the vendors you work with will be able to help you not just use the basic functions of your implementation, but truly take advantage of all the bells and whistles these best of breed vendors have to offer.
The other thing to remember: the whole point of adopting a composable approach is that you get what your business needs, not whatever comes in the box. If something isn’t working for you, you can and should swap it out.
Becky Parisotto
VP, Commerce & Retail Platforms at Orium
ecky Parisotto is the Vice President, Digital Programs at Orium, bringing over 13 years of experience in eCommerce client services and program management to some of the biggest client engagements. With a focus on in-store technology, loyalty programs and customer data activation, Becky’s work supports the future of unified commerce. Orium is focused on large-scale digital composable commerce transformations for the retail space, bringing omni-channel technologies together. Key accounts that Becky works with are Harry Rosen and Princess Auto in Canada, and SiteOne Landscape, Shamrock Foods, in the USA.
