What is the MACH Alliance and why is it important?

If you’ve developed an interest in Composable Commerce chances are you’ll have heard of the MACH Alliance. What exactly is the MACH Alliance, and why should our industry be paying attention to what they’re achieving?

In this article, we’ll give an introduction to the goals, accomplishments and opportunities of the MACH Alliance, and explore the role it is set to play in the future of modern enterprise technology.

What is the MACH Alliance?

The MACH Alliance is a forward-thinking, not-for-profit industry body, set up with the intention of promoting and supporting successful migration from legacy infrastructure towards a more composable future.

The MACH acronym itself correlates to an industry tech standard describing modern technology:

• Microservices based

• API-first

• Cloud-native SaaS

• Headless

Through a vendor-neutral approach and a rigorous certification process, the MACH Alliance provide expert guidance and support to companies who are making the transition towards MACH technologies and a Composable approach.

Today the alliance is a global initiative, with a mix of on and offline events and support, with an ever-growing roster of MACH-certified technology vendors and passionate ambassadors, who advocate for the MACH education and adoption.

What’s the MACH Alliance Manifesto?

In their own words, the MACH Alliance “exists to protect MACH core principles, as the gatekeeper to ensuring MACH as a category is understood and not undermined by vendor ‘MACH-washing.’”

By holding vendors accountable to externally-assessed standards, they help technology’s evolution keep pace with the “MACH speed” of customer expectations – and this is defined within their overarching manifesto.

While the full MACH Alliance Manifesto can be read here , the core principles include:

• Sharing technical knowledge about MACH

• Creating and sharing best practices to improve MACH transition

• Assisting enterprises with their vendor selection criteria

• Publishing technical documentation that supports MACH adoption

• Promoting the MACH Alliance through a wide range of owned and industry events.

What are the benefits of working with MACH Alliance companies?

There are several core benefits to working with MACH Alliance partners when selecting tech vendors. Each will have gone through a rigorous MACH certification process, and this guarantees:

• Composable Connectability

• Infinite Scalability

• Ultimate swap-ability

• Adaptability

• Flexibility & Transparency

You can read more about nuances of the MACH certification process here.

Ultimately, the Alliance’s vendor-agnostic approach helps to guarantee impartiality, and ensures you receive a dependable recommendation, based on unbiased, external assessment.

How can you get involved with the MACH Alliance?

There are three ways in which you can get involved with the MACH Alliance yourself...

Certified Member

If you are a tech vendor offering MACH-friendly services, you can undergo the certification process to become an Alliance member and carry the MACH Certified seal. Learn more here .

Supporter

Supporter membership of the MACH Alliance is the perfect option for those who sit outside of the requirements for MACH Certification, but still wish to contribute towards the community and conversation. Learn more here .

Ambassador

Finally, as an Ambassador, from speaking opportunities through to shared experience, you can take on an active role in advocacy and education for MACH principles globally, under the banner of the Alliance. Learn more here .

When It All MACHs Sense

A Composable approach to architecture and vendor selection unlocks huge opportunities within enterprise tech. We certainly expect this direction to play a large role in the future of our industry.

The MACH Alliance is a fantastic resource that Rotate° endorses and supports via our own extensive work on Composable, Headless builds, with partners including:

• Shopify, Commerce Layer, Commerce Tools & Centra

• Sanity, Dato & Contentful

• Netlify, Vercel & Edgio

• Recharge, Algolia, Klaviyo, Brightpearl and many more.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we support our clients via a move towards Composable architecture and MACH principles, and how our experience could benefit your own brand, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.