Why future-ready brands are embracing the MACH approach

When brands adopt a headless commerce model for their online storefronts, each component becomes an important software development trend. When they all align together, they engineer a dynamic system that delivers speed, flexibility, and customization that often outpaces legacy systems.

That’s why the framework built on MACH (micro-service-based, API-first, cloud-native, headless) has levelled up ecommerce programs launched by future-ready brands, according to an interview with Myplanet CEO and founder Jason Cottrell on an episode of the Own Your Commerce podcast.

A Bold Commerce partner, Myplanet is known as a reputable software studio offering brands their expertise and technology to create engaging digital experiences.

In a conversation with Bold Commerce CEO Jay Myers, Cottrell discussed the value of a headless commerce architecture, multichannel opportunities, and success stories featuring brands invigorating their ecommerce systems with a best-in-breed approach.

Baking flexibility into a multichannel environment

Composable commerce relates to brands and their development teams creating their commerce platform by harnessing best-of-breed technology partners by switching out, upgrading, or adding microservices individually, freeing them from managing multiple dependencies across the system.

Cottrell said he has seen a shift towards this kind of microservice- and API-based architecture where brands favor the model of “decoupling the presentation layer and all of the underlying logic and systems,” which leads to added flexibility and scalability.

“It's very common to see customers coming off of Oracle ATG, coming off of SAP Hybris, coming off of bespoke custom systems,” Cottrell said. “We see some of these patterns, and we can then usually help our customers work through what that roadmap looks like.”

Part of that roadmap involves partnering with various vendors that each excel in their individual strengths, whether that’s web development, subscription services, checkout, payment options, etc.

The role of the MACH Alliance

Cottrell noted the importance of a group such as the MACH Alliance, an organization of technology companies and agencies focused on advocating for an open, best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem.

He regarded the benefits as two-fold: “It's encouraging certain minimum standards in how products are architected and what you can actually do. And then the other part is bringing together that ecosystem, so that the systems and the vendors are going out of their way to make them interoperable with each other.”

Independent research groups echo Cottrell’s assertion. According to a recent Gartner report, by 2023 companies with a composable tech solution will be 80% faster than their competitors in implementing new features.

A composable approach is valuable for businesses with various touchpoints and products and services to deliver, Cottrell said. Brands aren’t venturing into the composable headless space to simply upgrade one website; they may have complex challenges brought on by, say, managing dozens of brand sites, overseeing a subscription service, and maybe even undertaking a new product launch such as a wearable.

The MACH Alliance also helps clarifies for brands how a composable headless approach to ecommerce can support multichannel sales. Cottrell said that brands often have to support multiple commercial models and ways of buying, selling, and bringing a product to market. But solving those challenges is thrilling to a studio such as Myplanet, which boasts several case studies of MACH success.

New Balance, Harry Rosen winning the headless game

Pointing to New Balance, the apparel and sneaker manufacturer, Cottrell said this client faced a common dilemma: how can they create engaging brand experiences for their products that are bought maybe once or twice a year?

Both New Balance and Myplanet recognized how the digital shift in the past several years presented a challenge and an opportunity: craft elegant customer relationships built on loyalty to the brand, to the training experience itself. Runners want to learn to run, so why not build a vibrant community online dedicated to that hobby?

Myplanet offered a solution to New Balance based on a composable content management system and “certain customer offer systems, which works on top of what their commerce system could do by default,” Cottrell said.

Bold Commerce and Myplanet also partnered to upgrade the digital components of the Harry Rosen brand, a popular menswear retailer in Canada. Read the comprehensive case study of Harry Rosen.

Cottrell explained that Ian Rosen, the brand’s executive vice president of digital and strategy, recognized that for the brand to be successful, they needed to rethink the underpinnings of how they approached their digital properties. By opting for the best-of-breed route and bringing a composable headless approach to their ecommerce programs, Harry Rosen began to consider how they can deliver new services and experiences to ever more granular customer segments.

Myers and Cottrell both agreed that tailoring digital solutions that futureproof a brand to tackle today’s and tomorrow’s complex challenges elevates a business from a competitor to a winner.

Want to keep the conversation going?

Tune into the full episode for an insightful discussion on composable commerce, multichannel opportunities, and the future of modular architecture with a leading digital transformation expert, Jason Cottrell, founder and CEO of Myplanet.