The 2024 edition of the MACH Alliance Survey of Global IT Decision-Makers showcases the growing importance of MACH® and composable technologies to future-proof businesses and improve ROI. Discover the insights shaping the digital landscape this year and beyond.
As legacy technologies still make up a significant proportion of IT ecosystems, monitoring the progress of MACH® and composable architectures is critical to understanding the drivers, benefits and barriers businesses face during and after their digital transformation process. Keeping the finger on the pulse is the annual survey by the MACH Alliance, a not-for-profit industry body that advocates for open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystems, with a report that showcases the top-of-mind concerns and priorities of technology leaders.
This year, key findings include:
The US surpassed Europe in MACH-based implementations for the first time.
Despite economic volatility, MACH technologies continue to see steady growth in replacing legacy solutions as businesses need to keep up with evolving customer expectations.
91% of IT decision-makers say MACH and composable technology will be instrumental in the success of their organization in the next five years.
85% also see clear evidence businesses are achieving increased ROI on MACH investment.
Let’s delve deeper into the extensive insights of the MACH Alliance Survey of Global IT Decision-Makers.
First things first: What’s the difference between MACH and composable technology?
MACH serves as the technical backbone for composable commerce with the combination of multiple technologies including microservices, APIs, cloud-native and headless that allow brands to tailor experiences to the exact needs of their business and its customers. Learn more.
The top driver for MACH adoption: Keeping up with changing customer expectations
According to the survey, 90% of IT leaders agree that customer expectations are increasing all the time and, somewhat unsurprisingly, 87% consider it important to deliver improvements to the customer experience at speed. These figures show that innovating at a fast pace has become imperative to meet customer expectations and sustain healthy business growth, which is becoming increasingly unattainable for companies relying on legacy platforms.
While the proportion of legacy IT infrastructure has fallen from 41% to 38% since 2023, the report claims that efforts to replace legacy tech are still not moving at a fast enough pace, especially among organizations with 25,000+ employees and/or a turnover of USD 25+ billion. Interestingly, the main industries that tend to have the highest proportion of legacy tech are technology (39%) and financial services (41%).
At the same time, midmarket companies (between 5,000 and 24,999 employees) are more likely to see themselves as more customer-driven, bold, agile, proactive and early adopters of new technologies such as MACH and composable solutions.
Organizations adopting MACH usually start their implementation with operational and CX (customer experience) systems, so they can reap the benefits faster by creating seamless and personalized shopping journeys according to customer needs.
The barriers and the benefits of MACH-based tech
Organizations that haven’t yet adopted MACH face some barriers to implementation, the most common being an unclear trade-off between initial investment and long-term returns, which topped 32% of those being surveyed, though this figure dropped 3% in comparison to 2023. Among respondents, 29% pointed out that they’re reliant on their current vendor for business continuity and that 26% of the IT/implementation team is resistant to change.
Despite those barriers, the adoption of MACH and composable solutions continues to grow as these technologies become more mainstream. Moreover, the shortcomings of legacy systems are becoming ever more evident: For instance, the proportion of IT budget spent on upgrades in the US is 41% and in Germany, 32%. Plus, organizations whose IT ecosystem is over 75% legacy spend a whopping 71% of their budget on upgrades.
Businesses that rely on legacy solutions are also struggling to complete projects, with 49% of organizations on average taking over a month to develop a new service or meet a new business requirement, a figure that rises to 56% in the UK.
In addition to the typical issues businesses face with legacy solutions, 87% of technology leaders report that MACH has been very or quite important in helping their organization meet customer expectations in recent years. Most decision-makers also believe that MACH technologies will help ensure long-term business success in the next five years. And, most importantly, 85% of IT leaders see clear evidence they’re maximizing ROI after investing in MACH and composable technology stacks.
Getting your organization MACHified in 2024
Meeting evolving customer expectations with legacy systems will remain an uphill battle due to the rigid nature of these platforms. The need to push innovation forward while eliminating the pervasive issues of legacy systems remains as relevant as ever.
For IT decision-makers who envision a composable future powered by MACH technologies, it’s crucial to make the case for IT modernization by demonstrating how to reduce technical debt, spend less time and money on upgrades, and innovate at speed to meet customer needs.
Delve deeper into the benefits of composable commerce! Download our white paper Why composable commerce is driving the future of business.
Manuela Marques Tchoe is a Content Writer at commercetools. She was a Content and Product Marketing Director at conversational commerce provider tyntec. She has written content in partnership with Facebook, Rakuten Viber and other social media platforms.