The MACH Alliance, a not-for-profit industry body that advocates open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystems, was only founded in June 2020 but has already been referred to by leading global market research company, Forrester, as ‘the coolest tech in town club.’ Membership approval is now seen as a gold standard for retail tech companies to secure.

The prerequisites to achieve this standard are: Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS and Headless.

As the MACH Alliance explains on its website, MACH stands for:

M – Microservices: Individual pieces of business functionality that are independently developed,
deployed, and managed.

A – API first: All functionality is exposed through an API.

C – Cloud-native SaaS: that leverages the cloud, beyond storage and hosting, including elastic scaling and automatically updating.

H – Headless: Front-end presentation is decoupled from back-end logic and channel, programming language, and is framework agnostic.

In essence, MACH Certification gives enterprises confidence they are choosing best-in-class vendors that can deliver future-proof technology.

Jens Levin, Sitoo co-founder and CEO, says: “Being part of the MACH Alliance is a quality stamp and one we’re delighted to receive with approval of our membership. Innovation, a pioneering approach, and pushing boundaries of what’s possible with retail technology sit at the heart of everything we do.”

“We truly ARE all that MACH stands for: Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless and this is proof of that.”

The past two years have seen an explosion in the demand for state-of-the art retail technology. Ambitious retail businesses across the globe are looking to tech as the answer to meet new consumer behaviour and new ways customers shop. However, with so many different options available, it’s a challenge for many retailers to know where to start.

This is where the MACH Alliance comes in.

“We aim to educate and support the retail industry as a whole on what to look out for when moving from legacy infrastructure and going composable, including when, where and how to start and select partners,” says Kelly Goetsch, Chairperson of the MACH Alliance.

“Sitoo have demonstrated they fully embody our standards and their commitment to delivering best-in-class future-proof technology is embedded throughout their DNA.”

Jens Levin adds: “The software retailers choose – whether it’s a CRM, eCom, footfall counter or a unified commerce platform anchored by point of sale (POS) – and their IT architecture, play essential roles in helping them deliver the kind of experiences their customers desire.

“Membership of the MACH Alliance gives our customers – and future customers – an additional level of assurance that we are the best of the best and firmly committed to an API-first, open, cloud-native approach to our development.

“The future of retail is an incredibly exciting place and initiatives like the MACH Alliance make it even easier for more retailers to get there with tech partners they can truly trust.”