The Retailer Spring Edition 2023

THE RETAILER

44

EMBRACING MACH ARCHITECTURE FOR FUTURE-PROOF RETAIL

Josh Wills Retail Solutions Architect CDW UK

M odernizing retail systems through com posable and MACH architectures to deliver personalized shopping experi ences and meet customer expectations.

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Transitioning to MACH Architecture may seem daunting, but it empowers retailers to choose the best platforms and enables faster deployment of applications, scalabil ity, and modularity.”

In the wake of the Pandemic bricks and mortar is back front and centre of customers minds, but with that, their expectations of in store experience has also shifted. Retailers need to consider how technology can drive loyalty and deliver more personalised shopping experiences across customer touch points to meet these expectations. When looking at modernising the systems of retailers, a key trend is com posable or MACH architectures. MACH architecture refers to a modern and flexible approach to building software systems that are composed of microservices, cloud-native SaaS, API-first, and headless. It offers a new way of thinking about your software stack that focuses on the following key areas to meet the ever-changing needs of customers: MACH Architecture enables retailers to provide a consistent and personalized shopping experience across all channels, securely collect and analyse customer data, and improve brand loyalty.” ‘‘

• Flexibility Retailers can develop and deploy applications faster and more efficiently. The MACH approach leverages the power of cloud to provide on-de mand resources, enabling retailers to scale up or down depending on their needs. This agility and flexibility enable retailers to respond quickly to market changes, ensuring that they stay ahead of the competition. • Scalability This approach is designed to be scalable, which means it can handle large volumes of traffic and transactions. This is particularly critical where retailers need to handle high volumes of online traffic and transactions during peak shopping periods.