Why Organizations Must Embrace Tech Consolidation 

By Sebastian Gierlinger, VP of Engineering at Storyblok 

In today’s business climate, various factors can significantly impact organizations of all types. These include fluctuating inflation and interest rates, a recession driven by global conflicts that disrupt supply chains, and ultimately a reduction in consumer spending. Experts predict that more firms will face bankruptcy by the end of 2024.

Maintaining resilience in tough economic times requires a new focus on increasing efficiencies and cutting costs. Of course, reduced demand means more competition which puts organizations under even more pressure to create a personalized and engaging customer experience. 

To understand how organizations think in turbulent times, we surveyed 500 business leaders at mid-sized e-commerce companies in the US and Europe to ascertain current levels of martech spend and website performance. Are current levels of tech spending delivering in terms of user experience and overall functionality? 

We found that half (48%) of those surveyed were embarrassed by their website functionality. Nearly every business (92%) believed their website’s poor user experience was costing them customers and ultimately sales. Despite big investments in website infrastructure, on average, nearly half a million over five years. 

This underlines the misconception that a more expensive tech stack is better and will deliver an ROI over time. The current economic climate has forced organizations to focus on opportunities to improve economies of scale and increase profitability and user experience. 

In the current marketing tech world, there is an increasing trend of consolidation as more projects with multiple CMS systems in play are combined into one single system that is no longer self-hosted. This provides organizations with huge savings on operations. 

Steps to Consolidation

So, where should you begin when considering whether to consolidate? Of course, in any type of tech transformation, there will be different approaches depending on the incumbent platforms and tools. However, one of the simplest and most effective ways businesses can transform the online experience and impact the bottom line is migrating to a MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-based, and Headless) architecture. 

For the uninitiated, MACH architecture is shorthand for a future-proofed system. Put simply, instead of being tied to a single platform, a MACH architecture means giving businesses the freedom to create tech stacks, applications, and services that are specifically designed to their needs. A typical setup combines different individual technologies to create one unified cloud-based setup that can communicate via APIs.

The result? Better oversight, flexibility, and adaptability translate to faster deployments and overall cheaper operations. But more than that, his unbundling of the once favored ‘all-in-one’ bundled packages signifies a paradigm shift towards a more streamlined, nearly universal, bespoke approach enabling businesses to continue transforming their digital journey with ease. Also, while not as widely documented as gen AI or VR, the reality is that MACH architecture remains the ‘master key’ in unlocking the promise of these and other major techie trends too.

Take the marketer’s ‘holy grail’, for example – the omnichannel experience. Though certainly not a new concept, the reality is that the creation of a truly seamless customer experience that connects a company’s online and offline touchpoints remains definitively out of reach. MACH architecture has the potential to change this. This is because it allows businesses to handpick each technology to support their omnichannel needs, quickly and easily, and with total scalability. Team this with the latest breakthroughs in VR and AR and we may be closer to virtually ‘trying-on’ clothes or smart carting groceries as standard than we realize.

What’s also great about this type of architecture is that it is 100 percent future-proof. If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that no one truly knows what’s around the corner. We must always expect the unexpected. With this, MACH architecture ensures businesses are primed for whatever change may come. 

Thanks to the easy nature of integrating technology, it’s possible to add new programs or improve existing ones quickly and easily. This means it’s possible to embrace the best and latest advancements – be it new VR technology, the next wave of the metaverse, or something completely new – with minimal friction or downtime.

Investing in new technologies may not be a high priority for businesses, but as online competition tightens, meaning more customer demand for a better online experience, transitioning to a tech consolidation is the best option that will ensure organizations have a solid foundation in place to respond to market fluctuations.