Composable Conference 2025: MACH accelerates pros

Brand owners use MACH principles to accelerate digital transformation, writes Miya Knights, Retail Technology Publisher

Brand owners have been sharing how a microservices, application programming interface (API)-first, cloud-native, and headless (MACH) approach to architecting tech change can deliver customer and business benefits.

Representatives of Diageo and The Vitamin Shoppe®, speaking at the Composable Conference hosted by the MACH Alliance, taking place in Chicago this week, revealed how they are moving from monolithic systems to composable, modular and headless architectures.

Following discussions focused on best practice and the future of MACH principles during Day One of the event, end users turned attention to practical implementation. Use cases showcased the digital transformation of a global marketing function and a merchant omnichannel overhaul. 

Diageo transforms marketing

Danson Huang, global vice president of digital commerce for Diageo (pictured), outlined an ambitious roadmap for overhauling the spirits giant’s online presence, revealing a leaner website portfolio, a composable technology palette and a people-centric operating model designed to reconcile brand creativity with operational rigour.

Huang opened by stressing the sheer scale and complexity of Diageo’s brand portfolio—“more than 200 brands in nearly 180 countries”—and the digital touchpoints needed to support them. He said Diageo’s digital transformation aimed at giving brands freedom while ensuring data connectivity and system consistency.

A KPMG joint report, Huang noted, found that digital channels already influence 45% of consumers worldwide—and that figure is projected to rise to 55% within two years. He warned that Gen Z and millennials increasingly turn to TikTok rather than traditional search engines for recommendations, underscoring the need for “digital touchpoints [that] are not only just a digital brochure… but an ecosystem that can connect with the data, connect with your omnichannel consumer journeys, and make it always shoppable”.

Predictable efficiency demands

Huang emphasised a fundamental tension: brands demand creative freedom; the chief financial officer (CFO) demands predictable, efficient systems. “My CFO is asking me, ‘Can we get our system more productive and predictable?’” he said. His answer: a three-pillar framework of the right technology platform, a reusable component library, and a balanced operating model that brings brand teams, central IT, and agencies together under a product-focused mindset.

Central to the technology pillar is a composable architecture mixing core services—commerce engines, API‑first content management system (CMS), DevOps pipelines—with plug‑and‑play microservices. 

This “hybrid approach” allows each brand to tailor its front‑end experience while sharing back‑end efficiencies. “We are using a more hybrid approach with composable architecture to make sure that we have the agility and flexibility to address the different needs of the different brands”.

He then revealed Diageo’s bold decision to cut its global site count from over 500 down to just 38 “fewer, but better websites.” Each remaining site must be purposeful, compliant and valuable both to consumers and to the business. Brands are categorised into super-power marquee sites (e.g., Johnnie Walker, Guinness), portfolio platforms for small-to-medium labels, spaces for emerging “new‑to‑world” brands, professional service hubs (e.g., Bar Academy for bartenders) and joint-venture platforms where legal structures require them.

Brand consolidation benefits

Huang illustrated early success with Guinness.com, where consolidating 35 disparate domains into a single site and membership programme (My Guinness) drove nearly 90% uplift in average order value and captured first-party data in months, to levels that it would previously have taken years to amass. He also highlighted an 8% reduction in homepage weight, improved mobile scores, and stronger search engine optimisation (SEO) visibility.

Underpinning it all, Huang stressed, is culture and change management. The establishment of Brand Councils and Agency Councils has fostered transparency and shared ownership, and bi-weekly sprints enable markets to see tangible progress. 

He added: “Digital transformation is not only a technology transformation but a culture change management… People want visibility and transparency, and they need communication so that they feel they are part of this journey”.

With a global “website factory” now in early infancy, Diageo says it is ready to meet the next wave of digital‑first consumer expectations.

Moving from monolith to composable

Uman Chan, Senior Director of Digital Technology for The Vitamin Shoppe, told Retail Technology magazine about the retailer’s digital transformation journey, focusing on moving from a monolithic system to a composable, modular architecture.

At VitaminShoppe.com, the VShoppe app, and in over 780 stores across the US, The Vitamin Shoppe has been offering health and wellness products and expertise for nearly 50 years. It recently overhauled its digital online and in-store systems using MACH principles. 

Chan explained how careful planning enabled a smooth rollout of new systems, including a new in-store point of sale (POS) and omnichannel promotions. “One of the benefits of MACH is that it is componentised. It is modular. You can do it piecemeal,” he said. 

“There's nothing to say that you have to do this within 12 months or whatever. That's always a bottom line. One example of doing things gradually is to do one or two non-critical services, just to get a feel of how things go, and learn from that.” 

Recognising MACH success

The incremental approach Chan and his team took started with less risky, high-traffic pages,  gradually migrating to more complex areas like checkout and profile. As a result, the transformation led to improved agility, a better customer experience, and enhanced team retention. 

“For us, you know, based on the size of our organisation, our team, and then, you know, how we're organised and our budgets, it worked well for us,” he added. “For another organisation, it might be that you want to move as fast as possible, but that's the kind of endless possibility that is what makes MACH so powerful.”

Following the focus on successful implementations of the tech infrastructure principles to drive tangible business benefits, the MACH Impact Awards ceremony was held during the conference, highlighting the breadth of enterprise adoption.

MACH Impact Awards winners

Official winners of the 2025 MACH Impact Awards:

• Grand Prix — Best Overall Change: Sephora
• Grand Prix — Best Digital Experience: FLEETLOOP
• Best Platform Transformation Projects: Sephora, Loto-Québec
• Best B2B Project: FLEETLOOP
• Best Retail Project: LKQ Europe
• Best Health & Wellness Project: The Vitamin Shoppe
• Best Travel & Tourism Project: Loto-Québec
• Best Manufacturing Project: Lallemand
• Best Breaking New Ground Projects: Mattel, Takko Fashion
• Teams of the Year: Golfbreaks, Parkland
• Contributor of the Year: Trent Dudei - Sentry Insurance

“Sephora is a standout winner for me,” said Justin Thomas, Impact Awards co-chair and global head of digital experience and growth at Kraft Heinz. 

“The scale, complexity, and risk of what they achieved behind the scenes is immense, and they delivered it all at the level of a global brand with massive infrastructure demands.”