Today, we announced an exciting step for Yext: we're now part of the MACH Alliance. The MACH Alliance is a not-for-profit industry body that advocates for open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystems. The Alliance and its members aim to educate and support the 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. In their own words: "MACH is an industry tech standard describing modern technology. The prerequisites to achieve this standard are: Microservices based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless. Our MACH Certification gives enterprises confidence they are choosing best-in-class vendors that can deliver future-proof technology." This means that, after thorough evaluation, Yext meets these standards — and we're proud to be among the MACH Alliance members leading the charge to help businesses adopt this type of modern, flexible technology. "We're excited to partner with other members of the MACH Alliance as we encourage the transition away from legacy, monolithic infrastructure to best-of-breed technology ecosystems that provide the agility to remain relevant as business strategies evolve and customer needs change," explains Marc Ferrentino, President and Chief Operating Officer at Yext. "For years, we've innovated and built our Answers Platform with robust out-of-the-box integrations and an open MACH architecture. Now we have an industry certification to prove it. Our customers can look at our membership in the MACH Alliance and confidently know that they can use Yext products with their CDP, commerce platform, business intelligence tools, and more." Back up: what's headless? Let's zoom out for a minute for some quick definitions. What does it really mean to be "API-first" and "headless?" Breaking down the MACH acronym Microservices: An architectural and organizational approach to software development. Software is composed of small independent services that communicate with one another. (Over well-defined APIs, if you want to get technical). These services are independently owned and managed by small, self-contained teams. API-first: Most or all functionality is available to be accessed by both customers and partners via API. Cloud-native SAAS: Software-as-a-service that is built using composable architecture, built and developed for speed and scale. Provides a smoother and more intuitive user experience. Headless: A modern architecture that bifurcates the frontend experience from the backend data. The benefits include more flexibility, more control, and that the data can power any frontend experience. Now that we've run through the meaning of MACH, let's dive into what this architecture allows you to do — with Yext. Building custom experiences with Yext As digital solutions have proliferated, we all recognize that the digital experience has fragmented: there are teams across every business building different experiences, using different tools, structured on siloed databases. And because data from most vendors is siloed, these teams are struggling to collaborate and scale experiences — which leads to a negative experience for the end user. But while managing too many single-purpose vendors can be expensive and inefficient, replacing them with one monolithic, legacy digital experiences platform can hinder flexibility. (The MACH Alliance agrees — which is exactly why the group's goals are around education regarding newer, more flexible tech.) The solution? A composable, best-of-breed technology ecosystem that provides the agility to adapt as business strategies and customer needs change. At Yext, we have robust out-of-the box integrations and a modern MACH architecture so you can seamlessly combine our products with your CDP, commerce platform, business intelligence tools, and more. You're free to work with the platforms you're already using, and you have the flexibility to select and assemble tools in various combinations to create your ideal tech stack. Put simply, the adoption of MACH architecture leads to a better, more adaptable digital future. We're thrilled to join the MACH Alliance and look forward to partnering with other members to espouse MACH principles and drive the composable movement forward. Ready to see "building on Yext" in action? Click here to watch our recent virtual event, where two power users leverage the best of Yext's Pages, Search, and Knowledge Graph to build and optimize a website — in just 30 minutes.
