MACH interview with Edrington

In this interview, Paul Henderson, Head of Digital Technology at Edrington, emphasizes the transformative potential of implementing a microservices, API-first, cloud-based, and headless (MACH) approach within the organization. Edrington’s journey to MACH architecture is aimed at enhancing agility, accelerating speed-to-value, and supporting an API-first design.

Despite the initial complexities, Paul is optimistic about the benefits of the MACH approach. This includes improving efficiency, achieving vendor independence, and the potential for continuous improvement rather than finite projects. While the shift may halt at the ERP level, a microservice layer can be added for smoother operations. As Edrington navigates this journey, Paul is also keen to learn how other brands sustain investment in continuous improvements and manage their MACH migration.

Tell me about the company and your MACH experience?

I joined Edrington about three years ago to work in the Digital Technology team, responsible for all consumer touchpoints within our Marketing technology stack. Upon joining, my mandate was to transition to a headless architecture, ensuring vendor independence. Despite initial efforts to build API middleware, we found our API becoming monolithic over time, slowing our progress. As new people and consultants came on board, the problem grew.

This year, we opted for a reset, as the size of our API made concurrent project management impractical. Recognizing this, we decided to subdivide our massive codebase into microservices within our API, significantly reducing the learning curve for new developers.

This change necessitated supplier re-evaluation to ensure we partnered with firms that supported API-first design. This shift is evident in our push towards headless Content Management and moving all our brands in this direction, despite varying brand budgets and the ongoing task of convincing brands of the merits of this new approach.

Do the business teams understand the MACH approach's value?

When communicating with business teams, I avoid complex architectural diagrams and focus on demonstrating the solution’s value and its speed-to-value. I also underscore that implementing a platform off-the-shelf can lead to challenges further down the line.

It is very easy to get blind sighted by the sales teams of technology vendors and believe that everything can be implemented quickly and will solve all imminent issues. At glance it may seem like an obvious option to pick a platform off the shelf and use an agency to implement it. The problem with that approach is that when the business has a problem and take it to an agency which specialises in one particular system within the marketing technology stack, “the agency treats every problem as a nail as they only have a hammer to solve it”

Instead, our team at Edrington serves as an enabler, researching the best solutions for new brand requirements, and ensuring that any selected system aligns with brand value from a technical, architectural, and security perspective.

What are the potential trade-offs from a business user's perspective as you embark on the MACH journey?

There might be trade-offs in the omnichannel aspect of our business as we aim for unified commerce. Prioritization between consumer needs and business needs is necessary, though I believe consumer experience will ultimately prevail. It’s crucial to have open discussions about these priorities with stakeholders from different business units.

Do business users understand why you're doing this?

While business users understand our path, they often wonder why they can’t have results immediately. Our approach is setting the groundwork for next year and the future, not just a quick fix that might need replacing in 18 months. There’s also an element of deciding which brands go first, as the pioneer brands will likely invest the most but will shape the requirements.

What do you think are Erdington’s boundaries of MACH?

Our MACH journey likely stops at the ERP level, as our organization is traditionally B2B. We might consider implementing a microservice layer between us and the ERP to smooth the Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) operations. However, shifting away from familiar mar-tech technologies will require significant user persuasion, even with the advantages of a headless approach.

How do you track the long-term improvements and impacts on KPIs with numerous releases?

At present, we don’t have sufficient data, but we’re working on identifying key performance indicators that we need to track. It is certainly an area that we need to improve on.

What questions would you ask other brands embarking on the MACH journey?

A key question would be, how do you continually secure investment? While brands see projects as having a definitive start and end, I view this as a continuous improvement process. How do you convince brands of the value in continuous enhancement, even after delivering the initial capabilities?

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