The Challenge:

flaconi's decision to adopt a MACH architecture was triggered by several factors, primarily centered on addressing the obstacles presented by its incumbent legacy platform. The in-house developed monolithic structure, though foundational, had evolved into a bottleneck, demanding significant time and resources and impeding the company's agility in bringing products to market. flaconi recognized the critical necessity for a flexible, modular platform capable of seamlessly adjusting to dynamic business needs and customer expectations.

"The difficulties encountered with our legacy platform, a monolithic system developed in-house, significantly impacted our overall time-to-market capabilities," says Adeel Younas, Head of Engineering, flaconi

flaconi's growing pains with the legacy platform encompassed issues of speed, scalability, and organizational challenges. Customizations on the Magento-based system led to increased maintenance overhead and scalability concerns. The monolithic nature of the platform hindered parallel development, requiring extensive collaboration and coordination.

"The challenge lay in scaling, demanding extensive preparation. From the organizational perspective, scaling posed difficulties because, given the nature of the monolith, it was very hard to develop in parallel," explains Kateryna Pohrebniak, Engineering Manager, flaconi

MACH Approach

The decision to transition to a MACH architecture was not solely a technical one but involved collaboration between the tech and business teams. A cross-functional group evaluated challenges, options, and future business needs. Open communication and involvement of key stakeholders were crucial to gaining unanimous support for the transformation.

"The collaborative effort involved both the technical aspect, where concerns and limitations were raised, and a strategic exploration of necessary measures to align with evolving business expectations," emphasizes Younas.

Effective communication within the organization was paramount. Engaging as many team members as possible, pinpointing knowledge gaps, and steering clear of in-house development for non-differentiating components were crucial elements for the transition. Consistent and transparent communication played a pivotal role in managing the cultural shift, including clear explanations for the change's necessity to address any insecurities or resistance among team members.

“It's essential to acknowledge that the shift to MACH is not solely a technical alteration but also a cultural and mindset transformation. Ensuring universal comprehension of the long-term benefits and fostering adaptability to change within the organization is of utmost importance,” says Younas.

Hiring was also an interesting learning curve for flaconi. While the sorts of skills flaconi required are becoming more common as MACH and composable adoption grow, finding those diverse knowledge sets was a challenge at times. In most instances, flaconi has looked for specialists—individuals possessing a blend of domain-specific business knowledge and technical expertise—aligned with the team they are set to join within its existing architecture.

Leveraging MACH Technologies:

Throughout the project, flaconi maintained a central emphasis on the replatforming endeavor and the enhancement of the architecture itself. While design improvements and other initiatives hold merit, channeling the primary focus towards the replatforming process resulted in a more streamlined and efficient transition. flaconi knew it needed to take a composable and serverless approach to its new platform, but there were several ways to do that. They quickly learned that they didn’t need to build everything in-house to replatform. In the end, only the front-end library was reused, and all other components were completely new.

When it came to tool selection, the flaconi team highlights the importance of choosing partners based on their prior client experience, market reputation, and agility in responding to market demands. Instead of succumbing to the allure of all-in-one solutions, they would advise organizations to maximize choice and customization by choosing best-of-breed tools that excel in specific functionalities.

While all-in-one solutions may seem convenient, flaconi spent a lot of time considering long-term flexibility and integration capabilities. Opting for best-of-breed tools allows for sustained competitiveness and adaptability. Carefully selecting partners and tools that align with business goals and needs was crucial for the success of the MACH transformation. By embracing the MACH approach, flaconi benefits from a variety of pre-built microservices that can be seamlessly combined and expanded individually. These microservices integrate effortlessly with existing components through API interfaces. The implementation of products and services is streamlined, enabling a faster time-to-market with just a few clicks.

“We assembled a small, dedicated project team that focused on composing our platform by selecting the best headless tools available in the market,” says Younas. “In parallel with developing our features, we onboarded our business teams with the necessary skills to get them up to speed with the new platform.”

“This legacy architecture diagram has been trimmed down by about 50%. Everything in red was in house developed over time contributing to the challenges we were facing.”

“With our new architecture, we have reduced in house development by 60% by replacing systems with best of breed, allowing us to focus on developing features for customers and not maintenance.”

Impact:

The adoption of the MACH architecture at flaconi led to improved developer productivity. Teams became more empowered, working efficiently and independently in parallel, resulting in a significant reduction in time to market.

The transition to MACH also ensured business continuity, allowing flaconi to smoothly operate while developing a new platform. The new architecture provided flexibility, making it easier to integrate with other tools and respond to evolving market needs.

End users experienced improved website performance, and stakeholders gained the ability to create new pages and modules independently. MACH architecture positively impacted user experience and allowed for more agile responses to customer needs. Custom brand pages and shops, which used to take one sprint with two developers in the old monolithic setup, can now be completed in one day by one person.

Quantitatively, flaconi realized benefits such as a 70% faster expansion into new countries, increased deployment frequency, reduced downtime, and fewer major incidents.

Conclusion:

flaconi's successful MACH transformation offers valuable insights and recommendations for organizations considering a similar architectural shift. The journey highlights the importance of strategic planning, partner selection, transparent communication, and a focus on replatforming. The positive impact on developer productivity, business continuity, and customer-focused benefits demonstrates the tangible benefits of embracing a MACH and composable architecture

Case study summary

flaconi, a beauty industry leader in Germany, successfully underwent a transformative shift to a MACH architecture to overcome challenges posed by its legacy platform. Facing issues with scalability and agility, flaconi's cross-functional collaboration and strategic planning paved the way for a successful MACH adoption. The transformation resulted in improved developer productivity, enhanced business continuity, and customer-focused benefits. Valuable lessons learned include the importance of replatforming focus, thorough tool evaluation, cultural mindset shift, continuous communication, and involving key stakeholders from the start. flaconi's journey serves as a compelling case study for organizations considering a similar architectural transformation.