As one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, Kraft Heinz is synonymous with a multitude of timeless and iconic brands found in cupboards and fridges around the globe. But the secret ingredient behind this trusted producer of high-quality staples is to look beyond what’s on the dinner table and not only understand — but evolve with — their consumers.
That’s why Kraft Heinz’s Head of Digital Experience Justin Thomas doesn’t just think outside of the box, he focuses on breaking that box completely. He knows that innovation that truly moves technology forward isn’t rooted in change for the sake of change, but comes from an obsession with serving consumers in completely new and differentiated ways. This is also why Justin has joined the MACH Alliance as an official Ambassador.
“MACH isn’t just a philosophy, it's the future of technology. MACH provides best-of-need, best-of-breed digital solutions for today’s landscape and also sets businesses up to adapt agility to new technologies as they emerge, and then try them out right away with a very low cost of experimentation,” Justin explains.
Meaningful Cross-Functional Agility for the First Time
Once Justin and his team began making the transition to MACH, they discovered an unexpected benefit.
“When we first began this process, we thought it would be a chance to work closely with creative and technology, to integrate and align our vision for our users. However, the biggest change I’ve seen is the engagement and collaboration with our partners within the organization. This is due to the fact that now they feel empowered to influence the digital experience thanks to the flexibility of a MACH tech stack.”
“It’s really helping us not just as a team, but as an organization to bring more agility to what we’re trying to do here. This is something we didn’t have enough of before, and it’s really meaningful and exciting,” he adds.
Flexibility and Scalability, Just in Time
In Justin’s experience, the role of fresh, up-to-the-second content is only going to become increasingly important in curating impactful digital experiences in the near future. And that necessitates a flexible, adaptable tech stack that can deliver directly to users at scale.
“Consumers are increasingly expecting brands to provide more than just basic information online. These days, the expectation is that a brand should entertain and engage in new, novel, and digital ways at every touchpoint,” he says. “So, now more than ever it’s important to have the capability to deliver a much vaster scope of content, and to ensure that you’re actually doing something to deliver that moment of delight as a value-add to your customer. Otherwise, you simply won’t be able to keep up.”
“Creative is no longer left waiting on tech tickets to be answered, and can instead be empowered with easy-to-use technology to push content live,” he explains. “Similarly, tech is freed from answering low-value easily automated tech tickets and can instead focus on building and experimenting. MACH is really the most effective technological and digital solution out there.”
It all comes down to serving up a solution that meets the appetites of today’s consumers, and sets Kraft Heinz up to lead the future of a digital food experience tomorrow — and that sounds pretty delicious.
MACH Alliance Ambassadorship
The MACH Alliance is very excited to welcome Justin as a MACH Ambassador. Our Ambassadors are a carefully selected group of business and technology experts with a wide range of experience across industries and backgrounds. Passionate about the benefits a modern architecture can bring to an enterprise, our Ambassadors have graciously committed their time to support the mission of the MACH Alliance by writing, speaking, and serving as subject matter experts to help empower companies to go MACH.
If you’re interested in learning more about a MACH approach and understanding if it’s right for your business, we welcome you to get in touch at info@machalliance.org to be matched with the MACH Alliance Ambassador most relevant to you.