MACH Alliance
The Client
Conceived in 2019 and already with 60+ members around the world, the MACH Alliance has become a phenomenon. Members range from global tech giants such as AWS to startup martech platforms like PersonifyXP – with everything in between.
The Challenge
Whilst MACH is a term with a growing understanding amongst technology businesses, those organisations who might adopt the architecture are largely unaware of the acronym and its meaning. The MACH Alliance’s mission is to popularise and explain the elements of MACH, leading to an increase in adoption. To achieve this, the message needs to reach potential adopters, but in a controlled manner – using best-of-breed examples delivered with credibility.
The MACH Alliance needed to bring this message to life for organisations while creating an inclusive environment for its members to network and collaborate. Not an easy task, especially given the fact that the MACH Alliance is a non-profit and, therefore, only has access to limited funds and staff resources.
Our events practice designed and executed MACH ONE, the MACH Alliance’s first-ever flagship conference, in London in June 2022 in partnership with the Alliance marketing team.
The Project and Outcomes
From our initial plans for a two-day event focused on highlighting examples of MACH in practice, the Commerce Futures team:
Worked with all 60+ members to encourage & coach their customers to tell their transformation stories on stage
Designed the sponsorship rate card and then encouraged all members to participate commercially, raising over £700,000 to fund the conference and an awards dinner
Looked after all 3rd party suppliers, from the venue, delegate registration and livestream through to entertainment and all F&B
Ran the invitation program to drive attendance from technology leaders across a wide range of sectors, yielding 400+ registrations from enterprise C-suite tech roles
Organised and executed the first MACH Alliance awards dinner for 250 with entertainment
Built the speaking agenda, recruited 39 industry speakers (with a near 50/50 gender balance) and then ensured a successful set of content on both days – including video interviews with some of the leading speakers that the Alliance are now using to promote its mission.
What Did We Learn?
It was tricky to maintain a level playing field for members of the Alliance, tech firms are notoriously pushy
We were nervous about drop-outs AND being ambushed by non-members - neither scenario transpired
We learned to trust our judgement in the main. Whilst we had wrinkles most passed unnoticed (other than to us and our MACH clients), and we were pretty overwhelmed by the feedback we received.
In Conclusion
No doubt – there was something special in the air at MACH ONE. An atmosphere of fellowship, a beautifully curated speaker agenda and an amazing audience meant that everyone left feeling “MACH-Ready”.
When we spoke to salespeople from members they mostly said they’d seen better outcomes from MACH ONE than most trade shows or events this year. Some even said that MACH ONE should be considered the benchmark when it comes to industry events going forward. Delegates gave us rave reviews, and speakers were proudly promoting their participation on LinkedIn.
Commerce Futures delivered an exceptional customer experience at MACH ONE, this first critical event for us. With so many uncertainties around how this event would be received by members and delegates we really valued the commitment and skill set of the team, and in particular their focus on the delegate experience and content. Looking forward to many more successful events with this great crew.
MACH Alliance