Is Digital Transformation Still Relevant In 2025?

The Definition of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation, at least in marketing and CXM, is no longer focused solely on modernising business processes. Instead, it’s about using tech and data to remain competitive, strengthen internal systems, and consistently improve performance.

It’s also less likely to be a large-scale programme and more likely to be a targeted project:

• Automating workflows to free up employee time.
• Improving visibility over processes and performance.
• Rebuilding customer-facing teams and efficient tasks.
• Strategic AI initiatives (but “digital transformation” and “using AI to do that” aren’t the same thing).
• Combining internal data in a single source of truth.
• Decluttering martech stacks built on plugins and process workarounds.
• Consolidating different teams/regions into a single system.

In every case, the value of digital transformation doesn’t come from adoption or automation. It comes from using technology as a tool, together with process redesign and people training, to achieve strategic goals.

Short answer? Yes, digital transformation is still relevant today. It just doesn’t look like it used to.

Dirk Wybe De Jong

Side Note: What Digital Transformation Isn’t

In our view, “digital transformation” is no longer interchangeable with “digitisation” or “digitalisation”. There might still be some companies out there running on manual processes (there are exceptions to every rule). But in most cases — and certainly with our clients in markets like the UK, USA, Australia and Europe — the meaning of digital transformation has evolved and left its origins in history.

What’s Driving Digital Transformation in 2026?

Several factors are pushing companies towards strategic, data-first transformation projects:

• Increased competition: Even unflappable legacy brands are feeling the heat as AI flattens the playing field somewhat. Succeeding nowadays means constantly finding new ways to impress and engage customers, especially by anticipating their needs.
• Access to better tech: Until AI agents prove they can live up to their potential, the real value we’re seeing is in integrations and automations. These save more time where it counts, in campaign creation and customer intelligence.
• Customer expectations: You need customer data to be recent, reliable, integrated, and accurate if you have any hope of delivering the seamless, personalised experiences customers expect and deserve.

Your customers are at the heart of all this. Digital transformation in marketing today is fundamentally about reimagining the customer experience. 

In fairness, it was in the ’90s as well. But back then, businesses embarking on “digital transformation” projects were computerising procedures and chasing customers into a nascent Internet. Today, we’re more concerned with meeting customers’ expectations for personalised experiences that connect seamlessly across touchpoints.

The script has flipped. Customer demands are driving everything. 

But if you get digital transformation right, there’s a lot to gain.

The Advantages of Effective Digital Transformation

Enhance Organisational Efficiency

Digital transformation reduces manual effort and automates repetitive tasks. This almost always leads to increased productivity and cost savings with no quality loss. For example, we’ve helped clients cut campaign development timelines by 90% or more with repeatable and scalable process improvements.

Improve Decision-Making

With smaller margins and tighter regulations, you can’t afford risky bets. Actionable insights based on clear, clean data are the foundation of strategic choices and risk mitigation. Which means one goal (if not the goal) of digital transformation projects should be strengthening your data ecosystem.

Boost Innovation

Technology was always meant to free up time for higher-order work. Marketing and CXM technology is no exception. Digital transformation should foster a culture of collaboration and experimentation by democratising data and simplifying processes. It shouldn’t be about investing in AI for the sake of it.

Strengthen Customer Relationships 

Personalised experiences and consistent interactions deepen customer loyalty. The right tools and tech help you leverage data and automation to:

• Anticipate customer needs.
• Tailor interactions, often in real time.
• Ensure consistent, high-quality service.
• Connect multichannel customer experiences.

It all starts with being able to understand customers as individuals. Making customer intelligence your ‘north star’ for digital transformation means that every subsequent decision is beneficial from a data perspective, and inherently customer-centric.

Gain a Competitive Edge

With a more integrated and automated system, you’ll start to outpace competitors in the race to reach customers. Existing customers will also be chuffed that you’re showing up for them.

We know customer loyalty is a challenge. Digital transformation is the way to make meaningful headway. It improves marketing effectiveness without compromising on what’s best for customers.

Scale Success

The reason that ~70% of large-scale transformation programmes fail to meet their objectives is because they focus on the wrong things. New “transformational” tech rolls out with no clear ownership or process redesign. The whole thing is built on a shaky premise.

We approach transformation differently. Instead of expecting tech to magically fix things, we trace customer engagement problems to the source and apply targeted solutions.

That way, you’re not back here in 3-5 years when things change again. The transformed processes and systems scale with you and allow you to adapt. 

A Step-By-Step Guide to Digital Transformation That Delivers Value to Customers

1. Set Clear Goals

Define what you want to achieve with your digital transformation project. What problems are you trying to solve? What opportunities are you aiming to capitalise on? Whether converting more customers, cutting campaign development timelines, increasing martech ROI or earning customer loyalty, specific objectives are your guides and guardrails.

Make sure the goals align with your business strategy. That way, you can demonstrate how a ‘common sense’ project like CRM data cleansing or cookie consent management adds value to the organisation. 

2. Identify Customer Needs

Customer loyalty is the key to sustainable business growth. Every decision you make with regards to digital transformation should be derived from a customer need. Here’s how to do that:

• Clarify their needs, preferences, pain points, and relevant behaviours.
• Map the gaps in your current understanding.
• Define what’s going to change for customers, and how that change ladders up to business goals.
• Create a roadmap that shows how a digital transformation project achieves this goal.

Resist the temptation to skip this step (and the next) because they might upset the apple cart. Clarity around your customers’ needs and behaviours is the only way to deliver experiences that create mutual value and drive long-term business growth.

3. Establish New Processes

Analyse your current workflows to identify weak spots. You’re looking for:

• Gaps in customer understanding (see above).
• Data siloes.
• Tech integration opportunities.
• Double handling.
• Manual processes that could be automated.
• Data-heavy processes that slow systems down.
• Rigid procedures.
• Too many approvals.

Now rewire those processes. 

At every junction, ask, “Is this the best move for the customer?” If the answer is no, backtrack until you get a yes. After doing that, run through the processes again to streamline things.

4. Choose Tech Wisely

Tech is important. But new tools won’t always solve your problems. They’ll likely just bog you down and cost a bomb. Evaluate your options to integrate, upgrade or update existing tech before even thinking about new platforms. Choose the option that’s secure, scalable, fit-for-purpose and fits your budget.

This is why we say that the best martech is often the one you already have. Martech implementations are lengthy and expensive processes that don’t always achieve the transformative results companies hope for. Look for opportunities to transform your existing tech with updates, upgrades, integrations and user training before thinking about a new platform.

Dirk Wybe De Jong

5. Restructure 

It’s often necessary to adapt team structures to accommodate redesigned customer-centric processes. This could involve redefining roles, creating new teams or altering project management styles. Our tip? Creating cross-functional teams is a great way to avoid information getting cloistered. If you’re worried about pushback, here are some tips:

• Make the goals visible; translate them to team-level KPIs so people know what they’re working towards.
• Communicate often and encourage feedback so people feel they’re a valuable part of the process.
• Provide training; confidence with new features, tools and processes does a lot to reshape uncertainty into enthusiasm.

In our experience, people are more responsive to change when they understand the value. How will it make their life easier? How will it make them better at their job? Answer those questions clearly and consistently, and the rest tends to take care of itself.

6. Execute the Digital Transformation

Wait, haven’t we been doing this the entire time? Not really. This is the “digital” part of “digital transformation”. It’s when you finally get to roll out changes.

• Integrating siloed platforms.
• Automating workflows.
• Overhauling data management.
• Rebuilding platform processes.
• Designing templates.
• User testing.
• A/B testing new ideas.

We usually recommend starting with a pilot. Very few things are perfect the first time. That’s why we test the waters with a low-risk trial, monitor the results against business goals and project KPIs, and adapt as necessary as we wade deeper into the digital transformation roll-out.

7. Allow Room to Move

Digital transformation is a journey. Encourage continuous improvement and experimentation within the guardrails you set in Step 1. Be ready to adapt your strategy. Market conditions, customer expectations and tech capabilities evolve in unexpected directions. 

Flexibility will help you stay ahead of the changes and continuously deliver value.

What Does Digital Transformation Mean to Your Business?

Digital transformation isn’t a buzzword. It’s a business imperative.

It might happen on a more targeted scale nowadays, with individual processes or data management systems being scrutinised rather than entire organisations ‘going digital’. But it’s no less important. Just like digitising brought businesses into the technology age, a customer-centric and data-enabled approach is essential for what’s coming next. 

Whatever that might be, we’re here to help you prepare for it.