The truth is, most of what gets labeled as “transformation” just adds more tools, more steps, and more confusion. It doesn’t speed up quoting. It doesn’t help partners sell better. And it definitely doesn’t help the customer choose the right product.
What I’ve noticed after working with dozens of manufacturers is that digital transformation rarely starts with the problem that actually matters: enabling the customer to understand, configure, and confidently choose the right product — without needing a chain of internal approvals or clarification emails.
Instead, most initiatives start with tools. New CRM. New PIM. New portal. Everyone hopes that digitizing the process will magically improve the outcome — but in practice, what we see is a repackaging of the same bottlenecks in new software.
The internal teams might feel more organized, but the external experience — for customers, partners, and even internal salespeople — remains frustratingly slow and disconnected.
I’ve seen portals that look beautiful but can’t guide a distributor to a workable solution. I’ve seen product databases that are technically complete but impossible to navigate unless you’re already an expert. And I’ve seen entire transformation projects judged by internal adoption KPIs, while the core questions — “Are we selling faster?” “Are we easier to buy from?” — go unasked.
The manufacturers that are actually getting results from their transformation efforts are the ones who started with a brutally simple goal: help people buy. Not just online, not just through a portal — but across every channel, through every partner, in every sales motion.
They didn’t start by centralizing data. They started by identifying the specific friction points that were killing deals or slowing down sales. Then they built systems, or processes, or in some cases AI agents, that were directly aimed at removing those exact blockers.
In the end, “digital transformation” isn’t a strategy. It’s a means to an end. And in manufacturing, that end has to be commercial impact — shorter sales cycles, more qualified inbound requests, better channel performance, clearer product decisions.
If it’s not doing that, then it’s not transformation. It’s just a well-documented reorganization of your internal mess.
What I’ve noticed after working with dozens of manufacturers is that digital transformation rarely starts with the problem that actually matters: enabling the customer to understand, configure, and confidently choose the right product — without needing a chain of internal approvals or clarification emails.
Instead, most initiatives start with tools. New CRM. New PIM. New portal. Everyone hopes that digitizing the process will magically improve the outcome — but in practice, what we see is a repackaging of the same bottlenecks in new software.
The internal teams might feel more organized, but the external experience — for customers, partners, and even internal salespeople — remains frustratingly slow and disconnected.
I’ve seen portals that look beautiful but can’t guide a distributor to a workable solution. I’ve seen product databases that are technically complete but impossible to navigate unless you’re already an expert. And I’ve seen entire transformation projects judged by internal adoption KPIs, while the core questions — “Are we selling faster?” “Are we easier to buy from?” — go unasked.
The manufacturers that are actually getting results from their transformation efforts are the ones who started with a brutally simple goal: help people buy. Not just online, not just through a portal — but across every channel, through every partner, in every sales motion.
They didn’t start by centralizing data. They started by identifying the specific friction points that were killing deals or slowing down sales. Then they built systems, or processes, or in some cases AI agents, that were directly aimed at removing those exact blockers.
In the end, “digital transformation” isn’t a strategy. It’s a means to an end. And in manufacturing, that end has to be commercial impact — shorter sales cycles, more qualified inbound requests, better channel performance, clearer product decisions.
If it’s not doing that, then it’s not transformation. It’s just a well-documented reorganization of your internal mess.
