Executive Playbook – How to Lead the Transformation

Digital Transformation Starts at the Top. Here’s How to Lead It.

You’ve seen the opportunity.
You’ve felt the friction.
Now comes the real question:

What are you going to do about it?

Because digital transformation doesn’t start with a platform or a pilot project.
It starts with leadership.

If you’re on the executive team of a manufacturer or distributor, your role isn’t to approve the plan.
It’s to lead it.

This is your playbook.

1. Invest Where It Matters: Platform, People, and Data

Digital isn’t a tech initiative. It’s business infrastructure.

This means three areas should be at the top of your investment list:

• Platform: Your eCommerce platform is the customer-facing engine, but it only works if it connects seamlessly to your ERP, CRM, PIM, and analytics.
• People: You need leaders and team members who understand both the business and digital levers. Upskill internally or bring in new talent who can bridge both worlds.
• Data: Broken product data, inconsistent pricing, or incomplete inventory visibility will undermine everything. If you don’t fix the data, nothing else works.

Every investment decision should be filtered through a single question:
Does this make it easier for our customers to buy from us?

2. Define the Metrics That Matter, And Who Owns Them

If it’s not measured, it won’t move. But too many digital programs get lost in a flood of dashboards.

Focus on a few performance indicators that tie directly to business outcomes:

• What percentage of your sales are digital?
• Is your average order value increasing?
• Are customers staying longer because of better digital tools?
• How much of your cost to serve has dropped as processes become more automated?
• How quickly are you turning quotes into cash?

But metrics alone don’t change behavior.
Ownership does.

Each function, sales, marketing, ops, customer service, needs clear targets and someone accountable for hitting them.
Digital isn’t one team’s responsibility. It’s everyone’s.

3. Communicate the Vision—Early, Often, and Everywhere

A well-funded digital program can still fail if the rest of the company doesn’t understand the “why.”

This is where leadership makes the difference.

You need to explain, over and over:

• How digital supports growth
• Why it improves the customer experience
• That it doesn’t replace the sales team, it strengthens them
• That every department plays a role

When people understand the story, they stop resisting and start participating.

Culture follows clarity.
Momentum follows messaging.

4. Evaluate Your Readiness

Not sure where to start?

Begin by asking a few foundational questions across the business:

• Can your customers complete a purchase without help, from finding the product to seeing inventory and pricing to checking out?
• Are your people trained, aligned, and genuinely bought in, or are they skeptical and unsure of their role?
• Is your tech stack enabling your vision, or are you patching legacy systems together just to stay online?
• Do you have a roadmap and governance model to guide priorities, or are you reacting sprint by sprint?
• Is your product content searchable, complete, and up to date, or is it a liability?

Once you answer honestly, pick one area to focus on this quarter. Make real progress there, then build on it.

5. You Don’t Have to Be Technical. You Have to Be Accountable.

Here’s the most important shift:

You’re not expected to know the ins and outs of every platform.
You are expected to clear the path for execution.

That means:

• Funding the work
• Driving alignment across departments
• Protecting the roadmap
• Holding teams to real performance outcomes, not just hitting launch dates

You’re not just leading digital.
You’re leading your business, powered by digital.

Let’s Get to Work

The organizations that will thrive over the next decade aren’t waiting for perfect.
They’re moving with purpose. They’re aligning leadership. They’re building trust through better tools and better service.

You already have the playbook.
Now it’s time to run it.

Let’s go build what’s next.