With a moniker like ‘The Digital Roadmap’ it’s natural to assume we’re talking about technology. In truth, we’re here to help you APPLY the technology. With that comes a responsibility to talk about the areas where tech is often a distraction.

One of the most notable areas: Letting tech LEAD your strategy, customer experience or organizational priorities. In other words, allowing the technology ‘tail’ to wag the organizational ‘dog’.

That’s not transformation—it’s surrender.

The trap is easy to fall into. A competitor launches a new site. A vendor promises “end-to-end solutions.” Leadership wants something to show the board. So the company picks a platform, does an MVP to “leverage” its features and “hit the ground running”, and assumes the rest will fall into place.

But technology is a tool, not a leader. If you let the platform define your customer journey, your data priorities, or your sales approach, you’ve given up control of your own future. The dog should wag the tail, not the other way around.

Before you evaluate platforms or sign contracts, you need to lead with clarity in four areas. These are the anchors that keep you in control of the transformation—so technology supports your goals instead of dictating them.

1. Strategy: Decide How You Want to Win

Price, service, product assortment, expertise—your competitive edge must be defined before you buy tools to support it. If your goal is fastest fulfillment, you need systems that excel at inventory visibility and logistics. If your edge is knowledge and guidance, you need content management and customer education. Without this clarity, your platform choice is a gamble.

2. Customer: Know What They Really Need

B2B buyers don’t care what platform you run on. They care whether you make their jobs easier. Supply buyers may want speed and simplicity; capital equipment buyers may want deep technical content and post-sale support. If you don’t understand the journey, the “jobs to be done,” and the points of friction, you risk buying technology that solves problems your customers don’t actually have.

3. Capabilities: Be Honest About What You Can Deliver

Technology can extend capabilities, but it can’t replace them. If your sales teams don’t use CRM, they won’t adopt digital quoting tools. If your marketing team is stretched thin, they won’t manage an advanced personalization engine. If your culture resists change, no amount of shiny software will make adoption easy.

Capabilities—people, processes, incentives—determine whether the technology you buy will be used to its potential.

4. Foundations: Fix the Data First

Platforms run on data. Product attributes drive search and navigation. Customer data drives pricing and personalization. If your product and customer data are inconsistent, incomplete, or poorly governed, the platform will only make those flaws more visible.

Launching ecommerce without addressing data foundations is like training a dog on a leash that’s frayed and tangled. The first pull exposes the weakness.

When technology leads instead of strategy, the risks pile up fast:

• Misaligned investments: Millions spent on platforms that don’t support your business model and sometimes don’t even launch.
• Resistance from teams: Heads are nodding yes, but inside its a no. Sales and operations fight back or quiet quit when tools don’t fit how they work.
• Delayed ROI: “But I thought” are three words you don’t want to hear. Projects will stall because foundational issues—like data—have to be fixed midstream.
• Re-platforming: In the worst cases, companies replace systems within 2–3 years, wasting time and money.

The result is a transformation effort that looks impressive on the outside but delivers little of the substance your business or customers need.

Instead of being led by technology, companies need to flip the sequence: define outcomes first, then align everything else to support those outcomes. Here’s how:

1. Define success in business terms. Is it revenue mix? Lower cost-to-serve? Customer adoption? Put these outcomes first.
2. Map customer jobs-to-be-done. Identify the tasks customers struggle with today and design to make them easier.
3. Audit your capabilities and data. Don’t buy platforms hoping they’ll cover gaps. Be honest about where you’re strong, where you’re weak, and where you need to invest.
4. Choose technology last. Once strategy, customer, capabilities, and data are clear, you’ll know what kind of platform aligns with your goals. At that point, you’re in control—and the tech is truly serving you.

Leading digital transformation isn’t about buying the right platform. It’s about using technology to advance your strategy, serve your customers, and build capabilities for the future.

If you let the platform dictate those things, the tail is wagging the dog. But if you lead with clarity—on strategy, customers, capabilities, and data—technology becomes what it should be: an enabler, not a driver.

In B2B, the companies that succeed are the ones holding the leash, not the ones being pulled along.