Business digitalization in 2025 and beyond

Let's start with a key clarification. Business digitalization and digitization aren't the same thing, though they're commonly mixed up.

Digitization concerns converting physical documents into digital formats, i.e. scanning a paper invoice and saving it as a PDF. It's useful, but it's just the starting point.

Digitalization refers to the integration of digital technology that transforms how organizations operate across all their areas, services and channels. Think restructuring workflows, automating processes and enabling data-driven decision-making.

True business digitalization requires a commitment from an entire organization to evaluate, challenge and reconfigure business processes. It's not about buying new software and calling it a day — it's about transforming around that new software.

Change triggers both excitement and discomfort. In the rear-view mirror, it’s seen as a sweeping project, but in reality it plays out in everyday work, bringing micro-moments of challenge and resistance, leadership and followership, trust and skepticism.

This tension is important and inevitable. Whether it is constructive or destructive comes down to company culture, which is set at the top and flows down through every level. The following four cultural pillars create an environment where change is actively embraced, dramatically increasing your chances of success with ambitious digitalization initiatives.

Pillar 1: Risk tolerance

Walking into the unknown is part of the journey. Even with thorough due diligence, new software implementations carry inherent uncertainties. A healthy digital culture welcomes well-considered risks and treats occasional missteps as valuable learning opportunities on the path to better processes.

Pillar 2: Collaborative curiosity

In digitally mature organizations, reaching across teams for answers and building solutions together becomes second nature. Nurture a spirit of curiosity about how things work and how they might improve, creating an environment where cross-functional collaboration and fresh perspectives are actively encouraged.

Pillar 3: Customer-centricity

This customer-focused lens also helps teams escape the trap of process-for-process-sake thinking, shifting conversations from "what do we do and how do we do it?" to the more powerful question: "Are these activities actually serving our customers and business goals?"

Pillar 4: Adaptive mindsets

The digital journey has no finish line. Organizations that excel in transformation cultivate a culture where experimentation is the norm, setbacks become stepping stones and teams are rewarded for nimble adaptation. This requires balancing conviction with flexibility — what some refer to as "strong opinions, loosely held." Team members advocate passionately for ideas while remaining genuinely open to challenge and change. This mindset breaks the gravitational pull of legacy systems and processes, preventing teams from clinging to approaches simply because they're familiar or represent significant past investment. Instead, the focus remains squarely on what delivers results, embracing the constant evolution that modern business demands.

Let's talk about what successful business digitalization delivers. When implemented thoughtfully, you'll see consistent benefits:

But here's where it gets interesting. For each order and invoice, there's so much more information stored than anyone might realize — trends, patterns, pricing insights, and buyer preferences are just the beginning.

Now, let's return to that digitization vs digitalization framework to understand when true transformation happens.

Digitization is often an important first step, but you know it's digitalization when behaviors fundamentally change.

Think about the evolution of music. CDs were a digitized version of vinyl — they made owning and sharing music more convenient, but they didn’t change how we interacted with it. You still bought albums, played them start to finish and stored them physically in your home.

Streaming platforms, on the other hand, represent true digitalization. Why? Because the music remains digital throughout its lifecycle, and the data it generates opens up entirely new possibilities from curated playlists to algorithmic recommendations to real-time analytics.

That shift didn’t just improve the experience; it transformed user behavior, business models, and customer expectations. Artists release singles strategically, listeners discover music through algorithms and playlists become shared social currency. The entire business model shifted from selling physical products to subscription services and data-driven recommendations.

This is exactly the kind of fundamental shift that digitalization can bring to business processes.

Now let's talk about the difference between PDF-based invoicing and e-invoicing. Adding OCR technology to pull information from emailed invoices? That's yet another digitization step. You're still working with the same basic process — receive document, extract information, input into system — just with some automated assistance.

Switching to e-invoicing on the other hand is digitalization because it involves many different departments working together and has so many downstream effects that change behaviors. E-invoicing opens up new possibilities like automatic payments, supply chain optimization, real-time compliance monitoring and predictive cash flow management. And it also changes how we go about tax reporting. Data from an e-invoice flows directly into tax returns, eliminating manual reconciliation and associated risks of mismatching data that can cause trouble during audit season. Automations can build on one another, until you reach a touchless tax compliance workflow. 

Yes, making processes more efficient is important, but digitalization in its fullest definition is using digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities. It's about creating entirely new ways of working that weren't possible before — new services, new customer relationships, new competitive advantages.

Ready to move forward? Corporate digital transformation succeeds when you think beyond individual departments and consider how digital transformation in business affects your entire ecosystem. Here are the key factors that separate successful digitalization projects from the ones that stall:

Identify pain points and focus on data quality

Look for areas where manual work creates friction. Do you still receive paper invoices from suppliers? Even if you mostly work with PDFs, there's room to develop a truly digital business model.

Once you have transactions digitized, you can start collecting the valuable data that lives in those transactions. Clean, structured data doesn't just support automation — it helps with forecasting and strategic planning, giving your leadership team the insights they need to make better decisions.

Simplify, don’t just add

Here's a critical consideration: don't create more problems than you're solving. Avoid getting trapped in a web of disconnected systems.

When investigating options, look for service providers that work seamlessly with your current ERP or accounting systems. Digitalization works best when it connects departments — finance, procurement, IT, and tax — to ensure consistency and create greater business value.

Foster bottom-up ownership  

While transformation can't be unilaterally imposed top-down, success absolutely depends on leadership setting clear directives and then empowering people below to find the best way to those goals. This balance between top-down vision and bottom-up innovation creates the conditions for digitalization to truly flourish.

When leaders communicate the "why" clearly and give teams the freedom to explore the "how" is when digitalization moves from a technology project to a cultural transformation. It's about creating an environment where people feel empowered to challenge existing processes, experiment with new approaches, and contribute to the organization's digital evolution.

In conclusion

Digitalization is ultimately about possibility. When you move beyond surface-level changes to transform your operational DNA, you create space for innovation that wasn't previously possible. When you approach this journey with intention — addressing culture, process and technology as interconnected elements — you accomplish far more than implementing more efficient processes. Your business grows more adaptable, more insightful and better positioned to capture and create new business opportunities.

This text was originally published 22 December 2021 and last updated 1 October 2025.