Lessons from Cyncly’s transformation
Watch the full video here, or read the write-up below.
In a recent conversation with Alison Elliot, Director of Digital Experiences at Cyncly, she shared how the business is approaching digital transformation.
Alison explained that her role has focused first on creating a single “digital front door” for the business. That is no small task as Cyncly operates in more than 100 countries, spans over eight industries, offers around 80 products, and has grown through 17 legacy brands.
The first phase of the work is to consolidate content from the separate legacy websites into a unified digital experience. Followed by optimising that journey, developing the underlying engine, and ensuring the digital experience delivers positive outcomes for both the business and its customers.
Start with the customer
For Alison, the most important first step in any digital transformation is understanding the customer. She explained that Cyncly’s approach has been intentionally structured around identifying different customer archetypes, understanding their barriers and needs, and then creating the right content and solutions for each audience. Rather than building digital experiences around internal structures or legacy systems, the goal is to design around real customer journeys.
That customer-first mindset helps guide not only content strategy, but also platform decisions, user journeys, and the overall shape of the experience.
Managing the tension in transformation
Digital transformation often creates tension between customer expectations, business realities, and technical constraints. Alison’s view is that managing this well comes down to clear communication, realistic planning, and strong design thinking.
With a clear vision and strategy in place, organisations can take a crawl-walk-run approach that helps leadership teams and wider stakeholders understand where the business is heading. Being realistic about what can be achieved at each stage is critical, as is being open and honest about how change will be rolled out.
Is there really such a thing as an MVP?
When businesses rebuild or replatform digital products that customers already use regularly, the question of an MVP inevitably comes up. Alison believes the answer depends on the context.
Different website elements require different thinking. In ecommerce, for example, Cyncly already has an existing solution across two legacy sites. But instead of simply migrating that solution into the new environment, the team is stepping back to ask bigger questions:
- What should the future experience look like?
- What do customers actually need?
- What commercial outcomes should the platform support?
That could include everything from cross-sell and upsell opportunities to retention features, billing functionality, or account management tools, such as adding seats to a subscription.
The same principle applies to features like chat. Some legacy sites have it, others do not, and different tools are in use. Rather than assuming those features should be carried over as-is, Alison emphasised the need to start with the data: How are customers using these tools today? Are they creating incremental value, or simply shifting revenue from one channel to another?
In other words, defining an MVP in a transformation programme should be about making deliberate decisions based on strategy, user needs, and evidence, not just moving the bare minimum across.
Bringing sales teams on the journey
One of the common challenges in B2B transformation is resistance from sales teams, especially in organisations where selling has traditionally been relationship-led.
Alison sees this as a natural, even healthy tension. The key is to bring sales teams into the process early, involve them in workshops, and make them part of the solution.
For her, digital should not replace salespeople. Instead, it should complement them. Sales teams bring deep product knowledge and a nuanced understanding of customer needs. Digital tools should help by improving lead quality, reducing time spent on poor-fit opportunities, and increasing responsiveness to inbound interest.
When done well, digital transformation supports both customer outcomes and sales performance.
The changing face of the B2B buyer
Cyncly still serves traditional B2B audiences across small and medium-sized businesses, mid-market, and enterprise segments. But Alison noted that buyer expectations are changing.
A younger generation of decision-makers is entering the market, and they expect a smoother, more intuitive digital journey. For software businesses in particular, that matters. If a company sells digital products but delivers a poor website experience, it inevitably affects how customers perceive the product itself.
In that sense, the website is more than just a sales channel; it’s a brand experience that represents the perception the target customer has of all Cyncly’s products and services.
Personalisation, experimentation, and the role of AI
Cyncly is already introducing personalisation and experimentation capabilities to meet a wider range of customer expectations.
Alison emphasised the significance of visitor groups within the CMS and the utilisation of Optimizely’s experimentation platform to facilitate testing and learning across multiple pages and markets at scale. For a business operating across many products and countries, that flexibility is essential.
Looking ahead, she believes AI will play a major role in unlocking the next level of digital performance.
AI is already embedded in parts of Cyncly’s product and website experience. One major application is localisation. Cyncly needs to deliver content effectively across multiple languages. AI-powered tools are helping the team update and adapt content far more quickly than would otherwise be possible.
There is still progress to be made in terms of quality and prompting, but the direction is clear. Alison also pointed to growing opportunities in AI-driven messaging and personalisation, particularly through tools such as Optimizely Opal AI, which could help build more tailored campaigns for different user groups.
Don’t forget the basics
When asked what advice she would give herself on day one in the role, Alison’s answer was simple: enjoy the ride, but do not try to run before you can walk.
Digital is always evolving, and that constant pace of change is part of what makes it exciting. But in the rush to adopt new tools and capabilities, it is easy to lose sight of the fundamentals.
Her advice is to keep returning to the basics: understand the customer, build the right foundations, and make sure the website performs well technically before layering on more advanced features.
A long-term journey
Creating a clear vision, understanding customers deeply, aligning internal teams, and making thoughtful decisions has a far greater impact than chasing the latest trends. It is a long and evolving journey, but, as Alison made clear, it is also an exciting one.
