Digital Transformation in the Consumer Products Industry: Lessons from Leading Brands

In today’s rapidly evolving marketplace, established consumer products (CP) companies face unprecedented pressure. Digital-native disruptors are redefining consumer expectations, while traditional CP firms must contend with legacy systems, siloed operations, and the challenge of scaling innovation. To remain competitive, these organizations are embracing digital transformation—not as a one-time initiative, but as a continuous journey. At Publicis Sapient, we have partnered with some of the world’s largest CP brands to help them modernize, innovate, and deliver data-driven customer experiences that set new industry standards.

The Digital Imperative for Consumer Products

The consumer products sector is undergoing a seismic shift. Smaller, agile competitors are leveraging digital channels to build direct relationships with consumers, launch new brands at speed, and personalize engagement across every touchpoint. For established CP companies, the imperative is clear: adapt or risk irrelevance. This means reimagining business models, integrating new technologies, and fostering a culture of continuous change.

Key Challenges Facing CP Companies

Integrating Legacy Systems
Many CP organizations have grown through decades of mergers and acquisitions, resulting in complex, fragmented technology landscapes. Legacy systems often hinder the ability to respond quickly to market changes or to deliver seamless, omnichannel experiences. The challenge is not just technical—it’s organizational, requiring new ways of working and cross-functional collaboration.
Scaling Innovation
Innovation at scale is difficult for large enterprises accustomed to traditional processes and risk-averse cultures. Unlike digital natives, established CP firms must overcome bureaucratic inertia and foster an engineering mindset that values experimentation, rapid iteration, and learning from failure.
Personalizing Consumer Engagement
Today’s consumers expect personalized, relevant experiences—whether shopping online, in-store, or via emerging digital touchpoints. Delivering on this expectation requires robust data capabilities, modern MarTech infrastructure, and the ability to activate insights in real time across channels.

How Leading Brands Are Transforming

Modernizing MarTech Infrastructure

One of the world’s largest global CP firms partnered with Publicis Sapient to overhaul its MarTech ecosystem. Facing disruption from nimble competitors, the company needed to maintain brand affinity with digital shoppers and respond quickly to changing consumer behaviors. Together, we implemented a proprietary MarTech platform supporting over 147 brands in 75 countries—more than any other owned platform in the world. This enabled:

Improved consumer data capture, establishing 2 billion consumer IDs for more meaningful one-to-one relationships.
Enhanced capability to create and distribute channel-specific content for e-commerce across multiple markets.
A participatory approach to brand purpose, activating purpose-driven campaigns across major global brands.

Building Agile Teams and Ways of Working

Transformation is not just about technology—it’s about people and culture. For the same global CP firm, we helped launch a digital-first model of working, creating 40+ co-located agile squads. This approach sparked a broader movement towards transformation, enabling:

300% increase in website launch capability
200% faster time-to-market for innovation
50% improvement in development efficiency

By empowering cross-functional teams and fostering a culture of experimentation, the company was able to scale innovation and respond to market opportunities with unprecedented speed.

Creating Data-Driven Customer Experiences

Data is the lifeblood of modern consumer engagement. Yet, many CP companies struggle to make their data actionable. Publicis Sapient helps clients unlock value by connecting and refining data across the organization, making it accessible and useful for everyone—from marketing to product development. With the right technology and data strategy, CP firms can:

Personalize content, messaging, and offers at scale
Identify new revenue streams and transformation opportunities
Continuously improve products and services based on real-time insights

The Publicis Sapient Approach: SPEED

Our approach to digital business transformation is grounded in SPEED—Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering, and Data & AI. This holistic framework ensures that transformation is not siloed, but integrated across every aspect of the business. We help CP companies:

Set bold, achievable visions for digital transformation
Modernize platforms and workflows for agility
Build the capabilities to continuously adapt and create value

Lessons for the Industry

Transformation Must Be Continuous: The most successful CP companies adopt a “never not transforming” mindset, embedding agility and innovation into their DNA.
Data and Technology Are Enablers, Not Endpoints: True transformation comes from using data and technology to create better experiences and unlock new value—not just digitizing existing processes.
Culture Is Key: Building agile, empowered teams and fostering a culture of experimentation are essential to scaling innovation and staying ahead of digital-native competitors.

Ready to Transform?

For over 30 years, Publicis Sapient has helped established consumer products companies adapt, modernize, and thrive in a digital-first world. Whether you’re looking to overhaul your MarTech stack, build agile teams, or unlock the power of your data, we’re here to help you achieve what’s next.

What’s next for your business? Let’s start the conversation.