The digital experience platform (DXP) landscape in 2025 costs organizations millions in wasted investments and delayed digital transformation. Analysts forecast bold visions for 2027, vendors race to outpace competitors with innovative features, and buyers struggle to implement practical solutions to immediate business problems. This three-way disconnect doesn't just create friction—it actively undermines business performance, customer experience, and competitive advantage.

Let's talk about the three players shaping the DXP market today. It depends on who you're talking to, because everyone's got an agenda, everyone's got a point of view.

Analysts live in the future. They're obsessed with "shaping market vision" and predicting how DXPs will evolve. They're the ones championing composability, talking about responsible AI strategies, and forecasting which vendors will lead by 2027. But there's a problem - they often underestimate the practical implementation challenges that buyers face daily.

Buyers? They're firmly planted in today's reality. They're just looking to solve practical problems and maximize their technology investments. They need platforms that integrate seamlessly with what they already have and don't require an army of technical experts to implement or operate. They prioritize solutions that solve immediate problems and empower their often non-technical teams to get things done.

And then there are vendors. They want to drive innovation. They want to stay at the top of their game and create tools that help these buyers do their jobs more effectively. But they also want to secure dominance in their space. They're all over AI feature proliferation because they need to stay competitive. They're moving away from generic platforms to more tailored solutions for specific industries. The problem is that this sometimes overlooks buyers' integration challenges. No matter where you go, there will be investments in legacy technology that need to work with the new stuff.

This misalignment slows everything down. Analysts strategize for tomorrow, buyers dig into today's problems, and vendors chase market share. The incentives don't match - analysts want vision, buyers want ROI, and vendors want competitive advantage. It's not chaos, but it's viewing the same landscape through very different lenses.

The practical impact of this three-way disconnect manifests in several ways that hamper the effectiveness of digital transformation initiatives:

Innovation-Implementation Gap: Cutting-edge capabilities championed by analysts and rushed to market by vendors often outpace organizational readiness. Many features sit unused because teams lack the skills, resources, or organizational processes needed to implement them effectively.

ROI Perception Challenges: Senior executives increasingly demand clear, measurable returns on technology investments. Yet the "future-first" messaging in vendor and analyst conversations often fails to address the concrete business outcomes that justify present-day spending.

Integration is also a huge challenge. No matter where you go or what you do, there will be investments in legacy technology. In many instances, in order to understand who the customer is and use that technology in a way that makes sense, we have to make sure that we consider these integration challenges. Buyers keep struggling with getting everything connected and making it work with their existing investments in ecosystem technologies.

Skills and Resources Disconnect: Advanced platforms frequently require specialized expertise to implement and operate effectively. As vendors race to differentiate with sophisticated features, they sometimes create solutions that demand technical resources beyond what typical organizations can realistically provide.

The path forward requires finding common ground through shared outcomes that unite analysts, vendors, and buyers. By focusing on results that benefit all three constituencies, organizations can transform the DXP ecosystem from a source of friction into a genuine powerhouse for business value.

The most fundamental shared outcome is measurable ROI. Financial metrics speak to everyone: analysts gain credibility by accurately forecasting business impact, vendors demonstrate the value of their solutions, and buyers justify their investments to the C-suite.

This means moving beyond vague promises of "improved experiences" to specific, measurable outcomes: Revenue growth. Cost savings. Customer retention improvements. Market share gains. Operational efficiencies.

For marketing and IT leaders, this requires insisting on clear value cases from vendors that connect to your organization's specific business metrics. Challenge your technology partners to quantify their impact in terms that resonate with your CFO and CEO.

Digital experience technologies must ultimately drive marketing effectiveness, enabling teams to launch, measure, and optimize campaigns at the speed customers expect. This requires solutions that empower marketing teams to operate with appropriate autonomy while maintaining necessary governance.

The key is balancing speed with quality. Can campaigns be deployed quickly without sacrificing brand consistency? Can personalization be implemented without creating overwhelming complexity? Can content be efficiently reused across channels while maintaining contextual relevance?

For technology and marketing leaders, this means prioritizing platforms that enable non-technical users through intuitive interfaces and low-code tools, while ensuring these capabilities operate within appropriate guardrails.

Ultimately, digital experience technologies exist to create meaningful connections with customers. Solutions must deliver experiences that customers genuinely value, not just experiences that impress industry analysts or showcase vendor capabilities.

This shared outcome focuses attention on actual customer behavior and feedback rather than theoretical possibilities. It measures success through customer satisfaction, engagement metrics, and loyalty indicators – not feature checklists or architectural elegance.

For enterprise leaders, this requires maintaining an obsessive focus on the customer throughout technology selection and implementation. Each capability should be evaluated based on its potential to enhance experiences that customers demonstrably value.

And then there's feasibility. This is about Innovation that fits today's reality, not the hype of tomorrow. We're not just talking about tech demos here. Companies need to be practical about what they can actually implement. The analysts are ready for tomorrow's trends - they've got all the data and knowledge. But buyers? They're locked into today's reality. Skills and budgets are lagging behind features and technology. That's just how it is. And the vendors are racing ahead with new tech, but not always stuff users can actually use.

For executives, this means honestly assessing your organization's readiness and resources. It requires pushing vendors for transparency about implementation requirements and challenging analysts on practical adoption timelines. Most importantly, it means building realistic roadmaps that balance innovation with execution capacity.

When these shared outcomes become the central focus, the DXP ecosystem transforms from a battleground of competing interests into a cooperative environment where all parties benefit. Analysts maintain credibility by connecting future trends to present realities. Buyers gain practical solutions that solve immediate problems while building toward strategic advantages. Vendors develop features that customers can implement and use.

For senior marketing and IT leaders navigating this landscape, success requires taking an active role in aligning these diverse perspectives. Demand practical roadmaps that connect emerging technologies to specific business outcomes. Prioritize integration capabilities that respect your existing technology investments. Balance innovation with implementation reality by honestly assessing organizational readiness. Build skills alongside technology to ensure your teams can effectively leverage new capabilities. Measure success through business impact rather than feature adoption.

The future of digital experience isn't about choosing between innovation and practicality. It's about thoughtfully connecting them to create solutions that deliver real value today while building toward tomorrow's possibilities. That's how you transform the DXP ecosystem from a triad of tension into a unified force for business transformation.

Watch this video and more from Digital Experience Assembly 2025 here.