In the age of the customer — and especially in the midst of a pandemic — channel-specific strategies, tactics, and organizational structures become irrelevant and (worse) potentially crippling. To operate as a single entity, today's digital business professionals are helping their organizations consolidate online and offline divisions. It's not easy to make this change, but operating holistically allows companies to shift their focus to create a universal customer experience and more adeptly adapt to fast-changing economic, social, and other factors. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and revises it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy.