Game over for industrial IoT platforms; generative AI and industrial metaverse on the rise – insights from Hannover Messe 2023

Hannover Messe 2023 marked the end of the IoT platform era. SAP, Google, and IBM announced the end of their IoT platform services in 2022. Microsoft has laid off a significant part of its Azure IoT team over the past few months, and Microsoft’s industry cloud for manufacturing was not even visible at the fair. We expect to hear more details from Microsoft about its future direction in this space in May. At Hannover Messe 2023, Siemens silently said goodbye to its MindSphere IIoT platform. It hasn’t officially been confirmed yet, but according to rumors in the market, the ADAMOS IIoT platform is also nearing the end of its life.

Does this mean that IoT/IIoT is dead? Certainly not, but it is transforming. Google and SAP are moving to a partnership model in this context. Google entered into a strategic partnership with Litmus Automation, and SAP is working more closely with partners like FORCAM. Siemens and IBM, on the other hand, have integrated their existing IoT capabilities into other offerings. IBM has integrated the IoT functionalities from the Watson IoT platform into the IBM Maximo Asset Application Suite. Similarly, the current Siemens MindSphere capabilities and solutions will move to the recently announced Siemens Industrial Operations X portfolio. Industrial Operations X is part of Siemens Xcelerator; it’s an open and interoperable application portfolio for automating and operating industrial production (MES, SCADA, and more). We can derive several insights from these trends. First, the value of IoT as a standalone capability is limited, which is why we see closer integration of IoT services with industrial and asset-related applications. Second, the hyperscalers have not been all too successful with their IoT services; otherwise, they would not have stopped their investments in this area. Third, the IoT market has been a battlefield between IT and OT giants for years, and the OT vendors have been able to defend this space against attacks by IT giants. Fourth, the new market environment will open the door for even more collaboration between IT and OT vendors.

We expect the intensifying collaboration between IT and OT vendors to move beyond cloud infrastructure towards AI/generative AI (ChatGPT) and the industrial metaverse. One good example of the new level of close collaboration we expect to see between IT and OT players came from Siemens and Microsoft at Hannover Messe. The companies presented a concept on how OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Siemens’ industrial automation engineering solutions can help software developers and automation engineers accelerate code generation for PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) by generating PLC code through natural language inputs. If we take this one step further and combine it with detailed, real-time visualization capabilities from the industrial metaverse, we will end up in a new era of digital factory automation. In this scenario, developers/engineers quickly generate code for industrial computers via voice commands and can instantly check the correctness of the code through a visual simulation model that proves how the machine acts with the generated code. This is not a reality as yet, but I believe it may be in the not-too-distant future. I’m looking forward to seeing what Hannover Messe 2024 will present in this area.

Game over for industrial IoT platforms; generative AI and industrial metaverse on the rise – insights from Hannover Messe 2023

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December 12, 2024

Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) announces the arrival of Vincent Rouaix as new major shareholder

Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), the leading independent European consulting and analyst firm in the area of digital transformation, software, and IT services, is delighted to announce an important change in its shareholder structure and its governance. Vincent Rouaix, along with the investment company CITA SAS and professional private investors from the sector, is becoming PAC’s new major shareholder, thus marking a new era for our company, which was founded in 1976.

A well-known figure within the consulting and technology sector, Vincent Rouaix brings with him vast experience and a strategic vision which will strengthen PAC’s position in the market. This change in shareholding, including its management, will enable PAC to continue growing, explore external growth operations and carry on providing high-quality services to its customers in Europe and beyond.

A new phase for PAC

Daniella Campbell, CEO Group, commented on this announcement: “The arrival of Vincent Rouaix as PAC’s new major shareholder is a truly exciting development. His extensive experience in the consulting and technology sector will undoubtedly drive PAC to even greater heights, both in terms of innovation and market influence. This strategic change reinforces PAC’s leading position as analysts for digital transformation and IT services, and I’m confident that under this new direction, the company will continue to provide exceptional value to its clients. It’s a significant step forward for everyone involved.”

Vincent Rouaix has revealed his vision for the future of PAC: “I am thrilled to be joining PAC at such a crucial moment in its development. I believe that we have the resources and talent necessary to continue innovating and offering solutions that meet the demanding requirements of our customers and the need to accelerate digital transformation.”

About Vincent Rouaix

Vincent Rouaix is a business leader well known in the consulting and technology sector. After graduating as an engineer, he starts his career in the 1980s, holding various management positions in the area of information technology and digital services.

A visionary who is passionate about innovation, he quickly takes on increasing responsibilities and stands out from the crowd through his ability to transform and develop companies in competitive environments. Vincent Rouaix becomes CEO of GFI Informatique (later renamed Inetum) in 2009, where he leads the transformation and expansion of the company, positioning it as a major player in digital services within Europe.

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September 26, 2024

PAC INNOVATION RADAR creates transparency in AI-related services in Europe

Munich/Paris, September 18, 2024 – Artificial intelligence and, more recently, generative AI are in high demand. Companies around the world use AI platforms and solutions to automate their business processes, enhance customer interaction, and transform their businesses. The market research and strategic consulting firm PAC has analyzed more than 25 providers in terms of their ability to support companies on their AI and GenAI journey. The results have been published in the PAC INNOVATION RADAR series on “AI-related Services in Europe, France, and Germany 2024”.

PAC has analyzed the portfolios and capabilities of service providers in eleven individual PAC RADARs. The service providers analyzed range from global consulting firms and system integrators to local consulting firms and AI specialists. The PAC RADARs assess their ability to support customers with consulting, system integration, and operation services, among other things. The relevant criteria in the PAC RADAR assessments also include the service providers’ ability to deploy customer projects locally and globally and add their own IP assets, methods, or vertical extensions to the service portfolio. According to PAC’s evaluations, companies such as Accenture, Adesso, Keyrus, Materna, Orange Business, Sopra Steria and T-Systems were rated Best in Class in various RADARs.

“The use of AI in the corporate context has left the experimental stage and is entering a stage in which AI must deliver added value for companies’ operational efficiency or business models. To achieve this, companies need service partners with in-depth AI knowledge and the necessary skills and experience to reliably implement mission-critical projects and take them to the operational stage” says Valérie Delage, Advisory Manager at PAC in Paris. “The PAC INNOVATION RADAR series on AI-related services in Europe, France, and Germany can support user companies in the selection of providers.” adds Joachim Hackmann, Principal Analyst at PAC in Munich.

GenAI resources are being built

ChatGPT is currently in great demand for service support. Nearly all companies are gaining their first experiences with the chatbot from OpenAI or with other generic AI models in areas such as automating customer service processes. In response, providers have significantly expanded their consulting capabilities in this field. They mainly resort to training their own consultants to implement GenAI projects.

“When analyzing the information provided by the vendors, we noted very few acquisitions that helped service providers expand their skills and resources in the GenAI environment. It is also striking that many of the participating providers aim to train almost the entire workforce to enable them to use GenAI and AI solutions in their daily tasks”, says Iulia Sandut, Analyst at PAC in Bucharest.

Local providers can make their mark

Another interesting finding is the relative strength of local providers. PAC took a closer look at the provider landscapes in France and Germany as part of the RADAR evaluation and gained some remarkable insights. In both countries, especially in France, local service providers can leverage their advantage in supporting user organizations and compete against global providers. AI and GenAI have not yet reached full maturity.

Also, many customer organizations lack experience in implementing and integrating them into their business models. Local providers benefit from inherent strengths such as customer proximity, an understanding of local and company-specific characteristics, and regulatory knowledge. Global providers, on the other hand, score particularly well when it comes to international projects and global delivery, as well as aspects like homogeneous coverage of technologies and solutions or investment in assets and IP.

The analysis of the lighthouse projects submitted by the participating service providers shows that the use of AI is especially pronounced in manufacturing, for example, in autonomous driving, analyzing IoT data to avoid supply bottlenecks, and quality control in production.

The providers also mentioned many lighthouse projects for verticals such as financial services, retail, and transportation. The projects are characterized by a broad scope and great diversity, with many of them addressing improvements in sales planning, warehousing, customer interfaces, and the automated evaluation of documents and data. In many cases, service providers can support the projects with their own IP assets, such as preconfigured use cases, dashboards, and integration frameworks.

The different PAC INNOVATION RADARs on AI-related services focus on a region, i.e., Europe, France, or Germany, on specific business processes, e.g., AI-related services for digital customer experience, or on specific topics, such as GenAI-related services in Europe or AI-related services for the German Mittelstand (medium-sized businesses).

PAC INNOVATION RADAR AI-related Services in Europe, France, and Germany 2024

About the PAC RADAR series

The PAC INNOVATION RADAR is an effective tool for the holistic evaluation and visual positioning of software vendors and IT service providers in local markets. Using predefined criteria, PAC evaluates and compares providers’ strategies, development, and market position, as well as their performance and competencies within specific market segments.

The PAC INNOVATION RADAR is supplemented by a dynamic tool for user organizations. Organizations that are looking for a suitable services partner for their AI journey can customize the evaluation results to their individual needs by weighting the considered criteria.

Find out more about our PAC INNOVATION RADAR series on “AI-related Services in Europe, France, and Germany 2024”: https://www.pac-radar.com/ai-related-services-europe

September 20, 2024

PAC launches annual INNOVATION RADAR: Open Digital Platforms for the Industrial World in Europe 2024

Munich, July 25, 2024 – Market research and strategic consulting firm PAC presents its six-part PAC INNOVATION RADAR “Open Digital Platforms for the Industrial World in Europe 2024.” It is the most comprehensive analysis of the vendor landscape for open digital platforms for use in industrial contexts. In six RADAR segments, PAC reviews around 120 platforms and evaluates 77 of them in the European market. Across all segments, only 12 players achieved a “Best in Class” rating – German Edge Cloud, Phoenix Contact, PTC, Siemens, and TeamViewer, to name but a few.

PAC annually evaluates the vendor landscape around open digital platforms for industrial purposes in the European market. The focus of the RADAR analyses lies on differentiating between different platform concepts and evaluating new emerging topics. The 2024 launch of the Open Digital Platform for the Industrial World in Europe Innovation RADAR adds two emerging topics to the evaluation – industrial copilots (GenAI) and industrial data fabrics.

Evaluation of innovative platform concepts – industrial edge management, connected worker, industrial metaverse, and smart logistics services

Industrial edge management – These platforms use new concepts from the IT world, such as container technology and app store models, to simplify application lifecycle management at the industrial edge (OT world). Machine builders use this concept to provide smart digital services around industrial machinery and equipment. A continuously growing vendor landscape underpins the relevance of these platforms.

“Platforms help to handle the increasing digital complexity and simplify IT management at scale in times of IT skills shortage. Consequently, edge management platforms are helpful tools for many manufacturing companies,” says Arnold Vogt, Head of Digital & IoT at PAC.

Connected worker – These platforms provide visual guidance and support to industrial workers. Relevant use cases include visual step-by-step instructions, visual remote expert support, visually-guided failure recognition, and quality checks. The topic is currently going through a consolidation and integration phase.

Industrial metaverse – The industrial metaverse has the ambition to bring visual process simulation of holistic industrial systems to the next level. The vision of the industrial metaverse is to combine visual process simulation of large and complex industrial systems with the user experience of computer games – with photo-realistic, collaborative, and intuitive interactions. This can be used to create a virtual reality and an immersive experience of complex industrial operations to better sell, plan, run, and learn. To have a solid starting point for this analysis, PAC started with a focus on existing plant simulation software vendors. Today, only limited progress can be seen in the realization of this vision.

Smart logistics services – These platforms contain a growing number of digital services to manage and optimize all aspects of logistics companies and freight forwarders. This especially includes sensor-based analytics services around vehicle fleets, trailers, drivers, warehouses, and logistics centers. In addition, these platforms act as an integration layer between different digital services and with existing transportation management systems.

“Platforms for smart logistics services have the ambition to push the digitization of many small logistics service providers, by radically simplifying the identification, buying, and integration process of new digital services,” says Arnold Vogt, Head of Digital & IoT at PAC.

Newly emerging topics – industrial copilots (GenAI) and industrial data fabrics

PAC is constantly analyzing new emerging topics, adding two more topics to its analysis in 2024:

Industrial copilots (GenAI) – These platforms give access to different generative AI-powered assistants (copilots) to enhance human-machine collaboration and to improve industrial productivity. Industrial copilots can, for example, help automation engineers to faster generate code for programmable logic controllers (PLC) via natural language inputs. Copilots can also explain code and create automated documentation. In addition, industrial copilots can have access to documentation, guidelines, and manuals to assist industrial workers in faster identifying relevant information. As the progress of GenAI-based industrial copilots is slower than initially expected, it was necessary to reduce the entry barriers to this early vendor evaluation.

Industrial data fabrics – Larger manufacturing companies are facing the challenge of collecting, integrating, and making effective use of large volumes of available data from different sources. Data fabrics are a promising concept to overcome data silos in IT and OT. The vision is to create a digitally integrated manufacturing company without data silos, with open data access, deep transparency across the company, user-specific and deep analytics capabilities, agile workflow development, and ever-increasing process automation. As we focus on multi-cloud data platform offerings for industrial use cases, we recognize that only a handful of vendors offer a manufacturing-related platform around the data fabrics concept today.“When data is the new oil, data fabrics are gas stations that democratize access to oil in a consumable way and prepare it for direct ingestion into data processing engines,” says Arnold Vogt, Head of Digital & IoT at PAC.

More information on the PAC INNOVATION RADAR “Open Digital Platforms for the Industrial World in Europe 2024”: www.pac-radar.com

July 25, 2024

Webinar – Decoding the IT Services Landscape

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In this session, Christophe Châlons, PAC’s Chief Analyst, will unveil the Top 5 IT Services rankings for major countries, highlighting standout local heroes and providing expert commentary and insights.

Stephan Kaiser, Head of Advisory, will demonstrate how to use PAC’s exceptional market data to optimize business planning. He will also present the “IT Services Rates Database 2024,” showcasing its effective use in price negotiations to enhance your business strategy.

Nick Mayes, Principal Analyst, will discuss the changing nature of software and IT services contracts, and how evolving political and economic environments impact buying behavior for end-user organizations.

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July 11, 2024

Cloud en France, un écosystème riche et diversifié où la différenciation est clé

Paris, lundi 9 juillet 2024 – En mai, PAC (Pierre Audoin Consultants) a publié son panorama 2024 des ESN intermédiaires de référence agissant sur le marché des services cloud et souligne la performance remarquable et très singulière de l’activité services numériques de Thales qui réalise une croissance organique exceptionnelle à deux chiffres en 2023 sur un marché des services qui a crû quant à lui de 4%.

Aujourd’hui, l’adoption du cloud est fondamentalement motivée par l’innovation, le développement d’applications numériques et l’accès aux dernières technologies les plus avancées telles que l’intelligence artificielle. L’approche multicloud hybride est devenue l’épine dorsale de la plupart des stratégies engagées par les entreprises pour accélérer leur transformation numérique.

A ce titre, PAC aime à évoquer les « 50 nuances de cloud » quand il s’agit d’illustrer ce qui se joue sur ce marché très dynamique et protéiforme.

PAC observe que l’écosystème de fournisseurs de services agissant sur ce marché présente une diversité et une richesse méconnues par les décideurs. PAC a souhaité cartographier cet écosystème composé de sociétés de tailles très variables et dotées de spécialisations très diverses, où chacun rivalise d’innovation et déploie des efforts conséquents pour prendre des parts de ce marché. Évidemment, la plupart opèrent sur plus d’un segment de marché et certaines proposent même des offres de bout-en-bout, du conseil stratégique aux services managés en passant par la transformation et la migration cloud.

L’avis de PAC concernant l’activité services numériques de Thales
« En sa qualité d’analyste indépendant du numérique, PAC suit la montée en puissance du marché cloud et la transformation de l’écosystème. Depuis plus de 10 ans, PAC a eu plusieurs occasions d’accompagner l’activité services numériques de Thales dans sa réflexion stratégique sur les marchés IT, et notamment l’évolution de ses activités vers le cloud. Les études menées ont démontré que les entreprises des secteurs privilégiés par Thales étaient majoritairement engagées dans leur transformation numérique mais, souvent, à des stades très hétérogènes ; la plupart d’entre elles privilégiaient des stratégies multiples pour satisfaire aux critères multifactoriels qui gouvernaient leurs SI existants et futurs : performance, sécurité, sensibilité des données, accessibilité, variabilité, coût, impact business, conformité réglementaire, impact écologique… Fort de ces observations, Thales a choisi de déployer une approche plus volontariste et a investi sur des compétences/moyens pour offrir à ses clients, un accompagnement de bout en bout et une liberté de choix adaptés à leurs attentes en termes d’innovation, de sécurité, de protection de données et d’industrialisation des services. En renforçant le consulting, en diffusant massivement le DevSecOps au sein de ses activités de développement logiciel, en capitalisant sur ses différenciateurs et en évoluant vers le management multicloud sécurisé (privé, public), l’activité de services numériques de Thales a clairement réussi à accélérer son développement, avec une croissance organique exceptionnelle à deux chiffres en 2023, une performance remarquable et très singulière sur un marché des services qui a cru à environ 4% en 2023. Avec cette nouvelle stratégie et tous ses actifs, PAC est confiant quant à la capacité de Thales d’intégrer prochainement le top10 des ESN en France pour son activité de services numériques et de pouvoir répondre aux enjeux majeurs des grandes-entreprises et des ETI françaises » commente Vincent Malka, Directeur Général de PAC France.

July 9, 2024

PAC Analysts – Media presence

Our Principal Analyst Karsten Leclerque was quoted in Wirtschaftswoche talking about the #sovereignty advantage of European providers.

“In recent years, many US providers such as Microsoft, AWS, Oracle and Google Cloud have expanded their offers in line with European demand and opened their own data centers in Germany. “However, the non-European company headquarters remains a limiting factor,” says Karsten Leclerque, expert for cloud computing at the analysis house PAC based in Munich.”

AI dominates SAP`s customer events Sapphire

Several thousand customers and partners accepted SAP’s invitation to attend Sapphire in Orlando and Barcelona to learn firsthand how the leading business application software provider envisions the future. It is more about solid work than inspiration, despite artificial intelligence and cloud transformation. The strong demand due to S/4HANA transformation projects still holds up, but it will not last forever.

SAP promises that 80% of the most used tasks will be infused with its Joule AI assistant. SAP says it currently has 50 use cases; this figure is expected to reach 100 by the end of the year. The use cases presented range from creating job advertisements to Joule for Consultants. The new consulting capability, leveraging the NVIDIA NeMo Retriever microservice, gains insight from SAP product documentation and the SAP community to provide consultants with vital information through natural language interactions. Plus, SAP embeds Joule in the ABAP Cloud model to generate ABAP code for SAP developers. This could be a game changer, threatening legions of programmers who hope to make a living from switching legacy installations to HANA.

Author:

Photo of Franck Naujoks, our Senior Analyst — Frank Naujoks

June 27, 2024

Microsoft did it again

Microsoft is increasing the prices for the most popular Dynamics offerings by a good 10% from October 2024. Like last year’s increase in Azure costs, what should please the stock market significantly increases the unease and fear of vendor lock-in on the customer side. Although Microsoft is in good company, SAP also announced “price adjustments” last year, customers are left with a bitter aftertaste regarding the calculability and predictability of IT costs – an argument that can often be heard in sales pitches as a plus for a SaaS solution.

Customers should consider whether an early contract extension for the maximum period, probably three years, would still offer them some price security. These negotiations should be concluded as soon as possible, as the pressure to achieve the figures at the beginning of the fiscal year that starts in July is likely to be high on the sales side, as is the willingness to make concessions. Beforehand, it is worth looking at the effective use of licenses; you can also save a little by discontinuing software that is not required.

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June 26, 2024

Baromètre de valorisation des opérations de M&A par les ESN françaises

Paris, 7 juin 2024 – Le leader européen des analyses de marché pour les acteurs du numérique PAC (Pierre Audoin Consultants) et la banque d’affaires Crescendo Finance s’associent pour produire le premier Baromètre des valorisations des ESN, sous un angle à la fois financier et stratégique.

L’étude porte sur un échantillon représentatif de plus de 380 opérations de rapprochement et de financement, réalisées par les ESN et les fonds d’investissement français ces 5 dernières années.

Le baromètre s’intéresse notamment à :

la taille des acteurs
la nature des acquéreurs (industriels, private equity, origine géographique)
les secteurs adressés par les cibles et les technologies les plus en vogue
les tendances stratégiques les plus porteuses
les dépenses IT, etc.

« En toile de fonds : une pénurie des talents, une multiplication des attaques cyber, l’essor de l’IA générative et du Move to multi cloud ainsi que l’accentuation des enjeux de durabilité, comme autant de facteurs favorables à un maintien des niveaux de valorisation. » commente Vincent Malka, Managing Director, PAC France

« Après une flambée des prix observée en 2021 et un pic en 2022, on a assisté fin 2022 à une normalisation des niveaux de valorisation au sein d’un marché du numérique qui a poursuivi sa consolidation en 2023. 75% des transactions ont concerné des rapprochements entre ESN, au capital desquelles un nombre croissant de fonds d’investissements sont rentrés précisément pour déployer un plan de buy-and-build » commente Alexandre Folman, Managing Partner de Crescendo Finance.

Pour télécharger immédiatement et gratuitement le baromètre de valorisation des ESN françaises, cliquez sur l’image

June 7, 2024

Webinar – Thriving in the AI Era: Embrace Disruptive Transformation

Join us for our upcoming webinar, where PAC Principal Analyst, Spencer Izard, will discuss the disruptive forces accelerating AI adoption across industries. Discover how organizations can embrace AI to reimagine their operations and business models, gaining a competitive edge in the AI era.

Learn how integrating AI into software and service offerings can help your organization rethink processes, unlock new capabilities, and future-proof itself against AI-driven market disruptions.

In addition, PAC Advisory Manager, Valérie Delage, will share insights into the AI-related service portfolio of European service providers. Her findings are based on our initial analysis of the provider data collected for the PAC INNOVATION RADAR AI-related services.

Gain valuable insights into AI-related investments, AI partner ecosystems, common use cases, and employee resources.

Don’t miss this opportunity to stay ahead in the AI revolution. Register now.

May 30, 2024

Webinar: Is Sustainability Being Side-lined?

2024 is expected to be a significant year for companies as they strive to meet their early sustainability goals. Despite mounting economic pressure, are they slowing down their sustainability efforts to concentrate on other priorities?

Watch our webinar to uncover the findings from our latest research on digital sustainability, presented by Nick Mayes, our Principal Analyst.

Webinar Highlights:

– Explore the key areas where European businesses are focusing to make short-term progress in their sustainability strategies.

– Gain insights into investment patterns in sustainability and the speed at which different industry sectors and regions are progressing.

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May 20, 2024