A new report from Transforma Insights compares the capabilities of 12 leading vendors of Industry 4.0 products, solutions and services across 11 technology areas, including AI, IoT, Product Lifecycle Management, and Human-Machine Interface, and dozens of functions, to determine which is best able to meet the needs of industrial enterprises.
Transforma Insights today unveiled the results of its latest benchmarking of vendors of Digital Transformation solutions. The ‘Industry 4.0 Digital Transformation Service Provider (DXSP) Peer Benchmarking 2021’ report analyses the relative strengths of twelve vendors of products and services in support of ‘Industry 4.0’ industrial digital transformation for manufacturing/production and related industries. It compares the capabilities of ABB, Ansys, Bosch, Dassault Systèmes, Emerson, GE Digital, Hitachi, Honeywell, PTC, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, and Siemens.
Siemens is the overall leading company in its ability to address industrial enterprise requirements for Digital Transformation. PTC is some way behind overall but has strengths in particular capability areas including software products and integrated solutions across technologies. Rockwell Automation offers a broad portfolio of capabilities across multiple technology domains. Bosch, GE Digital, Hitachi, and ABB complete the top seven overall.
Using its universal rating system for vendors in Digital Transformation, Transforma Insights has analysed these companies in their ability to address enterprise requirements for functional capabilities (e.g. hardware, software, systems integration) across eleven technology families (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things).
The chart below illustrates a summary of the findings. The ‘Maximum’ rating on the right-hand side is based on a theoretical organisation that is ‘Market Leading’ in every aspect of providing Digital Transformation across all technologies (with different weighting applied to each element of the value proposition and to each technology). In total, Siemens has secured a rating of 52% compared to that theoretical maximum, PTC 35%, Rockwell Automation 33%, Bosch 25%, GE Digital 25%, and most of the other players ranging between 10 and 25%. The gap between Siemens and PTC is mostly because PTC’s focus is skewed towards software products and software integrated solutions while Siemens has diversified offerings across hardware, software, and services.
Commenting on the overall ranking, author Suruchi Dhingra said: “The vendors we consider in the report are uniquely placed to support enterprises in the industrial sector to transform their operations through the application of new technology. We analyse dozens of combinations of different technologies and functions to identify who is best able to support that digital transformation journey. The answer to which vendor is best placed to help will vary massively depending on the technology or function, but overall Siemens is the leading player.”
The Transforma Insights analysis has two main dimensions: function and technology. The function split is illustrated in the chart above, which shows the combined weighted scores for the vendors for various aspects of hardware, software and services aggregated across all of the technology areas that Transforma Insights considers.
Siemens performs well in specialised hardware, software products and integrated solutions, while PTC performs well in software products and integrated solutions, reflecting its heavy software focus and ability to deliver the off-the-shelf products covered in the category.
Jim Morrish, Founding Partner at Transforma Insights notes: “From a software perspective, Siemens and PTC are out in front by a significant margin. PTC has market leading offerings in IoT, AI, HMI (Augmented Reality), and Edge Computing alongside strong capabilities in PLM, but marginally ranks lower than Siemens for software capabilities overall. Siemens’ placement reflects market leading capabilities in IoT, AI, PLM, RPA, Distributed Ledger, Autonomous Robotic Systems, and Data Sharing alongside strong capabilities in Edge."
Rockwell Automation and Bosch too have well diversified offerings across hardware, software, and services. GE Digital’s focus lies in software products and services, while Honeywell is inclined towards specialised hardware and integrated solutions. Ansys and Dassault Systèmes fall behind other vendors, their core capability is in PLM software products.
One interest dynamic is the extent to which traditional industrial hardware players are collaborating with leading industrial software players to advance their software business units and provide clients with end-to-end capabilities. For example: Schneider Electric’s industrial software business and AVEVA merged to trade as AVEVA Group plc, Rockwell Automation partnered with PTC to combine PTC’s ThingWorx IoT, Kepware industrial connectivity and the Vuforia AR platforms with Rockwell’s FactoryTalk MES, FactoryTalk Analytics and industrial automation platforms.
The second dimension of the Transforma Insights analysis is technology, specifically the eleven technology areas that constitute Digital Transformation as illustrated in the chart below. Overall, the stand-out technology areas across the vendors are Artificial Intelligence, Edge Computing, IoT and Product Lifecycle Management. AI and IoT are ever-present critical technologies across all Digital Transformation. Edge and PLM are particular to the industrial sector due to the greater focus on complex hardware.
Siemens is scored strongly in IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Edge Computing and Product Lifecycle Management. PTC scores strongly in IoT, Edge Computing, Product Lifecycle Management and Human Machine Interface (HMI). Bosch has significant capabilities in IoT and Edge Computing. ABB is market leading in Autonomous Robotic Systems. ABB and Hitachi have developing capabilities in IoT via ABB Ability and Hitachi Lumada, respectively. Ansys and Dassault Systèmes generally do not score well in the overall analysis but have strong capabilities in PLM owing to strong foothold in 3D design, engineering, and simulation market. Rockwell Automation’s strategic alliance with PTC has increased the former’s breadth of capabilities in IoT and HMI.
This report forms part of a wider set of research on vendors’ abilities to address enterprise Digital Transformation. The ‘Digital Transformation Service Provider (DXSP) Peer Benchmarking 2021’ (July 2021) analysed the relative strengths of 16 consulting, systems integration and software companies in delivering Digital Transformation capabilities for enterprises. It featured Accenture, Atos, CGI, Cognizant, Deloitte, EY, Fujitsu, HCL, IBM, Infosys, KPMG, Oracle, SAP, TCS, Tech Mahindra, and Wipro. In an earlier report, the ‘Hyperscaler Digital Transformation Peer Benchmarking 2021’ we examined the capabilities of the hyperscale cloud providers AWS, Google and Microsoft in the same way.
Matt Hatton, Founding Partner at Transforma Insights notes: “During 2021 Transforma Insights has been rigorously assessing the capabilities of dozens of major technology vendors in delivering hardware, software and services across a wide range of technologies. Siemens has demonstrated a very broad portfolio of offerings which sees it tie with Microsoft as the vendor best placed to be able to support overall enterprise digital transformation initiatives. IBM is just behind in third place.”
The 150-page report comprises a comprehensive review of the products, services and capabilities or our chosen 12 Industry 4.0 Digital Transformation Service Providers (ABB, Ansys, Bosch, Dassault Systèmes, Emerson, GE Digital, Hitachi, Honeywell, PTC, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, and Siemens) across each of the technology families and functional capabilities. It also includes comparison and rankings of the vendors as well as expert commentary.
The bulk of the report provides our assessment of the capabilities of each of the vendors for each of the eleven technology families and between 5 and 14 functions per technology family. This includes hardware, software, services, consulting, and various other elements. This section was compiled based on extensive desk research and written feedback from the vendors. The section includes an explanation of the rating system (based on ‘Emerging’, ‘Significant’ or ‘Market Leading’ capabilities) and recommendations to enterprises on which vendor would be best placed to support them for different functions within the particular technology family. It also includes tabulated notes on our views on each of the vendors for each of the technology families.
Based on the rating of each vendor for each function in each technology family we are then able to rank the vendors, by technology, by role and overall, for Digital Transformation. For the purposes of ranking the vendors, we apply a weighting for each function and for the eleven technology families relative to each other. The latter is based on the expected investment in that technology family over the next decade. These weightings allow us to score the overall capabilities of the vendors for Digital Transformation as a whole.
As well as the ratings, there are a number of broader intangible factors, such as how easy the company is to work with, the extent of its channels, scale of the company, geographical exposure. These are considered in a further section.
The report is available to ‘Corporate’ level subscribers to Transforma Insights' Advisory Service.
Transforma Insights is a leading research firm focused on the world of Digital Transformation (DX). Led by seasoned technology industry analysts we provide advice, recommendations and decision support tools for organisations seeking to understand how new technologies will change the markets in which they operate.
For more information about Transforma Insights, please see our website transformainsights.com or contact us at enquiries@transformainsights.com. Follow us on Twitter: @transformatweet.
