Everest Group: 34% of Enterprises Investing in Industry 4.0

Interconnectivity, digitalisation and automation, as manufacturing enterprises leverage emerging technologies in these fields the demand for industry 4.0 services continues to grow. 

“Industry 4.0 is the latest phase in the industrial revolution, characterised by advanced themes of interconnectivity, digitalisation, and automation, and made possible through technological developments in multiple fields, including Internet of Things (IoT), additive manufacturing, cloud computing, edge computing, analytics, robotics, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML),” commented Everest Group.

In a recent report from the Everest Group titled ‘Industry 4.0 State of the Market Report: A Transformational Leap in Cyber-physical Convergence’ the group analysed the global industry 4.0 market. According to the report 34% of enterprises have already invested in pilot projects and are evaluating returns, while 24% have implemented use cases and are willing to scale up their adoption levels. The report also discovered that while 5% of enterprises are realising significant gains across their business as a result of their digital maturity, 14% are still in the strategy building phases, and 23% are in the early stages of adoption.

Industry Trends

• Developing capabilities in multiple technology domains to deliver successful end-to-end solutions has become an imperative
• Core technologies that are converging with industry 4.0 include: 5G, cloud, analytics, digital twins, robotics, additive manufacturing, AI and ML
• Dominating technology organisations in the industrial IoT market include: AWS, Microsoft and Google
• To boost competitive advantages in emerging technologies many governments have established initiatives to drive advancements
• Large organisations collaborating on partnership and rollouts are becoming increasingly common

Other Key Report Findings 

• Overall global spend for industry 4.0 over the past couple of years has been 15% (US$80 to 85bn) 
• Majority of growth in industry 4.0 was attributed to emerging technologies including: IoT, cloud, analytics and connected platforms
• Lack of visibility on returns and reduced cash flows as a result of COVID-19 has resulted in a dip in spend on industry 4.0, however changes in the workplace such as remote working has fueled the need for digitally enable factories and workplaces
• The top challenge when it comes to scaling the adoption of industry 4.0 included: lack of management buy-in and organisational complexity
• Global outsourcing spend in industry 4.0 over the last few years has total roughly US$7.5bn of overall spend, with aerospace, energy, automotive, and industrial firms being major contributors