Munich, July 30th, 2025 – Market research and strategic consulting firm PAC presents its eighth-part PAC INNOVATION RADAR “Digital platforms & service providers for specific industrial use cases”. It is the most comprehensive analysis of the vendor landscape for digital platforms and services in the industrial context. In eight RADAR segments, PAC reviews around 130 providers and evaluates 94 offerings in the European market. Across all segments, only 13 players achieved a “Best in Class” rating – Accenture, Databricks, Microsoft, Phoenix Contact, Siemens and TeamViewer, to name but a few.
PAC annually evaluates the vendor landscape of digital platforms and, for the first time this year, also of digital service providers around the industrial world in the European market. The focus of the RADAR analyses lies on specific industrial use cases and emerging topics. The launch of the INNOVATION RADAR 2025 around digital platforms & services providers for specific industrial use cases in Europe adds five new topics to the evaluation – two new platform topics and three new topics in services.
Evaluation of digital platforms related to industrial edge management, connected workers, industrial data lakehouses, integrated digital threads and AI-advanced industrial robotics.
Industrial edge management – These platforms build an integration layer for IT and OT, and build a bridge for edge and cloud computing capabilities. These platforms use concepts from the IT world, such as container and virtualization technology, which helps to optimize infrastructure and application management at the industrial edge (OT world) and become ready for growing workloads around industrial AI, machine vision and virtual PLCs. Machine builders and factory managers use these platforms to manage and secure industrial controllers and IT equipment (PLCs, IPC, HMIs and servers) across their installed base of machines and factories.
“Edge management is key for secure, connected devices at the industrial edge. As compliance with the upcoming Cyber Resiliency Act is mandatory, now is the time to act,” says Arnold Vogt, Head of Digital & IoT, PAC.
Connected worker – These platforms support use cases around digital work instructions, visual guidance and verification, but also digital support content and remote expert services for mobile, industrial workers. As the platform market related to these use cases continues to evolve, we are continuously adapting our research scope. In 2025, we have evaluated vendors that provide a combined offering of visual (AR/AI-based) work instructions and remote expert support for mobile industrial workers.
AI-advanced industrial robotics (new topic) – These platforms combine hardware-independent AI and low-code/no-code capabilities around computer vision, synthetic image generation and machine learning. Use cases include pick and place, assembly, and material processing. The main reason why PAC is merging the market segments of robotics foundation models with computer vision and robot control systems is that we expect rapid overlap in the vendor landscape.
Integrated digital thread (new topic) – ensures the flow of product-related data throughout different business applications, from product design and development to manufacturing, maintenance, and service. It enables organizations to break down product-related data silos, streamline workflows, and achieve interoperability across departments, functions, and systems. While cloud-based PLM builds the centerpiece of an integrated digital thread, low-code application development and integration capabilities with business applications are relevant extensions.
Industrial data lakehouse – is an emerging concept which helps manufacturing companies to overcome their data silos in IT and OT and prepare for the age of AI. It creates an open, scalable, and flexible platform for data management and analytics, by separating compute (analytics engine) and data storage via standards (open table formats – OTF). This architecture enables companies to create a digitally integrated manufacturing company without data silos, with open data access, transparency across the company, flexible analytics capabilities, agile workflow development, and increasing automation.
Evaluation of digital service providers around the industrial data lakehouse concept, industrial metaverse and PLM
PAC analyzes the capabilities of digital service providers with respect to different platform-centric topics:
Industrial data lakehouse (new topic) – not a simple concept to implement (for details, see above). PAC recommends working with IT service providers who have proven expertise in the relevant platforms in this space. To create market transparency on this topic, PAC evaluates the technical expertise of IT service providers in relation to three relevant platforms Databricks, Snowflake, and Microsoft Fabric.
Industrial metaverse (new topic) – stands for the vision of realistic simulations of large and complex industrial systems, processes, and environments. Typically, use cases include virtual factory/warehouse planning and monitoring, realistic virtual worker training, impressive customer experiences for custom products, product design and engineering, development and testing of industrial vision systems, autonomous robots, and vehicles. Since PAC considers NVIDIA Omniverse to be the market-leading platform for implementing these use cases, PAC evaluates the expertise of digital service providers in relation to this development platform.
Multi-PLM platform expertise (new topic) – a critical capability for digital service providers to manufacturing companies with heterogeneous PLM implementations (typically based on M&A and/or diverse product portfolio). This ensures platform vendor-independent consulting, support, and consolidation roadmaps. PAC evaluates digital service providers and their capabilities in relation to the four leading PLM platforms from Siemens, Dassault Systèmes, PTC, and Aras.
PAC INNOVATION RADAR “Service Providers for Industrial Data Lakehouses” – one of eight RADAR segments
More information on the PAC INNOVATION RADAR “Digital Platforms & Service Providers for Specific Industrial Use Cases in Europe 2025”: www.pac-radar.com
About PAC
Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) is a content-based company with a consulting DNA. Since 1976, PAC has delivered focused and objective responses to the growth challenges of software & IT service vendors worldwide. We are the preferred partner for European software and IT service companies to define their strategy, strengthen market share, optimize GTM, and help position their thought leadership. PAC is proudly an analyst-lead consultancy spread over multiple locations across Europe. We cover market research for over 30 countries worldwide, delivered through our portfolio pillars Guidance, Insights and Visibility and our renowned research platform SITSI®. For more information, please visit www.sitsi.pacanalyst.com.