Hexagon’s Digital Asset Rebrand Capitalizes On Digitization Of Plant Operations

Hexagon’s Digital Asset Rebrand Capitalizes On Digitization Of Plant Operations

Hexagon entered the enterprise asset management (EAM) software market in blockbuster fashion when it acquired Infor’s EAM division for $2.8 billion in mid-2021. The purchase kicked off a trend across the industrial asset management software market, with Siemens’s $1.6 billion purchase of Brightly Software and IFS’s purchase of Ultimo both following in mid-2022. PTC’s $1.5 billion acquisition of field service management (FSM) software provider ServiceMax, undertaken to extend PTC’s offerings beyond product lifecycle management (PLM), also speaks to the investment appetite in this space.

Of these, only the IFS and Ultimo transaction should be classified as a horizontal acquisition; that is, IFS was removing a competitor, albeit while bolstering its EAM capabilities. Hexagon’s, Siemens’s and PTC’s acquisitions effectively enter them into new software markets, with the same or similar clientele.

These transactions coincide with Verdantix assessments on how the asset management software market is shifting toward integrated solutions covering more of the asset life cycle. Concurrent with the market transactions detailed above, vendors are transforming their messaging to present offerings as broader platforms with increased use cases within the asset lifecycle. Hexagon’s alteration of its HxGN EAM LinkedIn product page to ‘Digital Assets’ typifies this marketing evolution.

Hexagon’s EAM solution does not fit the traditional definition of EAM software in any case. The incorporation of the Constraint Optimizer module in version 11.7 in early 2022 and Ecosys in the version 12.0 release in December 2022 effectively integrated asset investment planning capabilities within HxGN EAM. Hexagon also scored the joint highest (2.7/3.0) for maintenance analytics in our 2022 Green Quadrant on EAM. Maintenance analytics comprising of asset condition monitoring and failure prediction are traditionally capabilities of asset performance management (APM) software rather than EAM solutions.

As vendors continue to expand product capabilities beyond the traditional confines of their respective software markets, Hexagon will not be the only firm to pivot the branding of its asset management product suite. Siemens, which currently houses Brightly’s EAM solution and Senseye’s predictive maintenance software within two distinct business units, would benefit from both branding and product alignment.

If you want to find out more about industrial asset management, check out Verdantix Operational Excellence research.