Symphony Industrial AI’s Acquisition of Proceedix Will Fast Track Remote Operations Strategies For Industrial Firms

Symphony Industrial AI’s Acquisition of Proceedix Will Fast Track Remote Operations Strategies For Industrial Firms

The connected worker solutions market has been a hotbed of M&A activity as enterprise software and service providers look to ride the wave of remote working borne out of the COVID-19 pandemic. TeamViewer followed their acquisition of remote assistance solution provider Ubimax in 2020 with the purchase of Upskill, an augmented reality platform provider, in March 2021. Facebook acquired the patents for Daqri’s now defunct ‘smart helmet’ in July 2021; a move made more significant with the firm’s new label as ‘Meta’ and pivot towards extended reality (XR) technologies. Symphony Industrial AI’s acquisition of Belgium connected front line worker platform provider Proceedix at the end of 2021 is one in a sequence of transactions: since 2020, there have been eight M&A deals involving firms in the connected worker space.

What has driven this M&A activity within the connected worker solutions market? A key propellant has been the COVID-19 pandemic: in the 2020 edition of the Verdantix Operational Excellence global corporate survey, 85% of the 259 respondents noted that COVID-19 was driving new investment in connected worker solutions at their firm – the top option out of 10 technologies considered. However, Symphony’s acquisition of Proceedix is not only a response to the black swan event but a tactical move. 

Connected worker solutions provide a bridge between assets – such as heavy machinery and equipment - and the frontline workers who operate, maintain and repair these assets. Symphony’s suite of asset management solutions allows for asset condition monitoring and asset failure prediction, from which inspections and maintenance can now be complete through Proceedix’s robust functionality for digitized workflows, instructions and standard operating procedures, accessed on smartphones or tablets. The acquisition provides Symphony customers with a comprehensive set of solutions for asset operations and maintenance.  

Firms in heavy asset industries, especially those in manufacturing and utilities who are in the midst of a skilled workforce crisis predating the pandemic, are now looking to connected worker technology to assist with knowledge retention of specific assets and processes and modernize how workers interact with assets on a day-to-day basis. The steady M&A activity within the connected worker solution market throughout 2020 and 2021 is set to continue in 2022, bolstered through the evolution of connected worker strategies within asset management firms. 

For more information on connected worker solutions and industrial asset management technologies, visit the Verdantix Operational Excellence research website.