From your perspective, what’s the current state of the EAM market in 2026, and what feels fundamentally different compared to even two years ago?
Historically, many organizations have viewed maintenance and asset management as a cost. However, there has been a definite shift in mindset over the past two years, with EAM evolving into a value creator. EAM is no longer simply a software platform; it has become central to operations and is now a board-level conversation.
This organic growth has been driven by a variety of factors, including workforce challenges. Labor shortages across industries and geographies are making skilled professionals harder to find, all while the median age of maintenance technicians continues to rise. This means critical knowledge about assets sits solely with these highly skilled individuals and is becoming increasingly difficult to capture and democratize. Many companies have realized that using EAM software provides a competitive advantage by making that information centrally accessible and providing an opportunity to capture knowledge before it is no longer internally available.
What’s driving that shift? Why are organizations starting to view asset management differently now?
Two or three years ago, most organizations were in the middle of digitizing their information. Most were not utilizing mobile devices fully, and some were still paper-based. However, artificial intelligence is revolutionizing every single industry, and maintenance and asset management is no exception.
Consequently, AI has moved from experimental to expected. Leadership now asks, “How can AI help us?” rather than “Should we digitize?” So, there has been a shift from digitization to optimization, and organizations are now looking for scalable, embedded intelligence within EAM software, not isolated AI use cases.
These changing expectations have been reflected in the development of EAM platforms. In many different ways, AI functionality within EAM is helping users to work faster, smarter, and more collaboratively. It is a significant enabler for solving problems better than traditional techniques, boosting employee productivity, and maximizing asset availability. As a result, organizations are re-evaluating asset management as AI transforms performance capabilities.
Beyond workforce challenges, what are the biggest pressures that asset-intensive organizations are facing right now?
High-level operational resilience is a particular challenge for companies of all types, especially given unpredictable geopolitical conditions that have led to a volatile global economy. Supply chains have also been under constant pressure, with many examples of bottlenecks in different industries, such as automotive. If a part required for a critical factory process cannot be obtained, operations may be forced to stop, resulting in downtime that is more costly than ever.
Sustainability and compliance are also important considerations. The transition to Net Zero means ESG reporting, energy efficiency, and asset lifecycle management have all become business imperatives, and efforts in these areas require constant management and operational attention.
At the same time, many leadership teams underestimate the fragmented and siloed nature of their current processes. They often assume a level of standardization exists within an organization until they try to scale or implement technologies such as AI or predictive maintenance.
All of these pressures directly impact asset reliability, making effective EAM more critical than ever.
Despite all these pressures and technological advances, many organizations still remain stuck in reactive or semi-controlled maintenance. Why is that?
Part of it comes down to the illusion of control. In reactive environments, there is often a highly visible and highly rewarding role for maintenance teams, fixing equipment and restoring operations. Reactive maintenance is often seen as the safe strategy because companies know what needs to happen as soon as a problem occurs. However, responsiveness is not the same as predictability, and it does not lead to long-term progress.
There are often structural reasons as well: A lack of clean, reliable data; a lack of governance around the maintenance process; and maybe even a lack of strategy or executive sponsorship. These factors can all result in companies getting stuck at a particular maintenance maturity.
What are the risks for organizations that remain stuck in reactive or semi-controlled maintenance?
Downtime is a major concern, as it leads to rising costs and can result in a significant competitive threat. Repeated failures also erode customer trust and can lead to reputational damage. Over time, it becomes really hard to get a clear sense of direction and establish where the organization needs to be.
This inertia means it becomes really difficult to start implementing technologies that could help an organization progress into the more mature stages of EAM implementation. Consequently, organizations remain locked in a cycle where they can’t modernize, compete, or reduce risk because the basic foundations for progress simply don’t exist.
Many companies invest in EAM software but don’t see a transformation. What’s the difference between buying software and improving maturity?
There is a temptation to think that investing in a software package solves all problems. However, buying software is just a transaction, while improving asset management maturity represents a genuine transformation. Technology provides insight and information, but there must also be processes in place to allow organizations to capitalize on those insights.
No EAM investment will ever be successful without a corresponding investment in people. This means upskilling employees, giving them a sense of ownership, and helping them to understand how the insights generated will be used. It is possible to buy the best platform in the world, but if maintenance teams either don’t want to work with it or don’t know how to use it efficiently, then the deployment will not be a success. It is vital that end users are as comfortable with their digital solutions as they are with their physical toolkit.
Ultimo outlines five maturity stages: Reactive, In Control, Proactive, Smart and Ultimate. Why did Ultimo structure the maturity model the way it did?
This reflects what a typical maturity journey looks like, and 'journey' is a deliberately chosen word because it’s not a binary process. Organizations don’t suddenly fit into stage two and the next day into stage three. Organizations evolve, and these stages showcase a fairly logical progression on the maturity curve.
Typically, a company might start with a reactive approach, waiting for things to break down. Then the organization might move to a more controlled approach, using a structured process and historical data to determine when maintenance should occur. Within the proactive stage, strategies are applied to minimize risk and optimize asset availability. The smart stage is about using all the information collected to make data-driven decisions. And the ultimate stage is where assets are looked at not just within the EAM system, but within the broader context of the organization.
How do organizations determine where they actually sit on the maturity scale?
The perception often differs from reality. If an organization comes and says, ‘we are in stage three’, more often than not, it won’t prove to be the case. They believe they are proactive because they do some form of preventive maintenance, but proactive maturity means optimization.
When Ultimo assesses customers, it considers many factors, including their install base, asset structure, and how that translates into what they have in the system. Assessment is made about whether the asset register is clean and well-structured, and whether the assets and their components are registered correctly.
Then there is the maintenance strategy. Do they even have a strategy? Is it defined at the organizational, asset type, or individual asset level? We also look at compliance. Are things auditable? Are they able to show that maintenance has been carried out? These activities help define a more accurate position on the maturity scale.
What do organizations that are operating at the highest maturity levels do differently?
Often, organizations at the smart or ultimate stages have shown real determination and patience. They haven’t gotten there overnight. In many cases, it’s ten, twenty, or even thirty years of experience building up to that stage.
The pitfall most organizations make is thinking the end goal is to jump straight to smart or ultimate. But that’s not happening. Organizations are not suddenly getting to those stages before mastering process discipline.
Those higher stages demand a foundational core. Without that, even the most ambitious company in the world will collapse under the operational reality.
Ultimo customers are being offered the chance to book a session with an Ultimo Solutions Engineer to identify the path to their next maturity stage. What’s the value of sitting down with the Solutions Engineer and working through such a process?
These solutions engineers are real experts in every facet of EAM. What they offer is clarity and pragmatism. They can help benchmark your organization against hundreds of previously carried out implementations and assessments.
They give a real and honest assessment of where an organization is and help translate strategic ambition into a concrete roadmap, identifying bottlenecks and prioritizing initiatives that deliver measurable progress.
Maturity is not achieved through aspiration. It is achieved through informed action, and these sessions help organizations understand exactly what actions to take next.
Want to accelerate your EAM maturity? Click here to carry out an instant self-assessment and book a session with an Ultimo expert to identify the quickest, most pragmatic path to your next maturity stage.
