The Industrial Intelligence Report shows that organizations are building digital ecosystems to address major business challenges such as faster innovation, supply chain volatility, and decarbonizing global operations.
AVEVA and IMD Business School launched the inaugural Industrial Intelligence Report on Digital Ecosystems and the Future of Connected Industries at AVEVA World 2026 in Milan. The report follows the Industrial Intelligence research collaboration announced earlier this year by AVEVA and IMD. The report discusses findings from over 275 interviews with leaders across 12 different sectors worldwide.
The report reveals that while 74% of leaders consider digital ecosystems a top strategic priority, only 27% report sharing data substantially or extensively with ecosystem partners. Several illustrative case studies also emphasize the gap between ambition and execution: integration complexity, legacy systems and weak governance.
What is industrial intelligence?
The report defines industrial intelligence as - organizational capability that integrates OT, IT, and AI to enable connected, data-driven decision-making across entire industrial ecosystems.
The power of industrial intelligence in action
Increasingly, organizations are seeking to construct digital ecosystems to confront business challenges like faster innovation, navigating supply volatility, or decarbonizing complex global operations. Yet, as the research makes clear, the gap between digital ecosystem ambition and execution remains wide.
Understanding why that gap persists, and how organizations are beginning to close it, has become a strategic imperative for success in today’s volatile operating environment. Where ecosystems are working, companies are realizing tangible value through harnessing their industrial intelligence. Yet the barriers to success remain challenging, spanning the areas of corporate strategy, governance, and technology.
Caspar Herzberg, CEO, AVEVA explained: “With this collaboration with IMD, our ambition is not merely to understand the motivations behind the move to digital ecosystems, but to define the frameworks, competencies and leadership practices that will concretely enable companies to transcend silos and build more adaptive, ecosystem‑driven operating models.”
“Governance, integration and learning matter more right now than algorithms. Ecosystems are already delivering operational value. The next phase is about converting that foundation into strategic advantage through better data sharing, coordination, clearer roles and more deliberate leadership. Industrial sectors have decades of experience collaborating out of operational necessity. What is changing is that data, AI and connected platforms are turning those collaborations into real‑time, intelligence‑driven systems.” said Michael Wade, Director of IMD Global Center for Digital and AI Transformation and Professor of Strategy and Digital, IMD.
