How 1,252 industrial businesses make their digital decisions

Decisions around digital tools and digital strategy rarely begin with a clean roadmap in the industrial midmarket.

They begin with pressure. A supplier issue that exposes how fragile planning really is. A customer requirement that suddenly makes traceability non‑negotiable. A cyber incident close enough to home that “security” stops being an IT topic and becomes a board topic.

The perspective here is grounded in Forterro’s European research, based on responses from 1,252 senior ERP decision‑makers across the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden. We’ve paired that with what we see in practice supporting 25,000 industrial businesses across Europe. 

What follows isn’t theory. It’s a look at the forces that shape decisions in practice - what leaders prioritise, what slows progress down and what tends to separate momentum from stall.

Taken together, these figures show a market that knows where it needs to go, but doesn’t feel it is moving fast enough, and is weighing every decision against competitiveness and risk.

1) Decisions are being made to reduce risk before they chase opportunity

When leaders describe what they are trying to achieve through digital transformation, they don’t start with platforms. They start with business outcomes. The most common goals in the research were ESG reporting (33%), future‑proofing operations (30%), regulatory compliance (29%), and productivity improvements (29%). 

That matters because it explains how decisions get approved internally. Digital change is being funded when it can be linked to a recognised business requirement - not when it’s framed as an upgrade for its own sake. Investment gets approved when it clearly ties to:

• Staying compliant
• Protecting continuity
• Improving productivity
• and keeping the business resilient in a more demanding environment

This is why generic “digital transformation” language tends to fall flat in industrial businesses. The decision isn’t “do we modernise?” It’s “what outcome are we protecting or enabling and what’s the safest way to move?”

2) Cloud decisions are rarely “cloud decisions” - they’re operating-model decisions

Across Europe’s industrial midmarket, cloud adoption is already significant, and the future preference shift is clear. 39% currently use cloud ERP, and within a few years cloud preference rises to 45%, with on‑premise preference expected to drop to 20%. 

But the more interesting part is how leaders describe the reason for moving. The most frequently cited benefits of cloud ERP are not abstract. They are practical:

• Reduced IT environment (27%)
• Payment flexibility (26%)
• Greater performance (25%) 

And there’s a clear belief that delaying cloud adoption has consequences: 57% agree that businesses resisting cloud will struggle to retain market share. 

The simplest summary from the report is this:

“For the industrial midmarket, cloud is moving from nice‑to‑have to a business fundamental.” Thomas Knorr

That quote lands because the research shows cloud is increasingly seen as the delivery model that affects speed of improvement, resilience, and access to new capability - not just where software “runs”.

3) The biggest decision constraint is organisational confidence, not awareness

One of the clearest themes in the research is that many businesses believe they should move, but don’t feel fully equipped to do it safely.

The skills picture explains why:

• The top three gaps are cybersecurity (42%), ERP expertise (41%), and AI literacy (40%).
• 37% are not confident they can recruit people with the digital skills they need.
• 49% say skills shortages have already affected growth or project delivery, and 55% say digital tools have created a need for retraining. 

Those are not abstract challenges. They translate directly into decision behaviour: leaders tend to choose paths that feel controllable, incremental, and reversible - and they avoid change programmes that depend on capabilities they don’t yet have.

4) Compliance is no longer a side topic - it’s shaping purchases

If you want one statistic that genuinely captures “how decisions are made”, it’s this:

• 51% say compliance gives them competitive advantage rather than being an administrative burden - and the same 51% say compliance influences their operational and technology purchasing decisions.

That is decision-making, expressed plainly.

It also explains why topics like DPP, traceability and data structure show up in modernisation conversations even when a business isn’t “doing a compliance project”. Compliance has become part of how leaders justify investment and prioritise change.

5) Most decisions can be mapped to six goals (without forcing the framework)

If you step back from the detail, most digital decisions in the industrial midmarket can be traced back to a small set of outcomes - the same six areas used in Forterro’s digital maturity framework:

• Resilience - keeping operations steady through disruption.
• Security - protecting systems and data as operational risk increases.
• Intelligence - turning information into something teams can act on.
• Control - staying on top of cost, spend and compliance, not discovering issues afterwards.
• Growth - future-proofing operations so expansion doesn’t increase fragility.
• Experience - delivering consistency for customers and employees, not constant exceptions.

This is useful because it reframes digital decision-making away from “projects” and towards “what we’re trying to achieve”. And that’s where strategies stop being vague and start becoming usable. 

What this means in practice

Across the research, the pattern is clear: industrial businesses are not ignoring digital change — they are trying to navigate it responsibly. Many feel progress is slower than they want, many see cloud/hybrid as the direction of travel, and many are balancing ambition against skills, compliance and operational risk. 

So the real question isn’t “should we modernise?” It’s: how do we make decisions that reduce risk, build confidence, and create momentum without turning change into disruption?