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ISG Research is happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Field Service Proactive Maintenance: ISG Research Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by ISG Research.
ISG Research defines field service proactive maintenance as strategies and technologies designed to anticipate and address equipment and service needs before they result in 
failures or emergencies. By leveraging advancements in Internet of Things (IoT) technology and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven predictive analytics, enterprises can monitor assets in real time and generate automated alerts based on specific conditions, thereby optimizing maintenance schedules and minimizing costly reactive repairs.
The development of sensors and data-collection mechanisms enabled enterprises to monitor equipment in real time, paving the way for more sophisticated predictive maintenance strategies. The IoT further revolutionized the field by enabling seamless data transmission from connected devices, allowing organizations to analyze vast amounts of operational data using AI and machine learning (ML) algorithms.
This has empowered businesses not only to predict and prevent equipment failures but also to implement proactive service measures, ensuring optimal performance of assets while enhancing overall operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Today, predictive maintenance is recognized as a crucial component of field service management, driving significant improvements in maintenance practices and reshaping how organizations engage with equipment and customers.
Traditional field service has two inherent downsides. First is the cost—rolling trucks to customers’ sites is much more expensive than phone or automated service. 
Second, it is primarily reactive: the enterprise must wait for customers to raise the alert, then troubleshoot and diagnose before taking action.
Fortunately, technological advances are making it possible for organizations to be proactive in predicting where and when service will be needed, sometimes before the customer is aware of any problem. FSM platforms are incorporating software that uses IoT-enabled asset monitoring and AI-driven predictive analytics to prevent equipment failures and optimize maintenance schedules. These applications monitor assets in real time, trigger automated alerts based on asset conditions and manage the entire workflow from scheduling to completion of service. By 2029, remote sensing and IoT tools will be part of standard field service management products to reduce the number of on-site visits and customer calls to service centers.
The biggest advances have come from AI technology. Today’s systems use predictive models to analyze data like historical service records, usage patterns and real-time sensor inputs to forecast potential equipment failures. Plus, AI models are customizable for different asset types, with explainable insights and continuous learning from new data to refine predictions over time. Once predictive triggers are met, systems can automatically generate and assign work orders, order parts and update asset records, ensuring that maintenance tasks are executed efficiently. Automation covers the entire workflow, from alert generation to job completion.
When selecting providers, enterprises should assess the provider's technology stack, ensuring it includes IoT capabilities and AI-driven analytics that facilitate real-time monitoring and data analysis for accurate predictions of maintenance needs. Enterprises should also consider the scalability and flexibility of the solutions offered, ensuring they can adapt to changing business requirements and asset types. Integration capabilities with existing systems— such as asset management, ERP and CRM platforms— are crucial for creating a seamless workflow and extracting maximum value from collected data.
These applications have the potential to help control costs by allowing a business to smooth out service volumes. They can more effectively allocate resources and avoid treating every incident as a time-sensitive emergency. There are also downstream effects on customer satisfaction when customers have more control over upcoming service events and greater awareness of the need for ongoing maintenance.
The ISG Buyers Guide™ for Field Service: Proactive Maintenance evaluates software providers and products in key areas, including scheduling and dispatch optimization, automation and AI integration, data and analytics, predictive maintenance, proactive service and investments.
This research evaluates the following software providers that offer products that address key elements of proactive maintenance field service as we define it: Comarch, CSG, Epicor, FSM Global, IBM, IFS, Infor, Kapture CX, Microsoft, Oracle, Oracle NetSuite, OverIT, Praxedo, PTC, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow and Syncron.
This research-based index evaluates the full business and information technology value of field service proactive maintenance software offerings. We encourage you to learn more about our Buyers Guide and its effectiveness as a provider selection and RFI/RFP tool.
We urge organizations to do a thorough job of evaluating field service proactive maintenance offerings in this Buyers Guide as both the results of our in-depth analysis of these software providers and as an evaluation methodology. The Buyers Guide can be used to evaluate existing suppliers, plus provides evaluation criteria for new projects. Using it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP and the definition of an RFI.
The Buyers Guide for Field Service Proactive Maintenance in 2025 finds ServiceNow first on the list, followed by Salesforce and Oracle.
Software providers that rated in the top three of any category ﹘ including the product and customer experience dimensions ﹘ earn the designation of Leader.
The Leaders in Product Experience are:
- ServiceNow.
- Oracle.
- Salesforce.
The Leaders in Customer Experience are:
- ServiceNow.
- Salesforce.
- Oracle.
The Leaders across any of the seven categories are:
- ServiceNow, Salesforce and Oracle have done so in seven categories.
The overall performance chart provides a visual representation of how providers rate across product and customer experience. Software providers with products scoring higher in a weighted rating of the five product experience categories place farther to the right. The combination of ratings for the two customer experience categories determines their placement on the vertical axis. As a result, providers that place closer to the upper-right are “exemplary” and rated higher than those closer to the lower-left and identified as providers of “merit.” Software providers that excelled at customer experience over product experience have an “assurance” rating, and those excelling instead in product experience have an “innovative” rating.
Note that close provider scores should not be taken to imply that the packages evaluated are functionally identical or equally well-suited for use by every enterprise or process. Although there is a high degree of commonality in how organizations handle field service proactive maintenance, there are many idiosyncrasies and differences that can make one provider’s offering a better fit than another.
ISG Research has made every effort to encompass in this Buyers Guide the overall product and customer experience from our field service proactive maintenance blueprint, which we believe reflects what a well-crafted RFP should contain. Even so, there may be additional areas that affect which software provider and products best fit an enterprise’s particular requirements. Therefore, while this research is complete as it stands, utilizing it in your own organizational context is critical to ensure that products deliver the highest level of support for your projects.
You can find more details on our community as well as on our expertise in the research for this Buyers Guide.
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