The digital transformation landscape of Polish industry presents a picture full of contradictions. On the one hand, the percentage of manufacturing companies using artificial intelligence (AI) has increased by 36% over the past year – the fastest rate in the entire European Union. On the other hand, overall adoption of the Internet of Things(IoT) lags behind the EU average, with only 3% of companies in the key manufacturing sector using the technology. This paradox signals that the Polish Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market is entering a phase of maturity. The time of enthusiasm and pilot projects is coming to an end, and industrial customers now expect measurable business results: cost reductions, increased efficiency and minimised downtime. For IT suppliers, this represents a fundamental shift – the biggest profits no longer lie in selling hardware, but in taking on the role of ‘Transformation Architect’, who can guide the customer through the complex process of convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT).
Opportunities: Where the real gains lie
In the new pragmatic market reality, IT providers need to shift the focus of their offerings to comprehensive, high-value-added services. True margins and long-term customer relationships are built in three key areas.
1 The IT/OT integration imperative: Historically, the IT world (data, office systems) and the OT world (machines, manufacturing processes) have functioned as two isolated ecosystems.Industry 4.0 forces them to converge, which is a prerequisite for any advanced IIoT implementation. However, this convergence is extremely complex, as it requires the integration of modern platforms with older, closed industrial systems that often communicate via specific protocols such as Modbus. This complexity represents an opportunity for skilled systems integrators to generate high margins. Suppliers who can act as translators and architects of the bridge between these two worlds gain strategic partner status.
2 From data to decisions: As many as 75 per cent of companies in Poland use IoT for basic monitoring, while only 25 per cent reach for advanced analytics and AI tools. This disparity is actually the biggest opportunity for growth. The true value of IIoT lies not in the collection of data itself, but in its intelligent analysis, which leads to process optimisation. This opens the door to offering high-value services such as building data platforms in the cloud, integrating AI for predictive maintenance or creating dedicated apps and dashboards that transform raw data into actionable business insights.
3 Cyber security as a premium service: The combination of IT and OT dramatically increases the cyber attack surface. Industrial systems, often running on outdated operating systems, become easy targets. Security concerns are one of the main barriers holding back IIoT adoption. However, this fear can be turned into a value proposition. Vendors that offer specialised cyber security services for OT environments – such as network segmentation, monitoring tailored to industrial protocols or ISA/IEC 62443 compliance support – are selling not only technology, but more importantly business continuity and risk minimisation.
Threats: Invisible barriers inhibiting growth
Despite promising prospects, the road to success in the Polish IIoT market is fraught with significant challenges that require a strategic approach.
1 Structural skills gap: The biggest single constraint is the acute shortage of qualified IT professionals. It is estimated that there is a shortage of between 25,000 and up to 147,000 experts. This gap hits both suppliers, raising operating costs and limiting their ability to scale their business, and customers. Many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) do not even attempt to recruit IT specialists, leading to a reluctance to invest in complex technologies that they will not be able to maintain on their own.
2 Customer dilemmas: Cost and lack of strategy: The high initial cost of implementation is an insurmountable barrier for many companies, especially in the SME sector. An additional problem is the difficulty of accurately calculating return on investment (ROI), as the benefits of IoT are often diffuse and multi-faceted. Many Polish companies also suffer from the lack of a coherent, top-down digital transformation strategy, leading to the phenomenon of ‘pilot purgatory’, where promising test projects are never scaled to the entire organisation.
3 The changing competitive arena: The competitive landscape is also evolving. There is growing interest in the Polish market from suppliers from China and Taiwan, who offer hardware components at significantly lower prices, creating pressure on margins. At the same time, the rapid development of technologies, such as new communication standards or edge computing, requires suppliers to continually invest in knowledge and development to remain competitive.
The new role of the IT provider
The Polish IIoT market is at a key turning point. The era of easy growth is over, replaced by a more demanding environment where proven business value matters. To succeed, IT providers need to make a fundamental shift in their business model – from transactional technology sales to offering end-to-end transformational services. The key becomes specialising in a specific niche, mastering the ability to build a compelling business case for the customer and creating partner ecosystems. Above all, in the face of an acute skills gap, strategic investment in training and development of in-house staff is becoming a condition for survival. The future of the IT channel in Polish industry does not belong to the companies with the broadest product catalogue, but to those that are able to become indispensable architects of digital transformation for their customers.
