IFS is making a strong statement in the crowded field service management (FSM) software market. The industrial AI specialist has been named the only Customers’ Choice in the 2025 Gartner Peer Insights Voice of the Customer: Field Service Management report—a distinction that puts real user sentiment front and center, not analyst theory.

Unlike Magic Quadrant placements, which balance execution and vision, the Voice of the Customer report reflects verified feedback from end users who live with the software every day. In that context, being the sole Customers’ Choice is more than a marketing badge—it signals consistent satisfaction across product capabilities, support, and overall experience.

Why This Matters in a Competitive FSM Market

Field service management has quietly become one of the most strategic battlegrounds in enterprise software. As manufacturers, utilities, energy providers, and asset-heavy industries push toward servitization, FSM platforms are no longer just about scheduling technicians. They’re about uptime, predictive maintenance, workforce optimization, and recurring service revenue.

IFS has leaned heavily into this shift with what it calls Industrial AI—purpose-built AI designed for complex, asset-centric environments rather than generic enterprise workflows. Gartner peer reviewers appear to agree that this focus is paying off.

According to Gartner’s methodology, vendors placed in the upper-right “Customers’ Choice” quadrant score highly on both user interest and overall experience relative to the market. In 2025, IFS is the only FSM vendor to meet that bar.

Industrial AI Moves From Buzzword to Business Value

IFS has spent the past several years positioning AI as a practical tool for industrial operations, not an abstract innovation layer. In field service management, that means applying AI to real-world problems: predicting failures before they happen, optimizing technician utilization, and helping service organizations grow margins without sacrificing customer experience.

Cathie Hall, Chief Product and Customer Officer at IFS, framed the recognition as validation of that strategy.

“As IFS continues to drive forward the Industrial AI revolution, we feel this recognition represents an important independent validation of our leadership position in this market, and our focus on innovation.”

That focus aligns with a broader industry trend. Enterprises are increasingly skeptical of AI promises that don’t map cleanly to measurable outcomes. Vendors that can show tangible improvements in efficiency, service quality, and revenue growth are gaining an edge—and customer reviews suggest IFS is landing on the right side of that divide.

What Customers Are Actually Saying

The Gartner Peer Insights report includes direct feedback from practitioners across services, manufacturing, energy, utilities, and IT services—industries where field operations are mission-critical.

Several themes stand out in customer reviews:

• End-to-end functionality: Users highlight IFS’s ability to support the entire service lifecycle, from planning and scheduling to execution and analytics.

• Operational gains: Customers cite measurable improvements in utilization, efficiency, and user experience over multi-year deployments.

• Collaborative product development: Reviewers repeatedly mention IFS’s willingness to listen and reflect customer needs in its product roadmap.

• Strong support model: Fast response times and proactive engagement appear to be a differentiator compared to some larger, less agile competitors.

In a market where FSM tools often feel bolted onto broader ERP or asset management platforms, this feedback suggests IFS has managed to balance breadth with depth.

How IFS Compares to Rivals

The FSM market includes heavyweights such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle, SAP, and specialized players focused on scheduling or mobile workforce management. Many of these vendors offer strong point solutions or benefit from ecosystem scale.

IFS’s advantage appears to lie in its industry-first design philosophy. Rather than adapting generic CRM or IT service workflows for field use, IFS builds FSM capabilities specifically for asset-intensive environments. That approach resonates with manufacturers and utilities that need more than basic work order management.

The Customers’ Choice distinction also highlights a potential gap between vendor messaging and customer reality elsewhere in the market. Not all well-known brands translate market presence into high satisfaction—something buyers increasingly factor into procurement decisions.

A Pattern of Gartner Recognition

This isn’t an isolated win for IFS. The company was also named a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Cloud ERP for Product-Centric Enterprises and earned a Customers’ Choice for Cloud ERP in manufacturing in a previous Gartner Peer Insights report.

Taken together, these recognitions point to a consistent theme: IFS is gaining traction not just with analysts, but with the customers deploying its software at scale. For enterprises evaluating long-term digital transformation partners, that combination carries weight.

Implications for Service-Centric Enterprises

For organizations where service is a growth engine rather than a cost center, the message is clear. FSM platforms are evolving into strategic systems that sit at the intersection of AI, asset management, and customer experience.

IFS’s recognition suggests that buyers are rewarding vendors who:

• Deliver AI that works in industrial contexts

• Support complex, global service operations

• Actively incorporate customer feedback into product evolution

As economic pressure forces enterprises to do more with existing assets, demand for intelligent field service solutions is likely to accelerate. Vendors that can prove customer value—rather than just market vision—will be best positioned to win.

The Bottom Line

IFS’s position as the only Customers’ Choice in Gartner’s 2025 Voice of the Customer: Field Service Management report underscores a growing reality in enterprise tech: credibility increasingly comes from users, not slogans.

For industrial and service-centric organizations weighing FSM investments, this recognition signals that IFS isn’t just talking about Industrial AI—it’s delivering outcomes customers are willing to stand behind.

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