Why Your IT Teams Struggle With Your EAM Vendor & How To Win Them Over
Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) platforms are now standard in industrial organisations. The global EAM market is forecast to grow at around an 11.7% CAGR through to 2030, underlining how asset-intensive firms view these systems as foundational to their digital transformation.
Yet despite the rising adoption, IT teams frequently feel sidelined, frustrated or overburdened when it comes to their organisation’s relationship with the EAM vendor. We explore why this happens and how you can shift to a platform and vendor model that respects the IT function and delivers value.
Challenge #1: Cost Escalation, Forced Moves & IT Budget Pressure
Several factors are converging to strain IT budgets in the EAM/asset-software space:
- A recent survey of 759 technical professionals found that 84% said managing cloud spend is their biggest challenge, with budgets routinely exceeded by an average of 17%.
- From a support perspective, 72% of CIOs/CTOs say that their current vendor-based support model (with multiple vendors) is inadequate citing lack of accountability (62%) and limited vendor expertise (46%) as top issues.
So what does this mean for EAM projects and your IT team?
When a vendor mandates migration (e.g., to a cloud model) or increases licences steeply, the burden falls on IT to absorb the cost, manage change, and deal with fallout often without sufficient voice in the decision. The result: IT teams feel like service providers to the vendor rather than strategic partners.
How to win IT over
- Choose a platform/vendor model that gives licensing flexibility (e.g., on-premises vs cloud, hybrid, pay-as-you-go) and does not force migrations unnecessarily.
- Prioritise transparency in cost modelling. If cloud is chosen, ensure you have mechanisms to monitor/contain spend early (bearing in mind that one survey found budgets were regularly exceeded).
- Involve IT early. Get them to assess the vendor’s price roadmap, migration obligations, upgrade cadence and hidden services/support dependencies.
Challenge #2: Lengthy Configuration, Complex Integration & IT Resentment
One of the biggest frustrations for IT teams is being handed a “big-box” EAM platform that requires years of customisation and integration, particularly when the vendor’s approach appears to treat configuration as inevitable.
Recent industry commentary shows that:
In other words: when your EAM vendor demands heavy customisation, doesn’t come with industry-specific editions, or forces you to build large integrations, your IT team ends up in the slow lane, maintaining bridges rather than delivering business value.
How to win IT over
- Select an EAM solution with industry-specific editions or pre-configured modules (for example for manufacturing, utilities, transport) so the “build” burden is reduced.
- Look for vendors that support modern integration standards (APIs, data-exchange, pre-built connectors) so that IT is not starting from scratch.
- Define a pilot approach: scope down to a site or business unit, prove the solution in say 2-3 months, involve IT in the rollout planning, then scale once value is established this gives IT visibility and control.
Challenge #3: Vendor Lock-In, Rigid Systems & Inflated Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
From the IT team’s standpoint, one of the strongest demotivators is dealing with a system that is hard to modify, hard to extract data from, and tightly coupled to the vendor’s services/suite.
Survey data shows multi-vendor support models are already causing headaches in adjacent spaces (ERP, databases) the same patterns apply to EAM. For example:
When you combine forced vendor-services usage plus a lack of data portability and plus opaque ongoing costs you end up with a high TCO system – and IT teams bear the operational burden even while business users run the system.
How to win IT over
- Choose platforms whose architecture emphasises open data access, avoids proprietary lock-in and allows IT to control their own data flows (e.g., via standard data-bridge tools or open APIs).
- Insist on service modularity: you should not be forced to buy vendor-provided customisations when your internal IT team or trusted partner could handle them.
- Build a clear evaluation of TCO that goes beyond licence fees: include integration cost, migration cost, data export cost, vendor-dependency cost. Present it to IT and business leadership.
The Upside: Empowering IT While Boosting Functional Value
A strong EAM platform doesn’t just make IT feel less burdened it also accelerates business value. The market is clear: EAM is evolving into a strategic pillar of asset-intensive organisations, not just a maintenance tool.
Comprehensive research by independent research and advisory firm, Verdantix, based on a rigorous 151-point questionnaire, multi-hour live vendor demonstrations and interviews with over a dozen EAM software users, ranked HxGN EAM as a leader in the field. The platform earned best-in-market scores in several critical areas, including technical capabilities, integrations and data management.
Key capabilities to benchmark:
- Predictive/condition-based maintenance using IoT + AI. ~30% fewer critical asset failures reported for firms using AI-based EAM solutions.
- Ability to integrate with ERP and other enterprise systems (finance, procurement, IoT, field service).
- Data management and analytics: ability for IT to access data, build custom scripts or automate workflows, rather than rely solely on vendor services.
- Industry-specific editions: reducing configuration burden, shortening time-to-value.
- Flexibility in deployment and licensing: cloud, on-premise, hybrid and choice over migration timing.
In Summary
Your IT teams are signalling the same frustrations we hear time and again: rising costs, enforced migration paths, heavy customisation, rigid vendor dependency and ever-increasing operational burden. But the right vendor and platform pairing can flip things: you can give IT back their autonomy, reduce hidden TCO and deliver an EAM solution that truly supports business transformation.
If you’re reviewing your EAM vendor relationship or evaluating a change ask three big questions:
- How flexible is the licensing and deployment model?
- How much customisation and integration burden falls on your IT team?
- How open is the platform in terms of data access, IT control and long-term cost transparency?
- How well does your current EAM support mobility for your frontline teams?
- When it comes time to switch or upgrade, can your vendor guarantee a seamless, zero-downtime transition?
Get those right, and you turn your IT team from sceptical gatekeepers into enthusiastic advocates.
Discover how you can transition your EAM platform with confidence.
Take advantage of our complimentary EAM migration assessment, where we help you evaluate your current system’s readiness, uncover hidden risks and cost exposures, and map a clear path for migration or optimisation. Book your free assessment here
