The Fourth industrial revolution and its disruptive ICT technologies for production systems are of crucial importance for the growth of European companies and especially SMEs. Nevertheless, few of them have reached the digital transformation with its expected performance yet. This paper aims at identifying the critical success factors that support a successful implementation of Factory of the Future practices. It relies on a qualitative survey addressed to 96 industrial companies that have already implemented Industry 4.0 technology and carried on in five Alpine Space countries. Five critical success factors have been identified and ranked on a Likert scale. From these ones, 24 guidelines have been designed for supporting the digital transition of industry. The results of the industry survey contribute to improve diagnosis and monitoring tools. This empirical study allows for going beyond the current industry 4.0 approaches and brings new tools for Factory of the Future implementation.