Industrial automation has been recently challenged by new initiatives such as Industry 4.0, which promises higher connectivity between the devices in an industrial plant. The goal of this work is to discuss how electric drives, widely employed in industry, could benefit from this increased connectivity. Specific applications, such as condition monitoring and multidrive systems, are considered to show the advantages of the industrial network presence, combined with the introduction of new data driven methods. Moreover, the status of industrial communication technologies is depicted, and their suitability for condition monitoring and multi-drive systems applications is described.