Accountability comes for decarbonization: KPMG’s Climate Accounting Infrastructure

Are you really cutting carbon emissions?

Not a day goes by without a new sustainability announcement, whether an offering or an acquisition or a commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 202X. Last month McKinsey & Co. announced a new sustainability practice built on an early 2021 acquisition (of U.K.-based Vivid Economics), and earlier this month PwC made a splashy $12 billion commitment to bolster its environmental, social, governance (ESG) practice. As TBR begins assessing IT services vendors and consultancies on both their internal decarbonization commitments and the success or failure of their efforts to draw revenue from clients seeking their advice and solutions implementations around the same, one key focus will be demonstrable, provable, reliably reported and transparent metrics. In short, can you prove you’re as green as you say?

To that end, we’ve been intrigued by KPMG’s Climate Accounting Infrastructure (CAI) offering (detailed in TBR special reports KPMG: Fundamentally what blockchain does is digitize trust and Innovation delivered at scale shapes the course of KPMG’s next chapter as well as our Digital Transformation Blockchain Market Landscape). During the most recent KPMG analyst event, the firm provided further details about CAI, raising new questions for TBR, specifically around CAI adoption and broader climate and sustainability issues. At its core, the blockchain-enabled CAI offering enables clients in the real estate sector and in oil and gas to accurately measure and report their greenhouse emissions. CAI addresses numerous high-priority issues for companies, their employees, regulators and investors, such as transparency, clear and trackable metrics, and has the brand-backing of a Big Four firm, KPMG. So, why haven’t clients jumped onboard quickly?

According to KPMG, most clients’ relative immaturity with respect to ESG generally, and accounting for ESG commitments more specifically, has hindered faster adoption. “Many clients are still in the nascent stages of either formulating or integrating their strategies across the various climate imperatives: decarbonization, energy transition, climate risk, reporting, accounting for Scope 3 (value chain) emissions, etc. Many of our largest, and generally most sophisticated clients, are still putting their ESG infrastructure and processes in place — installing Chief Sustainability officers and their teams, understanding how to operationalize enterprise commitments like net zero, and publishing their first ESG report.” As every aspect of ESG matures, KPMG believes its clients will “understand the value of putting those operational strategies in the context of demonstrating progress toward the enterprise goals with reliable reporting.” We believe this boils down to simply being able to prove you’re as green as you say you are.

Compounding client immaturity, according to KPMG, is regulatory immaturity, which may improve during 2021 if the SEC announces climate disclosure requirements. TBR notes that for the real estate sector in New York City, which is no small sector, regulatory certainty already exists, likely providing some of the early CAI wins for KPMG.

An ecosystem play, from blockchain to data to OT

On broader climate issues, TBR’s recent focus on industrial IoT raised the question for KPMG about its efforts to partner with OEM and OT vendors on filling out the ecosystem around climate accountability. As KPMG is collaborating with physical instrumentation providers, the firm recognizes that “there is a complex, bidirectional road map from policy to data collection and then back. Right now, we’re focusing our efforts within CAI on the ‘data engine’ — the ability to take the physical data, extend/supplement it with enterprise and 3rd party (paid or public) data, and feed that into a robust calculation engine that translates that data into the metrics required for voluntary or compliance disclosures.”

KPMG’s sentiments echo what we heard in the research for our recently published Digital Transformation: IIoT Market Landscape, including this quote from an industrial solutions provider executive: “The other big one, and I want you to put a big red circle on your radar for this, is compliance … there’s a lot of compliance-related activity happening in automotive. There’s a lot of compliance-related activity happening in even your typical industries, from your fresh produce to all the way to lumber.” And we all understand that compliance equals data (or, maybe more accurately, bad data equals bad compliance).

TBR has been seeing increased activity from technology providers, key partners to KPMG, and others in the IT services and consulting ecosystem. Earlier this year, Microsoft updated its January 2020 Moonshot decarbonization initiative with plans to use 100% renewable energy in all data centers by 2025. As TBR said in its 1Q21 Microsoft report, “As part of a 1Q20 update to Microsoft’s Supplier Code of Conduct, entities must disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, which Microsoft uses to assign a tiered carbon tax.”

Similarly, TBR noted in its 1Q21 Salesforce report, “Salesforce launched Sustainability Cloud Scope 3 Hub, a platform that enables businesses to input data on supply chain emissions to better understand how to decarbonize. The platform allows clients to track historical and real-time ESG data. The inclusion of data like ESG will be critical for businesses, especially if government mandates related to carbon emissions are enacted.” While the decarbonization opportunities remain nascent, in TBR’s view these kinds of initiatives benefit consultancies like KPMG, which have accounting expertise and insight on tax policy implications that should resonate with enterprises, particularly those supplying technology companies demanding carbon reporting.

In TBR’s view, KPMG’s CAI stands out as a concrete, easily understandable and likely readily applicable solution to an accelerating issue in ESG — transparently and repeatedly proving to clients, employees and investors that decarbonization promises are being met. As we continue researching vendors’ internal commitments and solutions for clients, we will track the success of KPMG’s CAI and similar offerings, separating the greenwashing from the real results.

Management consulting and innovation centers: 3Q21 insights from TBR’s IT Services team

With the gradual shift to in-person engagements, clients have been challenging management consultancies to deliver more value and deliver change more quickly. Join Patrick Heffernan, Kelly Lesiczka and John Croll for an in-depth and exclusive discussion on 2021 expectations for both the management consulting market and vendors’ innovation and transformation centers.

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, July 7, 2021, at 11 a.m. EDT/8 a.m. PDT, and
register today to reserve your space.

TBR webinars are held typically on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous webinars can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

For additional information or to arrange a briefing with our analysts, please contact TBR at [email protected].

WEBINAR FAQS

2021 PC market predictions

The pandemic has accelerated some trends and slowed others within the devices market. Specifically, the role of the PC has changed during the pandemic and will continue to evolve post-pandemic from working, learning and lifestyle perspectives. Join Principal Analyst Ezra Gottheil and Analyst Eric Costa for a discussion on the state of the PC market, including impacts expected on revenue growth, profitability and unit sales, and what lies ahead for the remainder of 2021 and 2022.


Don’t miss:

  • A review of the state of the PC market and the evolving role of the PC in people’s lives
  • An update on PC vendors’ profitability and margin sustainability
  • The extent to which the pandemic-driven surge in demand is slowing down
  • An update on the price competition and the state of PC average unit revenues
  • The current state of the supply chain in the devices ecosystem

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, June 23, at 1 p.m. EDT,
and REGISTER to reserve your space.

TBR webinars are held typically on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous webinars can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

For additional information or to arrange a briefing with our analysts, please contact TBR at [email protected].

Innovation delivered at scale shapes the course of KPMG’s next chapter

Relying on strong governance capabilities to bridge relationships between IT and business will enable KPMG to drive new opportunities in the ESG domain

With KPMG CEO Bill Thomas kicking off the two-day Global Analyst Day it was evident that KPMG’s approach to clients’ changing business models due to COVID-19 has compelled the firm to also transform its own operations to better protect and expand client mindshare. KPMG’s internal transformation began well before COVID-19 when in 2019 the firm announced a $5 billion investment in technology, people and innovation.

Two years and a pandemic later, KPMG is accelerating this transition with the latest examples focused on expanding cloud, environmental and social capabilities, bringing the latter two under one umbrella and committing to zero emissions by 2030. With KPMG working toward establishing a bridge between business and IT stakeholders, the firm also continues to invest in its global team of data and analytics professionals, many of whom focused on translating the business value of IT using low-code and no-code technologies. The strategy — folding analytics within its core offerings — reflects strategies of the Big Four and some of its multinational peers.

But KPMG has an opportunity — and a responsibility — to carve a niche in emerging areas developing frameworks for clients that do not report against financial metrics, particularly within the environmental, social and governance (ESG) domain. With KPMG relying on its robust governance, risk and compliance legacy capabilities, the firm is now focused on the “E” and “S” parts of the three-legged framework, and its clients’ stories provided strong examples of how well the firm handles the change and expectations, from finding the right partners to introducing the most suitable solutions, among others.

Clients are eager to innovate; KPMG knows this and executes against it

With innovation — amplified through KPMG’s global network of Ignition Centers — becoming the connective tissue between the firm’s legacy and new business model, KPMG now has the opportunity to drive change at scale. Peers have often pursued acquisitions that have served as the catalyst of change (think Accenture’s purchase of Fjord and PwC’s buy of BGT that later led to the launch if PwC’s BXT framework). KPMG, however, relies on its organic investments, suggesting the firm is taking a measured but strategic approach, trusting that its own capabilities and culture are strong enough to affect change. A successful execution of this strategy requires broader buy-in across all stakeholders, especially member firm partners who are closer to retirement age and might be more resistant to change.

One group of stakeholders that is open to change is KPMG clients, especially those that are also facing pressure from their end customers that have largely been impacted by the advent of digital. According to TBR’s May 2021 Digital Transformation: Voice of the Customer Research, COVID-19 accelerated demand for services supporting both ongoing and new programs. As cloud continues to be the main technology driving digital transformation investments, buyer-vendor relationships are entering the next phase, where parties must account for new ways of engaging and delivery and opportunities are pivoting from projects to products.

In a use case discussion centered on KPMG’s work at the Johan Cruijff Arena in Amsterdam, TBR heard echoes of similar digital transformation engagements, which encompass innovation, emerging technologies and ecosystem collaboration all within a constrained environment but with implications and lessons for smart city transformations. Arenas can provide a useful test bed for emerging technologies, new business models and digital transformations given the mix of activities that take place inside, the opportunities for customer engagement — from before people arrive through to when they leave — and, of course, the opportunity to gather massive amounts of data.

KPMG’s role, as explained by Sander van Stiphout, head of innovation for the Johan Cruijff Arena, included orchestrating the ecosystem by helping the arena find suitable technology partners; ensuring compliance, particularly around the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); and providing staff as the arena’s innovation team grew. Most notably for TBR, van Stiphout said KPMG also helped his team create a “new value model,” to include turning the stadium into “a platform for innovation.”

In TBR’s view, shepherding a client’s innovation and digital transformation so successfully that the client becomes an innovation hub for others sets this engagement apart. Van Stiphout added that the arena and KPMG’s partnerships with the city of Amsterdam had been critical to the transformation’s success, and his team and KPMG were now helping Amsterdam officials “get the learnings in place, pave the way for scaling in other cities.” With “lots of demand for an ecosystem approach,” van Stiphout said the arena could now offer consulting to other stadiums on how to run more efficiently, create an environment, and then take transformation to scale.

Turning back to his own staff and echoing a detail provided by Red Hat in TBR’s most recent Innovation and Transformation Centers Market Landscape, van Stiphout noted that his employees now constantly interact with new technologies on a daily basis, which changes their mindset. In TBR’s view, this kind of change, coupled with new and innovative business models, serves KPMG well in describing the impacts the firm can have on clients’ digital transformations.

KPMG 2021 Global Analyst Day: In early June KPMG hosted analysts, clients and executives for two 90-minute virtual sessions during which KPMG demonstrated its evolving value proposition toward becoming a technology-enabled consultancy backed by its ability to trade on trust. KPMG used the time allocated for the presentations wisely and amplified its messaging through four client use cases that not only told the “Why KPMG?” part of the story centered on innovation but also connected to broader societal implications including ever important topics around environmental

Will bitcoin become the next gold?

Cryptocurrency for trading: Speculation or disruption?

A recent article in the Economist has triggered a new round of questions about cryptocurrency in general and bitcoin very specifically. This comes on the heels of the EY Global Blockchain Summit where more detailed parsing out of the specifics around decentralized finance, or DeFi, brings greater clarity to the scope of the disruption bearing down on legacy capital markets and government policy objectives.

A prevailing view at TBR is that cryptocurrency trading values are simply too volatile at this time to compel large enterprises to agree to trade in those currencies. Quarterly discussions of the impact of foreign exchange rate fluctuations on the year-to-year results suggest a very limited appetite for conducting commerce in widely varying cryptocurrencies. As such, TBR believes that at least in the early developments fiat currencies will prevail.

Cryptocurrency for wealth stores: Speculation or disruption?

The Economist article posited another point of view worthy of consideration, and that is for cryptocurrency to be a wealth storage. Citing Nobel Prize-winning economist and game theorist Thomas Schelling, the article posits that the center of gravity forming around cryptocurrency means bitcoin could become a global wealth store against economic turbulence in much the same way the movement between stocks and precious metals have been used as a safe harbor hedge.

Gold, it is argued, has value because enough people tacitly agree that gold bars do, indeed, have value and therefore it is a wealth store as a hedge against inflation. This wealth store comes, essentially, from the group consensus that it is so.

Today bitcoin has natural value as a wealth store due to its scarcity and fame. In this way it is a natural hedge against inflation. The article further cites J.P. Morgan’s tracking of the uptick in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) investing in gold that took place as the recent bitcoin price roiling saw it drop from $58,000 a coin to $33,000 a coin in a matter of weeks.

Few people transact commerce by shipping and receiving gold bars, and few people transact business in bitcoin. Gold has maintained relevance as an investment vehicle due to the group consensus of its value as represented by gold bars. Oftentimes the gold bars are not even in the physical possession of their owners. There is something tangible there in the form of the bar itself. But that tangible, physical asset really feels like the only distinction in the analogy.

TBR can envision capital markets with various grade ratings for different cryptocurrencies. It is known that certain banks and major credit card brands ponder creating their own coins. We can envision buying networks growing that coalesce around specific social objectives likewise forming as the group consensus mechanism around enterprises working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to seek social justice spring up with the digitally born as they enter their earning years.

In this scenario the flow of wealth from bitcoin into gold or vice versa could be viewed as the overarching predictive indicator of the rate, pace and citizen comfort level with our pivot into a full- fledged digital economy. Ransomware attacks spike and money flows to gold, for example. New high-growth digital businesses proliferate with more crypto trading provisions and more money flocks back into bitcoin as a wealth store.

It’s definitely a concept for the outside edge of the Three Horizons model and likely on very few people’s radar, but the article posits a very compelling argument for bitcoin as a wealth store more so than as a trading currency about to revolutionize commercial payments as we know it.

So what do you think? Will bitcoin become the next gold?

EY maintains track record of accurately forecasting and then delivering on the future of blockchain

Paul Brody reiterates past predictions and paints the picture of what he sees on the horizon

It is difficult not to come away from a Paul Brody dissertation on blockchain more excited and optimistic about the transformative power of the technology than when you went in. Compounding the difficulty with taking a contrarian view of Brody’s assertions is the simple fact that he has been right in his predictions from prior years much more often than he has been wrong. The EY partnership seemingly shares this view based on Brody announcing the firm had committed to investing $100 million into his operation to facilitate making his vision a reality.

Highlights from his highly engaging 45-minute opening discussion at EY Global Blockchain Summit 2021:

  • EY made the right bet on public blockchains, which explains why those who embraced private chains earlier on had more highly publicized use cases and why those use cases have seemingly led to the trough of disillusionment.
  • Ecosystem business models are the future. Hub-and-spoke market actions to accelerate adoption do anything but that.
  • Disruption is coming to finance and regulation, and it is coming hard.
  • Programmable money, with Ethereum as the clearing mechanism, will enable the merging of supply chain blockchains with financial transaction chains.
  • Privacy remains a hot-button issue, particularly among the extreme advocates who are not necessarily considering the enterprise requirement for on-chain, permissioned information sharing.
  • Progress will be made; cost optimizing innovations simply cannot be thwarted; they have to be embraced, and blockchain strips cost out of numerous elements of legacy commercial activities across the three pillars of consumers, businesses and governments.

EY’s future-back approach to innovation aligns better to technology adoption than executing against the increasingly anachronistic enterprise-first mentality

“Underneath the business value of blockchain, however, is a rather significant bet to be placed on either deploying public (Ethereum) or private (Hyperledger) blockchains. At the core of this debate rests two issues: the speed of innovation, and the level of security and trust that can be ensured. Innovation, EY argues, happens faster on public networks even if that innovation ameliorates what bad actors inject into the network. In theory at least, even bad actors have a role to play in accelerating innovation by essentially forcing the issues and speeding the time to resolution.” EY blockchain strategy: Betting on public chains with EY advisory for risk mitigation, April 2018

Recent TBR research focusing on blockchain-based supply chain applications indicates blockchain in this context is in the middle of a trough of disillusionment. Brody outlined this idea by way of explaining what EY chose not to do in the past several years. The enterprise-first mentality was a legacy industry success factor when the cost of compute was the limiting factor on digitizing business activity. Continued commoditization and software abstraction increasingly tilts business purchase criteria from infrastructure to productivity gains that software adoption can bring.

Going for large enterprise operating cost improvements led early large-scale initiatives to bet on private chains such as Hyperledger. It followed, in many respects, the Electronic Document Interchange (EDI) playbook of the 1980s and 1990s, called hub-and-spoke, which netted out that the hub could set the standards and the spokes would have no recourse but to follow suit.

EY cited market survey data it believes indicates that private chain had 0.5 participants excluding the founding entity. Additional survey questions stated that 63% of respondents had concern about getting locked into private chains, while 54% believed their existing supplier and service networks were not sufficiently competitive.

Compare and contrast the rollout and now quiet periods for consortiums such as the IBM-Maersk joint venture called TradeLens that took on the monolithic set of interconnected processes that is global trade, and the EY and Microsoft Joint Venture around Royalty Payments that started small, hardened the technology layer, and now provides tangible reference points as they seek to apply this royalty payment shell to multiple use cases. EY states this tracking system for developer royalty payments for games sold through multiple channels has reduced administration costs by 40% and provided a 99% improvement in traceability, from 45 days to less than four minutes, which has enhanced overall community satisfaction.

EY Global Blockchain Summit 2021: TBR has watched the EY Blockchain events blossom in five years from a small coterie of the curious to an army of the passionate. This year’s event had the usual fascinating presentation by EY Blockchain Leader Paul Brody on the current and future state of blockchain’s market maturity that was then reinforced with detailed, technically nuanced breakout sessions that were repurposing of the internal EY Blockchain education modules.

Think Digital 2021: IBM brings AI to hybrid cloud

Integration of AI into open architecture positions IBM hybrid cloud as ideal platform for mission-critical workloads

Since acquiring Red Hat, IBM has undergone a major strategic shift to accommodate for hybrid cloud, abiding by the philosophy that the hybrid model — whether it consists of core or edge infrastructure and/or multiple public clouds — captures more value than a traditional cloud. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in traditional and cloud-ready infrastructure, IBM provides a foundation on which to run Red Hat OpenShift and deliver a common software layer designed to abstract the underlying complexities.

However, Red Hat’s prowess in containers and Linux only completed half the story as IBM built on top of the platform with a suite of software, including IBM Cloud Paks and partner SaaS, and services supported by the “advise, build, move, manage” methodology that trickles down the technology stack. Based on Red Hat OpenShift, which has grown to nearly 3,000 clients, this architecture gives credence to this statement from IBM Cloud & Data Platforms SVP Rob Thomas: “There is no AI without IA (information architecture).” A key theme at Think Digital 2021, AI is becoming more relevant in IBM’s overall strategy as CEO Arvind Krishna looks to define IBM as a “hybrid cloud and AI company.”

Unifying AI with hybrid cloud speaks to IBM’s attempts to gain share in “Chapter 2 of the Cloud,” or take large amounts of data, which can largely be accessed through AI, and extend it to the cloud. Given that operational AI is most successful running on containers and Kubernetes by allowing users to apply AI algorithms across architectures with consistency, IBM again benefits from Red Hat’s underlying platform and gains positioning to deliver AI to the enterprise with a degree of flexibility and vendor-agnosticism. For example, IBM Watson Studio is available as an add-on to the new Red Hat OpenShift Data Science service, to create and manage AI. With the support for Red Hat, applying AI to areas such as security and compliance, application modernization, IT support, and business process transformation could be the differentiating factor IBM needs to capture new cloud customers outside the IBM ecosystem.  

IBM tackles automation as it looks to democratize AI and bring all software back to the platform

IBM asserted itself in the AIOps market at Think Digital 2020 with the announcement of Watson AIOps, which is designed to automate how clients run their IT systems. However, in the last year, IBM has accelerated investments outside AIOps, making big bets on automation underscored by acquisitions in robotic process automation, process mining and business process automation. These investments were likely prompted by market changes stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, which Salesforce President Bret Taylor noted at the event brought a “decade’s worth of digital transformation into 13 months.”

Building on last year’s theme of solidifying a hybrid cloud architectural approach through Red Hat, at Think Digital 2021, IBM (Nasdaq: IBM) emphasized the importance of infusing AI into the platform to help enterprises make sense of data and achieve true insights in a digital economy. IBM again used the event to emphasize the power of adopting hybrid cloud architecture integrated with AI-driven cognitive services to help businesses adapt to change. Naturally, AI and automation were key themes of the one-day virtual event, and discussions with CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) and Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL), among other companies, highlighted how AI has supported IT and business transformation across industries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OEM earnings roundup: Unpacking a quarter of ‘record growth’

OEMs boasted revenue and profit gains in the first calendar quarter of 2021

“Record growth” was a frequently repeated phrase over the last week as Dell Technologies, Lenovo, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and HP Inc. reported their earnings for the first calendar quarter of 2021. For these major OEMs in the PC and data center hardware space, record gains in revenue and profitability have been hard to come by in recent years due to several factors including slowed PC refresh cycles, stiff competition from cloud offerings, component shortages, and uncertainty about the  pandemic’s impact on businesses and consumers.

For all these reasons, it was a pleasant surprise to witness a series of positive earnings announcements. But as one company after the next reported breaking multiple growth records in revenue and/or profit, it led me to wonder the degree to which business growth was based on increased economic stability rather than major changes in the OEM’s go-to-market approach.

Comparing first quarter revenue figures from the last two years provides a good snapshot of how the hardware market has changed since the world was immersed in the COVID-19 pandemic. For Dell Technologies, HP Inc. and HPE, the earnings reported in the first quarter represent revenue from February to April. Looking back to 2020, this represents the time frame when many countries imposed lockdowns. Lenovo’s earnings time frame is slightly different — reporting on revenue from January through March — but remains a good comparison, particularly as Lenovo may have felt the pandemic impacts earlier than peers as a China-based company, especially given that Lenovo has a manufacturing facility in Wuhan.

All vendors but Dell Technologies saw a first quarter corporate revenue decline of at least $1 billion in 1Q20 compared to 1Q19. In 1Q21 all vendors exceeded their revenue levels from the start of the pandemic, and three of the four grew revenue by $1.9 billion to $3.9 billion compared to 1Q19. This is impressive revenue growth for these vendors operating in mature and, in some cases, declining market segments. But are all business units growing equally? The fact that HPE was the only vendor of the four to not grow revenue in 1Q21 compared to 1Q19 and is also the only vendor in the compare lacking a PC business suggests growth is not consistent across hardware segments.

PCs are the driving force in the revenue rebound

Demand for both consumer and commercial PCs has been strong throughout the pandemic as many people spent an increasing amount of screen time at home for work, school and socialization. Dell Technologies, Lenovo and HP Inc. have not only reported 1Q21 revenue gains of billions of dollars compared to 1Q20, but the OEMs’ revenue is also up significantly compared to 1Q19. In addition to pandemic-related demand for PCs, silicon supply shortages have also helped to stem the race to the bottom for PC prices. With limited chip supply available, Intel and peers have focused on producing higher-end chips for premium devices. OEMs are also less competitive on pricing while demand outweighs supply. Improving selling prices and shifting toward premium PCs benefit not only revenue but also profitability.

Data center is still not immune to the impact of cloud migration

OEMs’ data center business units tell a different story. While the three vendors all reported increased year-to-year revenue in 1Q21, both Dell Technologies’ and HPE’s data center revenues are down compared to 1Q19. This suggests that year-to-year revenue gains represent customers showing less pandemic-related spending hesitancy and resuming delayed data center projects, while declines compared to 1Q19 align to the overall trend of enterprise data center consolidation in favor of public cloud. Although with the smallest data center revenue base, Lenovo was the only vendor in the comparison that increased revenue from 1Q19 to 1Q21, possibly buoyed by its Cloud Service Provider customer segment, which has higher demand for data center infrastructure compared to the enterprise segment. Overall, the revenue trends suggest that a favorable year-to-year compare may be masking impacts of public cloud adoption, which have accelerated through the pandemic.

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2021, TBR expects the trend of favorable year-to-year compares to continue for hardware vendors as businesses gain confidence in resuming IT spend. Profitability will likely also remain strong as supply constraints on chips will lead to price premiums and a focus on selling high-end devices. The data center space will likely continue to benefit from pent-up demand, but will be offset to some degree by the ongoing trend of public cloud and SaaS adoption, leaving PCs to drive the largest OEM revenue increases in 2021.

TBR releases exclusive webinar content from May 2021

HAMPTON, N.H. (June 3, 2021) — Technology Business Research, Inc. (TBR) announces on-demand availability of its May 2021 webinars, featuring discussions on private cellular networks leaders, laggards and investments; IT services market developments; edge computing; and blockchain.

How leading vendors performed in the private cellular networks market in 2020

Principal Analyst Chris Antlitz details exclusive content from our inaugural Private Cellular Networks Vendor Benchmark, including which vendors are growing the fastest and which regions and verticals drove the bulk of private cellular networks investment in 2020.

IT services market rebounding in 2021 after pandemic-caused trough

               Practice Manager Patrick Heffernan, Principal Analyst Boz Hristov, Senior Analyst Elitsa Bakalova and Analyst Kelly Lesiczka discuss IT services vendors’ roads to recovery post-pandemic, the impact of automation adoption in service delivery on vendors’ P&L, and what’s next for vendors’ headcount strategies.

Technology and complexity bring opportunities to services around edge

               Practice Manager Patrick Heffernan, Principal Analyst Boz Hristov and Senior Analyst Nicki Catchpole host a cross-practice discussion on how the complexity of edge computing is impacting digital transformation and creating opportunities for IT services vendors and consultancies.

Transforming the economic engine one block at a time

               Practice Manager Patrick Heffernan, Principal Analyst Boz Hristov, Senior Analyst Evan Woollacott and Senior Strategy Consultant Geoff Woollacott examine blockchain’s impact on buyers’ digital transformation initiatives and discuss blockchain-specific use cases through the lens of a multienterprise business network framework.

TBR webinars are typically held Wednesdays at 1 p.m. EST and include a 15-minute Q&A following the main presentation. To find out what we are discussing next month, check out the Webinars page of our website.

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