TBR Talks: Decoding Strategies and Ecosystems of the Globe’s Top Tech Firms
Join TBR Principal Analyst Patrick Heffernan each week as he chats with special guests on disruptions in the broader technology ecosystem and answers key intelligence questions TBR analysts hear from executive and business unit leaders in the globe’s top IT professional services firms, IT vendors, and telecom vendors and operators.
TBR Talks features current market, competitive and intelligence insights to help you make timely and actionable business and financial decisions. Past guests include PwC Managing Director and Global Lead of Analyst Relations Rob Donnelly, Principal and Head of Strategy and Investments for KPMG Advisory Kevin Bolen, Astadia CEO Scott Silk, and many of TBR’s top subject-matter experts.
Season 3 Featured Guests
Mainframe Migration and Modernization, Featuring Scott Silk, CEO of Astadia
Astadia CEO Scott Silk joins Patrick for a discussion on cloud migration and the mainframe modernization needs of enterprises globally. A recent Amdocs acquisition, Astadia focuses on the mainframe modernization opportunity within the broader digital transformation services space. Scott also shares insights into Astadia’s core partner strategy and how a smaller firm partners with larger hyperscalers, global systems integrators and legacy OEMs.
“Astadia was interesting me because a lot of the companies in the mainframe migration space, the companies that would move workloads from mainframes to distributor or mainframes to cloud, had been in the business for over 30 years, but the mainframe never died. And I was just kind of curious [about] that. I’m just wondering if the baby boomers retiring might have been the death of the mainframe. So, about 10 years ago, I joined Astadia with the mission to build the greatest mainframe migration company and making a bet that when these boomers retire, the market was going to cooperate, and we could become the market leader,” said Astadia CEO Scott Silk.
Disruption Writ Large with Darlene Wilson, Executive & Technology Thought Leader
Technology executive Darlene Wilson joins “TBR Talks” for a discussion on tech disruptions, business model evolutions and life as a technology expert. A technology leader and veteran of many disruptions, including “as a Service” to cloud and AI, Darlene talks Amazon Web Services’ entrepreneurial start, the evolution of multivendor alliances and the ever-present consistency of change.
“Technology exists to solve business problems. That’s really what it is. It’s there to solve business problems. I mean, it can solve personal, but in this case — certainly, it’s solving business challenges. But we often get so caught up in the technology for technology’s sake and the new, you know, okay, for a while it was Kubernetes. And now we’re talking about AI. And AI is a great example because there’s this boil the ocean approach that a lot of businesses are sort of seeing. They’re seeing so many possibilities. They don’t know where to start. And that’s where you get back into the Occam’s razor, which is sometimes the simplest answer is the best answer. And so how do you break it down to simplify that.,” said Darlene Wilson.
Listener Favorites
Building an Analyst Relations Team
SoftwareOne Global Head of Industry Analyst Relations Dr. Jochen Wolf joins TBR for a discussion on developing a successful career in analyst relations and building an effective analyst relations team. Jochen shares his perspective on how to support executives, sales, partners and the broader market for today’s AR professionals and provides realistic insights into an often overlooked, yet critical role within the technology ecosystem.
Listen Now
The Secret World of Analyst Relations
Rob Donnelly, Managing Director, Global Lead: Analyst Relations for PwC, shares his insights into the evolving role of analyst firms and analyst relations. Rob also gives his viewpoint on how both can help each other win in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Listen Now
The Coming Telco Reckoning: 5G ROI, AI/GenAI Telco Use Cases & Network APIs
Principal Analyst Chris Antlitz shares key takeaways from TBR’s Telecom team’s meetings with industry leaders at Mobile World Congress 2024. Key topics include AI/generative AI (GenAI) use cases and early wins, network APIs and hyperscalers, as well as noticeably subdued discussions of 5G and 6G and the obvious shortfalls of the type of return on the heavy investments made in that technology.
Listen Now
Client Retention of IT Services Firms
Principal Analyst Patrick Heffernan and Senior Analyst Boz Hristov discuss key intelligence questions centered on enterprises’ desire to optimize growing IT expenses. Boz dives into the role innovation, GenAI hype and quality control have been playing in contract renewals among the world’s leading consultancies and systems integrators.
Listen Now