Entries by Alex Demeule, Senior Analyst

SAP Sapphire 2025: Legacy Application Leader Moving Confidently Into a Data and AI Future

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Sapphire 2025 marked a turning point, not because SAP introduced a radically new vision but because the company finally appears ready to execute on the one it has been quietly building for years. The narrative has matured, the tools are in place, and the platform is coherent. And the partners, customers and product ecosystem are starting to move together. Some heavy lifting remains, such as around migrations, data harmonization and partner fluency, but if SAP can stay focused on delivering scalable value through agentic AI, integrated data platforms and partner-enabled execution, the next chapter of the company’s growth story will look a lot less like catching up to the cloud and a lot more like leading in it.

Salesforce Fills Its Data Governance Gap, Assembling an End-to-end Platform to Power Agentic Workflows

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By bringing governance, metadata and ingestion capabilities in-house, Salesforce will fill critical platform gaps that limit the company’s ability to scale Agentforce and deliver on its broader AI vision. The pieces now fit: a unified stack spanning CRM, data and AI. Execution, of course, is the next hurdle. Agentforce is still in the early days of development, and the company’s ability to drive meaningful ARR from the platform will depend on sustained growth, smart ecosystem plays and clear ROI for customers. But once Informatica is in place, Salesforce will be better equipped to turn its AI ambitions into enterprise outcomes — and to do so in a unified way.

Here Comes KPMG: Client Trust, Alliance Focus and Tech-enabled Strategy Emphasized at 2025 Global Analyst Summit

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One could argue that many of KPMG’s steps, including launching partner-enabled industry IP, reinforcing trust, developing regionally organized operations, outlining a select few strategic partners, and investing in platform-enabled service delivery capabilities, resonate with the moves taken by many of its Big Four and large IT services peers. We see two differences: KPMG is laser-focused on exactly which of the strategies above to amplify, rather than taking a trial-and-error approach, and KPMG has an opportunity to ride the wave of a once-in-a-century professional services market transformation.

Cloud Opportunity Expected to Increase Once DOGE Disruption Subsides

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Rolling pockets of chaos and an overall cloud of uncertainty may be the best way to describe the first two months of the new Trump administration. One upside to federal contracts is that they tend to be long-term in nature, which provides some stability for all types of vendors with existing contracts. However, the current transition has been rocky, to say the least, as contracts are getting canceled, agency staffing is reduced, and the existence of entire agencies is called into question.

SaaS Vendors Bet on AI Agents to Unlock New Revenue Streams  

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For SaaS vendors, the long-term opportunity lies in the ability to upsell GenAI solutions integrated directly into their existing workflows. While all major SaaS providers have made such solutions generally available, revenue from GenAI tools has not been enough to offset the slowing top-line growth many vendors are experiencing. Issues like cost, reliability, data governance and use-case validation remain obstacles to broader adoption, preventing the technology from becoming the growth driver vendors had hoped. Nevertheless, enterprise SaaS vendors continue to hold an optimistic long-term outlook, with many believing the technology will become a strategic necessary.

The Stargate Project: A Manhattan Project for the AI era

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Being the largest single technology endeavor in recent history, the Stargate Project will have a notable influence on the budding AI market, and in TBR’s opinion, no company stands to benefit more than OpenAI. OpenAI’s ultimate goal is to reach AGI, which the company defines as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.” While estimates about when OpenAI will reach this goal vary widely, the Stargate Project fulfills a critical requirement in the pursuit of AGI, making OpenAI a top contender to reach AGI before other firms.

PwC Positions Trust and Cybersecurity as Pillars for Success in AI and Business Transformation

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PwC’s fundamental value proposition around trust and client intimacy reflects the firm’s strong governance, risk and compliance (GRC), cybersecurity and technology capabilities. TBR views risk and cybersecurity offerings as natural enablers for client discussions around business model reinvention and — when complemented by credible customer zero use cases across multiple domains, including AI — an extension of trust throughout a client’s ecosystem.