Entries by John Caucis, Senior Analyst

The Federal IT Services Reset: Traditional Consulting Evolves to Embrace Mission Outcomes

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Federal IT demand will not return to a consulting-heavy transformation cycle. Agencies remain under cost pressure as AI adoption at scale crawls from pilots to production, while spending concentrates on mission-critical modernization, cybersecurity and defense. Amid the recent chaos, is an opportunity emerging for companies offering platforms, automation, managed services and technology programs with measurable operational outcomes?

Shutdown Ends, but Federal Contractors Face a Slow Return to Normal

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The 43-day U.S. federal government shutdown, the longest in history, came to a welcome end on Nov. 13, 2025, but for some federal systems integrators (FSIs), the shutdown’s impact could linger well into federal fiscal year 2026 (FFY26). According to the Professional Services Council, the national trade association for federal technology and professional services contractors, it will take three to five days for agency functions to return to normal for each day of the shutdown, implying that operations at some agencies may not return to normal until March 2026.

Agentic AI Becomes a Federal Priority, Reshaping the IT Services Value Chain for 2026

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TBR anticipates AI-led modernization will take center stage in the federal IT market in FFY26, after the disruption from DOGE and the 43-day federal shutdown that began the fiscal year subsides. Federal agencies are increasingly embracing AI technologies to automate IT management and ensure mission success. Health and human services agencies will leverage AI to enhance benefits processing, while agencies in the Department of Defense (DOD) will use AI to streamline and secure defense supply chains and enhance battlefield operations.

DOGE drives civil sector slowdown; defense contractors gear up as Trump’s budget shifts billions to military priorities

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The Trump administration’s recent “skinny” budget proposal for FFY26 suggests that nondefense spending will fall from around $720 billion in FFY25 to approximately $557 billion in FFY26, representing a 23% decline. Contractors with any level of exposure to the civilian sector can expect agency reorganizations, layoffs, budget reductions and in-depth contract reviews within civil agencies for the remainder of FFY25 and likely into at least the first half of FFY26. The pace of new awards has already slowed significantly at some civilian agencies, as has the rate of new bookings on existing civilian engagements.

Well-placed Investments in Emerging Tech Will Enable CGI to Accelerate Growth Long Term

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TBR believes CGI’s coinnovation with clients will create new opportunities tailored to industry needs; however, at the same time, other vendors in the past year have been leveraging partnerships to expand market share and provide industry-specific solutions. For example, Cognizant and ServiceNow expanded their partnership to reach midmarket banking clients, and Accenture is collaborating with S&P Global to jointly pursue financial services clients. Joint offerings may motivate clients to invest in these solutions rather than only implementing AI into existing solutions.

DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: Maximus

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Partnerships will be integral as vendors across the federal IT market look to quickly demonstrate their value to the new administration. While Maximus has historically been quiet regarding its alliance activity, this could change as the vendor aims to avoid falling behind. For example, Maximus recently announced a partnership with Salesforce to augment its CX as a Service efforts. The Maximus Total Experience Management solution is being augmented with the Agentforce platform to provide clients with AI agents tailored to their needs that use data to adapt to citizens’ needs and simplify interactions.

DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: ICF International

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TBR anticipates ICF will also explore ways to make its IT modernization and digital transformation work more agile while increasingly booking these types of engagements as fixed-price, outcome-based contracts, given the Trump administration’s preference for this contracting method. At least 50% of ICF’s IT modernization and digital transformation engagements are already fixed-price, outcome-based contracts.

DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: Booz Allen Hamilton

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The disruption that has very suddenly overtaken BAH’s civil business has prompted the firm to craft what Rozanski called a “one-time reset” of its civilian operations, including a 7% reduction in global headcount (about 2,500 employees) in 2Q25 that will disproportionately impact BAH’s civilian operations. The decline in civilian award activity has been so abrupt that BAH has not been able to sufficiently redeploy civilian project staff to DOD, IC or commercial sector programs, despite the firm’s expectations that growth will continue in its DOD and IC units in FY26.