Setting the stage for an India-centric discussion, TBR met with PwC India leaders for a discussion about the post-pandemic shift in perspectives on opportunities within the India market, based on India’s economic growth and the growth of international companies’ global captive centers. Increasingly, according to Gayal and Gomes, decision makers for global companies reside in India, which is influencing talent management, supply operations and growth opportunities.

In 2025 IT services companies and consultancies will refine their alliances, winnowing lists of 100-plus technology partners to the handful that drive more than 90% of their business, articulate a clear joint value proposition, and align at both the leadership and sales force levels. A technology- and partner-agnostic approach was always a bit of a fiction and in the coming years will become a relic of the past. To make all that happen, IT services companies, cloud and on-premises infrastructure vendors, and consultancies will invest in ecosystem intelligence and elevate alliance management within their organizations.

Of the three major focus areas for TBR’s 2025 predictions — strategy consulting, generative AI (GenAI) and ecosystem intelligence — the first may seem a long shot, the second too obvious to be new, and the third too well established to be changing much. All three will upend expectations in 2025 with wildly varying results for the IT services companies and consultancies that TBR tracks and for their technology partners.

In TBR’s view, HCLT AI Force’s advantages play well for different buying and decision-making personas. Procurement, IT operations and even the CFO can appreciate a single solution with simplified management. Business unit leaders can find and deploy uses cases suitable to their specific needs. And the inherent stickiness of AI Force can appeal to executives looking to gain advantages from deploying AI-enhanced solutions and not simply paying for another round of new technologies.