Entries by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Global Analyst Summit 2026: Value Creation Through Operating Model Transformation  

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As consulting continues to evolve due to AI’s influence on business models and day-to-day operations across enterprises, EY’s leaders discussed how the firm is adapting its approach to guide clients through uncertainty and increased speed of change, and introduced featured clients, giving them an opportunity to share their experiences. The client stories emphasized the speed at which they need to navigate market changes and their desire to work with a long-term partner such as EY to guide the transformation as well as to create an ecosystem of vendors that support their end goals. The notion of value was consistent throughout the event, as the firm seeks to reconfirm its positioning in the consulting space despite ongoing market uncertainty about consulting’s future relevance.

AI Disruption: New Data on Productivity, Profitability and Business Model Evolution

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Principal Analyst Patrick Heffernan and Principal Analyst Bozhidar Hristov discuss the questions large-scale IT services companies and global management consultancies have about reinventing their business models as they adopt AI-enabled solutions and how TBR can answer those questions with a mix of data and analysis to help clients understand what’s coming next

IT Services Market Outlook: Forecasting Growth, AI Impact and Competitive Shifts Through 2030

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TBR professional services experts share an exclusive look at TBR’s newest forecast research, the IT Services Market Forecast and the Consulting & Systems Integration Market Forecast, as well as insights into the factors that could accelerate IT services revenue growth and disruptions that could bend the growth curve into negative territory.

Salesforce Highlights Strengths in Innovation and Relationships at Agentforce World Tour

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With the recent hype around the “death of SaaS” and other pressures on the business models of technology companies, Salesforce’s growing presence, success, and apparent disruption of competitors and alliance partners alike underscore Salesforce’s strengths in creating stickier client relationships and continually innovating, two qualities essential in the agentic AI age.

KPMG Collaborates with Microsoft to Develop Governed Agent Operating Model at Scale

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KPMG appears to be attempting to move the competitive battleground from implementation speed to governed operations. If the market evolves in this direction, partners and competitors will need to clarify their roles and demonstrate credibility in an environment where agentic transformation is treated less as a discrete project and more as a continuously governed system.

New Growth in Consulting Is Emerging from an Unexpected Place: Managed Services

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A scaled managed services practice trained in spotting consulting opportunities and armed with AI-enabled solutions will unquestionably win some management consulting market share. More significantly, from TBR’s objective view, is whether the Big Four firms can manage their staffing, brand promise and technology alliances to take advantage of the managed services practices they’ve already built and use those opportunities to return to robust management consulting growth. Maybe, but probably not all four. The next two years will be telling, and TBR expects the existing differences between the Big Four will become even more pronounced.