Konecta Analyst Day, Madrid, May 28, 2025 — Konecta invited industry analysts to the 20th annual ExpoContact, a company-organized event that welcomed more than 1,000 industry leaders, including clients, technology partners and organizations that are looking to improve competitiveness by modernizing customer management. In the morning, Konecta held a special in-person and virtual event for industry analysts in which Konecta executives, clients and technology partners discussed in detail the company’s vision, digital portfolio, and generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI approach. TBR attended Konecta’s first analyst day event and was impressed by not only the openness of the company and its willingness to communicate with the analyst community but also the closeness of its relationships with partners and clients.

Konecta’s vision and ambition are to become the trusted technology, data and operations partner for clients’ agentic AI transformations

During the event, Konecta CEO Nourdine Bihmane shared details about Katalyst 2028, the company’s three-year plan to become a technology, data and operations partner. Essentially, the company’s goal is to provide AI-driven hybrid customer experience solutions (CX) that combine human expertise with advanced AI and digital capabilities. The plan includes four steps: 1) accelerating the adoption of data, GenAI and agentic AI; 2) increasing digital growth; 3) strengthening the partnership ecosystem; and 4) expanding global reach. The company raised €150 million (or $176 million) to fund the transformation plan. Konecta’s goal is to increase revenue to €2.5 billion (or $2.9 billion) by 2028 and generate between 30% and 40% of total revenue from AI and digital services.

To achieve these targets, the company is training more than 7,100 people on role-specific GenAI technologies and offering proprietary GenAI solutions. Konecta is also launching a new global Digital Business unit with digital offerings and 2,500 employees, including more than 300 trained sales leads. Konecta’s digital services revenue was €150 million (or $176 million) in 2024, and the company plans to increase revenue in the segment to €250 million (or $293 million) in 2027, representing a CAGR of 20%.

Expanding its partnership ecosystem will serve as a lever for future growth, such as by establishing strategic partnerships around GenAI with Google Cloud and Uniphore, and with STC Group in the Gulf Region around GenAI-powered CX solutions. Konecta’s partner ecosystem combines technology leaders, such as hyperscalers, cybersecurity providers, GenAI and large language model (LLM) vendors, hyperautomation and service platform solutions providers, and consulting companies to enable coinnovation and codevelopment with clients.

Notably, Konecta’s open ecosystem has been designed on joint IP, shared outcomes and scalable transformation models. Partnerships among IT services providers and technology vendors are a leading lever for portfolio expansion, and Konecta is moving in a similar direction alongside multiple IT services providers. According to TBR’s 1Q25 IT Services Vendor Benchmark, “The roles of alliance partners are changing in the rapidly evolving professional services market. During the past several years, multiple professional services companies took a technology-agnostic approach to offer flexibility to buyers that were wary of vendor lock-in.

As macroeconomic pressures force buyers to examine their existing technology stacks to ensure they maximize ROI, these buyers are consolidating vendors, compelling professional services companies to develop a preferred, if not exclusive, list of alliance partners. … Vendors are leveraging partners to launch agentic AI offerings to automate tasks and drive operational efficiency, and GenAI offerings to boost productivity and create cost efficiency, encouraging adoption by solving clients’ particular business challenges. NVIDIA-enabled agentic AI solutions dominated alliance announcements during the quarter, including new joint offerings with Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, IBM and Wipro.”

Konecta plans to expand by establishing a sales organization that is structured for global reach and local engagement. Notably, the company is opening new delivery centers in Bengaluru, India, and Cairo and is establishing five new AI Global Competence Centers, located in India, Egypt, Spain, Colombia and the U.S., to diversify service delivery capabilities and expand client reach. Such activities will help Konecta improve its global revenue distribution, as presently the company’s revenue is generated mainly from Europe and Latin America, while English-speaking markets and the U.S. contribute approximately 4% of total annual revenue, though the company plans to increase this figure in the coming years. In January Konecta established Egypt as its regional headquarters to serve clients in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas and announced the opening of a global delivery center and global Center of Excellence (CoE) for GenAI in Cairo.

The company is investing $100 million over the next three years and is planning to hire approximately 3,000 people with digital and technical skills to provide AI solutions, digital transformation, cybersecurity, big data and analytics, IoT, technical support, and multilingual customer services in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Konecta is also partnering with the Information Technology Industry Development Agency in Egypt to provide training and upskilling programs for local people, creating future employment opportunities for skilled talent. Konecta’s partnership with Uniphore, announced in November 2024, to deliver industry-specialized AI solutions that enhance CX with hyperpersonalized interactions will augment Konecta’s client reach in the U.S. and U.K. and contribute to revenue expansion in English-speaking markets.

Konecta provides experience services and digital solutions around service design, technology implementation and process optimization

Headquartered in Madrid, Konecta is provider of transformative experiences and an expert in CX solutions enabled by AI. Konecta has approximately €2 billion (or $2.3 billion) in annual revenue, 120,000 employees across 26 countries and 5,000 digital experts, and supports more than 30 languages. The company offers customer and employee experience services, digital marketing offerings, and products and solutions, such as around CX automation and analytics, all underpinned by AI and GenAI services and advisory and consulting services. Konecta expanded in size and client reach during 2022 through the merger with Comdata, an Italy-based BPO services provider. Comdata had 50,000 employees and annual revenue of approximately €980 million (or $1.15 billion) generated from services such as customer care, back-office and credit management. Since mid-2023 the merged companies have operated under the Konecta brand and currently serv more than 500 blue chip clients. The clients are spread across Europe, Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia and have an average client tenure of more than 20 years, underscoring Konecta’s emphasis on long-term relationships.

Utilizing a renewed management team will be a critical lever for successful execution of the Katalyst 2028 plan. Notably, over the past several months, Konecta has attracted experienced executives with strong technology and industry expertise from its France-based peer Atos, which has been challenged by attrition due to a turbulent and prolonged transformation initiative. Bihmane, who took the position of Konecta’s CEO in April 2024, previously worked at Atos for more than 23 years, including as global CEO and head of Atos’ Tech Foundations business line. In March Adil Tahiri was appointed head of Advisory and Professional Services. Previously, Tahiri’s 21-year tenure at Atos included roles as advisor to Atos’ CEO and head of CTO. Oscar Verge, also a long-term Atos leader with 20 years of experience at the company, joined Konecta in October 2024 as chief Ai deployment officer.

Konecta is shifting from providing simple automation to orchestration, and AI is a core enabler

While according to Tahiri, “Agentic AI is in the nascent phase,” Konecta’s ambition is to actively transform the industry and create differentiation through digital services. Konecta attracts clients by offering intelligent business orchestration, applying new levels of creativity, such as through real-time and context-aware hyperpersonalized experiences across channels, and orchestrating human and specialized agent interactions. The company provides clients with robust execution through composable agentic platforms and strategic technology and business advisory capabilities to guide clients through their transformations and speed up time to value.

As clients typically have a multitude of business applications, and each has its own data repository, the proliferation of agents creates complexities. Konecta is moving from simple automation to orchestration, and agentic AI adapts to dynamic application landscapes and automatically understands, reasons and sets code to extract data and support decision making. Investing in orchestration capabilities, and development of IP, such as solution accelerators and methodologies and specialized talent enables Konecta to address clients’ needs around managing their agentic AI environments.

Shifting from utilizing industry LLMs to employing customer-specific LLMs enables Konecta to generate business value from customer-specific data. Delivering high-performing and personalized agentic AI based on real-time, proprietary customer data and workflows enables Konecta to benefit from contextual data intelligence and establish trust with clients. The complexity of digital transformation is pushing Konecta to establish a strategic partner ecosystem, including foundational AI providers and niche domain experts, that is complementary to the company’s expertise.

Egypt is an attractive location for IT services providers

Konecta’s expansion in Egypt is driven by the availability of talent with language skills and technical capabilities and will support the company’s global revenue diversification. However, IT services providers such as Accenture, Capgemini, Atos, IBM and Deloitte are utilizing Egypt for global service delivery, are planning to expand their resources in the country, and are actively working with government bodies and local educational organizations to develop in-demand skills to support future recruitment. Intensified recruitment interest from IT services  providers might challenge Konecta’s expansion activities in the country. For example, in April Capgemini announced it will open an AI CoE in Cairo to enable GenAI and agentic AI adoption for clients globally. The center will consist of data scientists, architects, product engineers and project managers. Capgemini plans to double its headcount in Egypt to approximately 1,200 professionals in digital transformation and innovation by the end of 2025 and to expand to 3,000 people through 2026.

Offering GenAI and agentic AI solutions in an open platform increases Konecta’s value proposition

Konecta provides clients with an industrialized, modular and complete GenAI stack that comprises three solutions — Insights for strategic CX intelligence; Co-pilot for real-time agent augmentation; and Auto-pilot for seamless, AI-driven engagement. The Insights solution converts customer interactions into actionable intelligence, automatically mines 100% of voice and chat logs, correlates to KPIs and identifies agent-level coaching insights to forecast outcomes. Co-pilot provides agents with contextual AI to uplift conversations; summarizes prior interaction and customer context; and provides intent recognition, nudges and compliance suggestions during calls. Auto-pilot enables conversational automation of activities and provides escalation to human agents for exceptions. Offering GenAI And agentic AI capabilities in the Konecta platform, which is based on open and modular technology stacks, and offering the solutions as an extension not a replacement of human-delivered services improves the company’s value proposition around deriving productivity gains and expands its client reach.

Investing in GenAI-enabled solutions creates growth opportunities for Konecta, given ongoing buyer interest in adopting GenAI solutions. According to TBR’s November 2024 Digital Transformation: Voice of the Customer Research, “GenAI continues to influence digital transformation (DT) budgets as buyers grapple with juggling hype, ROI and FOMO (fear of missing out). With over three-quarters of respondents combined allocating 26% or more of their DT budgets to GenAI two years after the technology came on the market, it is evident that buyers are eager to explore the possibilities the technology can bring. We do not expect this trend will slow down anytime soon given that the majority of respondents plan to increase their GenAI spend by 10% or more in the next year.”

As macroeconomic pressures force buyers to examine their existing technology stacks to ensure they get the most ROI, Konecta’s GenAI stack demonstrates material outcomes for clients. For example, the Insights solution increases revenue conversion by up to 20% and decreases the ramp-up time for new agents by 20%. The Co-pilot solution enables 98% accuracy in all European languages and a decrease of 30% to 50% in average handling time in managing email and written communication. The Auto-pilot solution automates around 50% of inbound contacts on voice and written channels and reduces cost of interaction by 30%. Demonstrating ROI is critical for solution adoption.

According to TBR’s 1Q25 Digital Transformation: Analytics Professional Services Benchmark, “Enterprises are juggling fear, hype and hope surrounding the potential impact of generative AI (GenAI) on their operating models. This has heightened their expectations for vendors to deliver timely ROI tied to ongoing business process and/or IT modernization transformation, as the implications of technology complexities extend beyond data science, thus creating opportunities for vendors that can manage broad organizational relationships.”

In conclusion

According to TBR’s 2Q25 Accenture Earnings Response, “Transforming the CX domain will remain low-hanging fruit for the next two to three years, offering companies a clear path to apply agentic AI systems for productivity gains. This presents Accenture with a blank canvas to showcase its capabilities at scale and strengthen its position among chief marketing officer buyers. As CX evolves into experience operating systems, powered by continuous feedback and contextual inference, Accenture will need to consider applying multidomain context integration in an era when hyperpersonalization has become table stakes, at least from a communications standpoint.”


Konecta is moving in the right direction, and strict execution of its strategic initiatives and investments in platform-based services will enable the company to reach its revenue growth target of €2.5 billion (or $2.9 billion) by 2028. While Konecta’s competitors are making similar investments, the company will succeed due to its emphasis on helping clients reimagine operations, experience and outcomes with AI, platforms and human creativity, and established local client reach and best-shored service delivery model.

U.S. wireless operators added more than 51 million new wireless phone connections from 2018 to 2024. Where did they come from?

According to company-reported data, industry data, U.S. government data and TBR estimates, U.S. wireless operators collectively added more than 51 million wireless phone connections (prepaid and postpaid) from the beginning of 2018 through the end of 2024, a relatively large number considering the organic population growth rate in the U.S. has slowed significantly over the past two decades as Americans have fewer children and since most people in the country already have at least one wireless phone.

A portion of this increase in phone connections can be explained by situations where one person has multiple lines, such as through work (e.g., business line or first responder line) or by long-tail situations, such as younger and older people subscribing to wireless phone plans for the first time, as well as the net change from births and deaths in the overall population.

However, based on TBR’s research, this only accounts for approximately 56% of total wireless phone net additions during this time frame. Where did the rest of these phone connections come from?

Approximately 44% of wireless phone connection net additions in the U.S. from 2018 to 2024 were from immigrants (legal and illegal)

According to TBR’s research, these 51 million new phone connections fall into four main categories, as outlined in Figure 1.

As shown in figures 1 and 2, immigration (both legal and illegal*) was the largest driver of wireless phone net additions for U.S. operators from 2018 to 2024, accounting for an estimated 22.3 million net additions, or nearly 44% of total wireless phone net additions during this seven-year time frame.

This number makes sense considering that, according to official government statistics such as from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), more than 30 million immigrants (legal and illegal) entered and stayed in the U.S. between 2018 and 2024. Of this number, it is reasonable to assume around three-quarters of these immigrants obtained cellphone service (prepaid or postpaid).

One of the first things immigrants do when they enter the country (legally or illegally) with the intention of staying is to purchase wireless phones and wireless phone service. Most people who enter the country are of an age that they would use phones.

This significant influx of new population into the U.S. drove a secular growth trend for wireless phone connection additions for the wireless industry from 2018 to 2024, and immigration represented the largest driver of wireless phone connection additions for U.S. wireless operators.

However, now that immigration policy is fundamentally changing under the Trump administration, this tailwind has become a headwind for operators and will require a structural reassessment of growth prospects for the industry.

TBR expects this growth shock will begin to present itself in operators’ 2Q25 results, with the effects more clearly seen in 2H25 results.

*Legal immigration primarily includes green card holders, visa holders (e.g., H-1B for temporary works; F1 and J1 for international students) and refugees/asylum seekers. Illegal immigration primarily reflects CBP encounters (all borders), “gotaways” and visa overstays.

 

Why will there be a growth shock for wireless phone net adds in the U.S. in 2025?

Given this growth slowdown, U.S. wireless operators face a conundrum. How will they continue showing robust net phone additions every quarter? There is no easy solution, but in the last section of this report TBR outlines some tactics operators are employing, or might employ in the future, to mitigate the negative immigration-related effects on their earnings results.

Since the start of President Trump’s second term, there has been a reduction of more than 80% in the flow of illegal immigrants into the country, and legal immigration into the U.S. has also declined significantly. Additionally, there are other population headwinds at play:

• Deportations of immigrants currently residing in the U.S. are ramping up (U.S. government agencies are on pace for over 500,000 deportations in calendar year 2025, up from over 271,000 in 2024)
• Emigration has increased as more people are choosing to leave the country voluntarily.
• Slowing birth rate
• Increase in death rate as the baby boomer generation ages

If we use a conservative estimate and assume a 50% reduction in the number of total new immigrants entering the U.S. from 2025 onward (and if other variables stay constant), this implies a reduction of more than 20% in the total level of new wireless phone connections, a significant challenge for wireless operators since phone connections are operators’ most lucrative offering. Even a 20% reduction in total wireless phone net additions would have a significant impact on operators’ revenue, margins and cash flow.

It is incorrect to assume immigrants only use prepaid plans

Despite claims by the U.S. wireless industry that immigrants predominately use prepaid phone service, the reality is that total prepaid phone connections declined by nearly 5 million in aggregate from 2018 to 2024 while postpaid phone net additions exceeded 56 million in the same period. Given that more than 30 million immigrants are estimated to have entered and stayed in the U.S. during that seven-year period (according to official U.S. government statistics from agencies such as CBP and DHS), it is unreasonable to assume that such a large influx of the population was absorbed by the prepaid market. Rather, it must have been mostly absorbed by the postpaid market.

What U.S. telcos are not saying but Canadian telcos are

U.S. wireless operators have been asked by Wall Street analysts on quarterly earnings calls and at investment conferences about the potential effects of immigration policy changes on their phone connection metrics. Thus far, operators have unanimously downplayed any impact. However, given immigration levels have plummeted since January 2025 (illegal border crossings are down 80% to 90% year-to-year) and voluntary and involuntary deportations are ramping up, there must be at least some impact.

Given immigration has represented approximately 44% of total phone net additions from 2018 to 2024, assuming legal and illegal immigration levels are down a conservative 50% compared to the past seven years, this would imply a reduction of more than 20% in the level of phone net additions moving forward, essentially taking the seven-year annual average of 7.3 million industrywide wireless phone net additions down to an annual average of 5.8 million moving forward. This reduction in new phone additions (which is operators’ most lucrative connection type from an average revenue per user [ARPU] and margin perspective) implies a growth shock, which would force operators to lower revenue and earnings projections. It is possible that operators expect most or all of any reduction in the immigration aspect of their phone connection dynamics could be mitigated by growth in other phone connection types, but history suggests that is unlikely.

The minimal wireless phone connection net addition impact observed in U.S. wireless operators’ financial results in 4Q24 and 1Q25 is likely due to the following reasons:

• Lag time between when someone enters the country and obtains a phone and phone plan and when that result is reflected in U.S. wireless operators’ earnings reports
• The timing of the new administration taking over and implementing and enforcing policy changes
• The delay between when someone is deported or emigrates and their phone line is shut off
• The lag in company reporting — earnings are publicly released one to two months after the quarter ends; there was a surge in immigrants entering the country leading up to the change in administrations and immigration reform began to be implemented and enforced in late January 2025

However, this will change, starting as soon as in 2Q25 and more so in 2H25 as the decline in net immigration begins to flow through U.S. wireless operators’ quarterly figures.

By contrast, the Big Three telcos in Canada have been very forthcoming in talking about and shaping expectations with stakeholders about the effects of immigration policy changes in the country. In 2024 the Canadian government reduced target levels for permanent residents by 20% from 2025 to 2026, set caps on international students, and tightened eligibility requirements for foreign workers. These policy changes are not at the same level as those in the U.S. Why are operators in Canada publicly stating that the country’s lower immigration targets are slowing their subscriber net additions, yet U.S. telcos claim there will be no meaningful impact? Something does not add up.

“We anticipate the environment for our businesses to remain competitive in the coming year with continued moderating wireless subscriber growth versus 2024 as Canada’s immigration and foreign student levels decline.” — Glenn Brandt, CFO, Rogers, 4Q24 earnings transcript

“The decrease in gross and net additions this quarter was a result of a less active market, slowing population growth as a result of changes to government immigration policies, and our focus on attracting subscribers to our premium 5G Rogers brand.” — Rogers 1Q25 earnings press release

“In the quarter, Rogers delivered a combined 34,000 net new wireless subscribers, down from 61,000 last year, reflecting the smaller market size due to reduced immigration.” — Glenn Brandt, CFO of Rogers, 1Q25 earnings transcript

Canadian telecom industry experiencing ‘strong subscriber growth’ thanks to immigration: report — Mobile Syrup, Feb. 22, 2024

Telcos blame Canada’s immigration policies for slower subscriber growth — Mobile Syrup, May 12, 2025

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon all gained the most subscribers from immigration and now have the most subscribers to lose

The largest U.S. telcos will be disproportionately affected by lower immigration levels. These operators have been the biggest beneficiaries of immigration flows, adding millions of net-new wireless phone subscribers to each of their businesses since 2018, but now this tailwind is turning into a headwind.



All of the major U.S. telcos have clusters of branded retail stores near major border-crossing areas with Mexico, such as in southern California and parts of Texas. Having store clusters near crossing hubs enables telcos to cater to the needs of migrants coming into the country (one of the first things immigrants do when they come into the country is buy wireless phones and phone plans) and jockey for new phone subscriber opportunities.

Tactics U.S. telcos can employ to mitigate the immigration impact

Though some telcos might start to publicly discuss the impact of immigration on their businesses, TBR expects most U.S. telcos to remain cagey about these changes and the effects of immigration on their businesses. TBR believes the telcos can leverage certain tactics to mask or mitigate the impact to their business results.

Indicators to watch

• Free line offers: Offering free lines enables telcos to show enhanced phone connection figures even though the revenue from the free line is not generating the revenue of an actual phone subscriber. Telcos will likely still receive activation fees and collect some other taxes and fees for allowing subscribers to carry the “free” line.
• Increase in competitive pricing offers and promotions: Special deals enable telcos to retain existing customers and take phone connection share from other operators. This could serve to offset some of the negative effects of immigration-related phone disconnections.
• Timing of line shutdowns: Another potential tactic telcos could employ is to delay the roll-off of line shutdowns. One situation where this can occur is when illegal immigrants are deported, leaving their phone service still in effect even though no one is using it and the bill is unlikely to be paid. There is also a trend of emigration, whereby immigrants (legal or illegal) leave the country voluntarily, canceling their phone service before they leave. This is another headwind to phone connection metrics for the telecom industry.
• Increase in allowance for doubtful accounts: This is also referred to as allowance for credit losses. The shutdowns described above typically lead to bad debt expense, which will likely rise with deportations on pace to exceed 500,000 in 2025.

Key takeaways

If you see minimal impact in operators’ headline wireless phone subscriber numbers from immigration, keep in mind that the aforementioned tactics are likely in play.

The negative effects might not show up in 2Q25 results and might not show up in a major way thereafter because wireless operators might be able to hide most of the impact via programs like offering a free phone line on multiline plans, such as what T-Mobile is doing.

Conclusion

Though the topic is rarely discussed, U.S. wireless operators have been relying on both legal and illegal immigrants to drive a significant portion of their underlying growth in phone connection net additions.

U.S. wireless operators face a major new headwind starting in 2H25 as traditionally important drivers of net wireless phone additions — operators’ most lucrative customers — slow meaningfully. With total immigration levels (legal and illegal) into the U.S. down by more than 50% so far this year compared to year-ago levels, coupled with an increase in deportations of existing residents as well as other population headwinds, telcos will struggle to demonstrate the same level of phone net addition numbers they have enjoyed for the past decade.

 

Acquisitions, being attentive to clients’ bottom-line demands, and implementing AI into IP are backbone of CGI’s “built to grow and last” strategy

On June 5, CGI hosted its Industry Analyst Summit. CEO Francois Boulanger and CGI Board of Directors Executive Chair Julie Godin commenced the meeting, detailing how CGI’s business culture, proximity model and decentralized approach, acquisitions and cocreation with clients are key to the company’s growth strategy. Throughout each session CGI leaders highlighted the company’s emphasis on meeting client objectives, providing flexibility and codeveloping solutions as necessary. Cocreating on projects not only delivers more relevant solutions to the client but also provides CGI with new intellectual property (IP) that it can bring to other clients.

 

Notably, CGI is leaning into its proximity model by acquiring more companies that build out the company’s footprint in metro markets. This is particularly evident with the purchases of U.S.-based Daugherty and Novatec. Other acquisitions such as Momentum Technologies and Apside expand the company’s local presence in Canada. Access to more markets across the U.S., Canada and Europe, alongside new client-led solutions, is broadening the company’s opportunities, particularly around AI-related projects. CGI has also enhanced its data and AI capabilities through the strategic acquisitions of Apside, Novatec and Aeyon.

 

CGI shared insights into its recent AI endeavors, including an example involving the deployment of an air gap solution for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). For this project, CGI collaborated with NATO’s Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, Va., to construct and tune models that accelerate the classification, editing and analysis of documents using the knowledge agent AI Felix. Outside client-led solutions, CGI is embedding AI across its existing portfolio to enhance delivery to clients across industries.

As CGI remains largely unaffected by DOGE, enhancements across the company’s public sector portfolio allow it to dig deep on federal deals

Stephanie Mango, president of CGI Federal, led an hourlong panel discussion with executives representing CGI’s U.S. Federal, Canadian and European public sector operations. Globally, CGI’s various government clients are encountering similar challenges associated with rising levels of economic and geopolitical uncertainties and governmentwide changes. Common across the company’s roster of government customers is the enduring demand for IT modernization. CGI is currently helping governments transform outdated legacy IT infrastructures, prioritize digital transformation initiatives, address talent shortages in cybersecurity and AI, adopt zero-trust security architectures, implement sovereign AI and cloud solutions, enhance the security and resilience of government supply chains, and protect critical public sector infrastructure.

 

TBR believes having such a broad swath of activities provides CGI’s public sector practices globally with case studies and success stories to showcase when pursuing new opportunities, talent with relevant experience that can be redeployed to new government markets, and solutions codeveloped with government clients highly relevant to public sector agencies elsewhere. A common go-to-market approach CGI employs across all public sector markets is to help government IT departments and IT decision makers retain a modernization mindset as the company firmly believes governments must view digital transformation as a long-term, multiyear strategy. TBR believes CGI also effectively leverages its client proximity approach to codevelop solutions with government clients and to optimize its agility in responding to fast-changing market dynamics.

 

In the U.S. federal market, where the arrival of the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has caused sectorwide upheaval, TBR believes CGI Federal is well positioned to capture a growing share of digital modernization work that we expect to accelerate, after the initial shock of billions of dollars in budget cuts and reallocations. Although CGI was included on DOGE’s initial hit list of consultancies under scrutiny, CGI Federal only generates 2% of its sales from “discrete consulting services,” which TBR assumes is a reference to the type of management or strategic consulting services most vulnerable to DOGE.

 

CGI Federal generates over 50% of its revenue from outcome-focused engagements, which are typically structured as fixed-price contracts. According to TBR’s Federal IT Services research practice, federal IT contractors can expect a general shift from cost-plus to fixed-price arrangements as agencies adopt a more outcome-focused mindset regarding new IT outlays. When the federal IT procurement environment begins focusing more on outcome-based contracting, it will shift more risk of cost-overruns or delivery delays to the vendors — a potentially margin-erosive scenario for federal system integrators (FSIs) that fail to maintain strong program execution.

 

CGI Federal is confident it can adapt to outcome-focused contracting in federal IT but is uncertain how quickly the transition can be completed. CGI Federal has been a perennial margin leader in TBR’s Federal IT Services Benchmark due to its traction with its ever-expanding suite of homespun IP-based offerings like Sunflower and Momentum, and demand for these offerings will at least endure, but likely increase, under DOGE.

 

TBR anticipates additional opportunities for CGI Federal will stem from its proprietary Sunflower (cloud-based asset management) and Momentum (financial management) solutions, as improving asset and financial management are among DOGE’s chief objectives and are in high demand by civilian and defense agencies looking to enhance fiscal and supply chain management, especially to comply with DOGE-related mandates.

 

CGI Federal has ongoing engagements that the company will showcase to win future federal work. For example, CGI Federal is implementing a cybersecurity shared services platform for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), while the Department of Transportation’s use of the Momentum platform will serve as the case study for similar engagements across the federal civilian market.

 

In the Department of Defense, CGI Federal expects to leverage its fiscal and asset management offerings to capitalize on the recent mandate from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that all U.S. service branches pass financial audits, and the company will cite its recent success on the U.S. Marine Corps Platform Integration Center (MCPIC) engagement to illustrate the full range of its capabilities. In the U.S. state government market, CGI leaders also mentioned that an unnamed state government had established its own version of DOGE with similar efficiency objectives and noted that other states are likely to follow suit, creating an expanding addressable market for the company’s asset and fiscal management platforms to prevent fraud, waste and abuse and to maximize operational transparency.

 

CGI Federal’s 2024 acquisition of Aeyon added process automation and AI capabilities that TBR believes will have high relevance for not only U.S. federal agencies but also state governments. The company also provides low-cost onshore managed services in the U.S. from delivery centers in Lebanon, Va., and Lafayette, La., staffed by 2,000 CGI professionals. Low-cost onshore delivery is also common across CGI’s public sector operations in Canada, but less so in Europe.

 

TBR believes CGI’s alliances with cloud hyperscalers (Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft), platform providers (Salesforce, SAP and ServiceNow) and others (UiPath, TrackLight and NetApp) will be key to its future success in not only the U.S. federal market but also public sector markets globally. These partners are also enablers of the company’s IP-focused solution strategy — as important as client-partners in developing new technologies and solutions.

 

CGI does not believe the advent of generative AI (GenAI) marks the beginning of the end for traditional IT services. Rather, CGI intends to leverage its expanding GenAI capabilities to migrate its public sector portfolio of offerings away from lower-value services and embrace higher-value offerings designed to maximize the value and potential of GenAI for public sector agencies. Higher-value services will require CGI to lean more heavily into its well-established proximity model as clients may need more guidance to fully reap the benefits of new offerings as capabilities become increasingly complex. In the long term, CGI may turn to more offshore resources as clients demand greater support.

BJSS provides short-run revenue relief but demonstrating AI competency to clients will be key

Vijay Srinivasan, president of U.S. Commercial and State Government operations, led the session on CGI’s banking segment by highlighting the company’s dedication to servicing clients long-term and holistically, providing flexibility to address clients’ objectives rather than focusing only on selling financial services solutions. Following opening remarks, CGI discussed recent trends and concerns in the sector supported by annual interviews of business and IT executives. First, as many banks strive for increased personalization, they demand AI and real-time capabilities on mobile applications. Unsurprisingly, banking clients are facing challenges deciphering market expectations, given the unpredictable nature of ongoing tariffs. In turn, banking clients are looking for new ways to generate revenue and maintain profitability. The banking industry, alongside many others, is experiencing a deterioration of institutional knowledge with retirements, fueling demand for AI tools.

 

As banks demand more AI tools and other new technologies, they need to modernize legacy IT systems, migration support, and application modernization. These modernization efforts also help banks execute on their cost-cutting initiatives. During the second half of 2024, CGI modernized a U.S. financial services company’s loan origination system with CGI Credit Studio and implemented its Trade360 platform for Bladex.

 

Despite the recent interest rate cuts made by the European Central Bank (four reductions thus far in 2025) and by the U.S. Federal Reserve (three reductions in 2H24), ongoing uncertainty is driving the need for streamlined processes enabling cost efficiency. CGI shared an example where the company supported a Canadian bank to optimize over 110 core applications, many of which were running on legacy systems. CGI was able to reduce the bank’s run costs by more than 35% year-to-year. Although the transformation began eight years ago, CGI has a long-standing relationship with the client, and the deal serves as a blueprint for similar contracts in the industry. Leading digital transformation efforts that support bottom-line initiatives is particularly important in the current environment.

 

Although the financial services sector is experiencing ongoing volatility, the sector and the manufacturing, retail and distribution sector are roughly equal contributors to CGI’s overall revenue. Finding new revenue opportunities and honing strategy within the segment will be vital to sustaining growth. Many IT services companies, including CGI, experienced revenue decline in their financial services sector in 2024, CGI’s financial services revenue declined in 1Q24, 2Q24 and 3Q24 before increasing by low-single digits in 4Q24.

 

In January 2025 CGI completed the acquisition of BJSS, a U.K.-based engineering and technology consultancy with industry expertise in financial services. The acquisition contributed to 8.6% year-to-year growth in the sector. CGI is not the only company prioritizing acquisitions that boost struggling verticals. Accenture recently purchased U.K.-based Altus Consulting, which will improve digital transformation capabilities in the financial services and insurance industries. Accenture experienced similar segment revenue growth declines as CGI in the first half of 2024. TBR believes BJSS will have a meaningful impact on revenue in the short run, but CGI may need to be more persistent with adding new solutions. Although introducing AI capabilities enhances client experience, it may not signal AI competency in the same way as new solutions. CGI may benefit from using acquisitions and more portfolio investments, similar to its investments in the public sector, to foster organic growth.

 

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.

 

CGI illustrated how BJSS adds value to the company’s capabilities in its banking vertical in the U.K., specifically related to end-to-end services and product deployment. BJSS’ emphasis on meeting client goals made it a strong cultural fit for CGI. The acquisition came six months after the purchase of Celero’s Canadian credit union servicing business, which deepened CGI’s reach in Canada. These recent acquisitions, alongside recent interest rate cuts and continued additions of AI capabilities in banking solutions, position CGI well for strong performance in the sector. Further, in the company’s most recent earnings call, Boulanger announced the company is seeing “early signs in quarter two of renewed client spending in the banking sector.”

Adaptability with manufacturing clients provides deal opportunities even in a challenging environment

After the public sector, the financial services and the manufacturing, retail and distribution sectors are CGI’s next-largest revenue contributors, according to company-reported data. Similar to financial services, revenue growth in the manufacturing, retail and distribution sector was also volatile throughout 2024. Manufacturing clients will continue to experience a challenging environment with tariffs also contributing to uncertainty. During the industry session, CGI leaders discussed the increased importance of supply chain resiliency, stating that clients are seeking alignment with the company’s talent, data and technology. Investments to improve resiliency, such as in data-sharing ecosystems and capacity management, will be vital for clients, serving as a revenue opportunity for CGI.

 

To capture more revenue opportunities, CGI is completing acquisitions that bolster its standing in manufacturing, similar to recent purchases made to expand in financial services. Although CGI leaders did not directly discuss it during the session, the company’s recent purchase of Novatec expands CGI’s reach into the manufacturing sector in Germany and Spain, specifically in the automotive industry. The acquisition brings capabilities in digital strategy, digital product development and cloud-based solutions, which will help CGI with growing demand for supply chain resiliency. Further, manufacturing sectors are beginning to experience the effects of knowledge loss associated with large numbers of retirements. Increased automation in the sector will help close gaps. CGI is investing in implementing AI across its manufacturing portfolio, as well as the entirety of the business.

 

CGI is finding its clients are at different places in their digital journey, and the divide is only increasing. To address this gap, CGI will need to lean into its adaptable nature to meet each client’s needs. CGI included two examples to demonstrate the company’s approach. CGI highlighted a key deal with the Volkswagen Group around digitization, where the two companies jointly created a governance model and collaborated on Agile DevOps. The two formed a new entity, known as MARV1N, a unit that will provide the group with the necessary development support for digitalization projects. Additionally, CGI modernized the group’s legacy systems while developing new IT systems designed to cut operation expenses. The example from the session emphasizes one of CGI’s main themes of the summit: helping clients holistically, specifically around providing meaningful outcomes that improve clients’ bottom line.

 

Similarly, CGI developed and is managing Michelin’s supply chain and planning production manufacturing, underpinning the client’s Customer Experience and Services & Solutions focus areas. CGI was able to increase supply chain resiliency by enabling inventory prediction and implementing AI and business performance monitoring. CGI also supported Michelin with a machine learning project. The collaboration reflects CGI’s mission to increase automation to improve productivity and enhance supply chain resiliency. In contrast, the demand for AI comes mainly from intrigue in manufacturing, rather than leveraging it to boost productivity. TBR believes it will become important for CGI to signal to manufacturing clients how AI tools can help boost productivity, which is what CGI did recently in an engagement with Rio Tinto. CGI deployed AI tools to help Rio Tinto reduce production breakdowns, helping the client capture additional revenue.

As CGI’s proximity model and ideology provide longevity, investing in the right next-generation technology will position the company competitively

CGI’s focus on cocreation, infusing AI into its IP, and recent acquisitions has fueled revenue growth that is currently outpacing most other IT service vendors, largely due to its robust acquisition pace that is surpassing that of its peers, many of which are prioritizing smaller acquisitions with specialized capabilities. Additionally, as concerns of a recession rise, other IT service companies are turning their attention to startups. For example, Accenture has been ramping up its investments in startups, recently investing in AI prediction company Aaru and Voltron Data, which has GPU-powered data processing capabilities.

 

Similarly, Capgemini is collaborating with ISAI, a France-based tech entrepreneurs’ fund, launching ISAI Cap Venture II centered on investing in B2B startups. Although CGI made brief mentions of its startup framework, CGI Unicorn Academy, and discussed its AI-powered service delivery approach, CGI DigiOps, the company has not made many public announcements about investments or new initiatives. Capturing new technology, especially amid economic uncertainty, could help CGI secure a competitive edge on future revenue opportunities.

 

In CGI’s FY2025, which ends in September, CGI is likely to maintain its M&A pace. Although acquisitions may help CGI gain an edge over its peers, especially if the targets are well aligned culturally and able to significantly widen CGI’s reach into metro markets, the accelerated revenue growth will need to be coupled with AI investments that signal productivity improvements to maintain momentum in the long term so that CGI can attract more clients based on its innovation capabilities. However, TBR anticipates CGI will continue to expand revenue faster than its peers during its fiscal year, likely growing 5.0% in Canadian dollars and 1.2% in U.S. dollars. Nevertheless, the event reinforced CGI’s reputable strength: forming strong, in-depth, long-term relationships with its clients.

In late May, Red Hat welcomed thousands of developers, IT decision makers and partners to its annual Red Hat Summit at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC). Like the rest of the market, Red Hat has pivoted around AI inferencing, and this conference marked the company’s entry into the market with the productization of vLLM, the open-source project that has been shaping AI model execution over the past two years. Though Red Hat’s push into AI inferencing does not necessarily suggest a deemphasis on model alignment use cases (e.g., fine-tuning, distillation), which was the company’s big strategic focus last year, it is a recognition that AI inferencing is a production environment and that the process of running models to generate responses is where the business value lies. Red Hat’s ability to embed open-source innovation within its products and lower the cost per model token presents a sizable opportunity. Interestingly, Red Hat’s prospects are also evolving in more traditional markets. For instance, Red Hat’s virtualization customer base has tripled over the past year, with virtualization emerging as a strategic driver throughout the company’s broader business, including for communication service providers (CSPs) adopting virtualized RAN and within other domains such as their IT stacks and the mobile core.

Red Hat pivots around AI inferencing

Rooted in Linux, the basis of OpenShift, Red Hat has always had a unique ability to resolution assets to expand into new markets and use cases. Of course, AI is the most relevant example, and two years ago, Red Hat formally entered the market with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) AI — the tool Red Hat uses to engage AI developers — and OpenShift AI, for model lifecycle management and MLOps (machine learning operations) at scale. These assets have made up the Red Hat AI platform, but at the Red Hat Summit, the company introduced a third component with AI Inference Server, in addition to new partnerships and integrations further designed to make agentic AI and inferencing realities within the enterprise.

 

AI and generative AI (GenAI) are rapidly evolving, but the associated core challenges and adoption barriers, including the high cost of AI models and the sometimes arduous nature of providing business context, remain largely unchanged. Between IBM’s small language models (SLMs) and Red Hat’s focus on reducing alignment complexity, both companies have crafted a strategy focused on addressing these challenges; they aim not to develop the next big AI algorithm, but rather to serve tangible enterprise use cases in both the cloud and the data center.

 

Everyone is aware of Red Hat’s track record of delivering enterprise-grade open-source innovation, and if Red Hat’s disruption with Linux over two decades ago is any indication, the company is well positioned to make real, cost-effective solutions for the enterprise based on reasoning models and AI inferencing.

Red Hat productizes vLLM to mark entry into AI inferencing

Though perhaps lesser known, most large language models (LLMs) today are leveraging vLLM, an upstream open-source project boasting roughly half a million downloads in any given week. At its core, vLLM is an inference server that helps address “inference-time scaling,” or the budding notion that the longer the model runs or “thinks,” the better the result will be. Of course, the challenge with this approach is the cost of running the model for a longer period of time, but vLLM’s single-server architecture is designed to optimize GPU utilization, ultimately reducing the cost per token of the AI model. Various industry leaders — namely NVIDIA, despite having its own AI model serving stack; Google; and Neural Magic, which Red Hat acquired earlier this year — are leading contributors to the project.

 

Leveraging its rich history of turning open-source projects into enterprise products, Red Hat launched AI Inference Server, based on vLLM, marking Red Hat’s first offering from the Neural Magic acquisition. AI Inference Server is included with both RHEL AI and OpenShift AI but can also run as its own stand-alone server. Though perhaps inclined to emphasize IBM’s watsonx models, Red Hat is extending its values of flexibility, choice and meeting customers where they are to AI Inference Server. This new offering supports accelerators outside IBM, including NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud, and offers Day 0 support for a range of LLMs. This means that as soon as a new model is released, Red Hat works with the provider to optimize the model for vLLM and validate it on Red Hat’s platform.

 

Building on vLLM’s early success, Red Hat launched LLM-d, a new open-source project, announced at the Red Hat Summit. LLM-d transcends vLLM’s single-server architecture, allowing inference to run in a distributed manner, further reducing the cost per token. Due to the cost, most will agree that inferencing will necessitate distributed infrastructure, and there are several recent examples across the tech landscape that have alluded to this. LLM-d is being launched with support from many of vLLM’s same contributors, including NVIDIA and Google (LLM-d runs on both GPUs and TPUs [tensor processing units]).

Partnership with Meta around MCP is all about empowering developers and making agentic AI enterprise-ready

If Google’s launch of A2A (Agent2Agent) protocol is any indication, Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), which aims to standardize how LLMs discern context, is gaining traction. At the Red Hat Summit, Red Hat committed to MCP by announcing it will deliver Meta’s Llama Stack, integrated with MCP, in OpenShift AI and RHEL AI.

 

To be clear, Red Hat supports a range of models, but Meta went the open-source route early on, bringing Llama Stack, an open-source framework for building specifically on Llama models, into the Red Hat environment. This not only exposes Red Hat to another ecosystem but also provides APIs around it. Enlisting Meta at the API layer is an important aspect of this solution, as it enables customers to consume the solution and build new agentic applications with MCP playing a key role in contextualizing those applications within the AI enterprise. It is still early days for MCP, and making the protocol truly relevant in enterprise use cases will take some time and advancement in security and governance. But Red Hat indirectly supporting MCP within its products signals the framework’s potential and Red Hat’s role in bringing it to the enterprise.

Who would have thought we would be discussing virtualization in 2025?

In 2025 and the world of AI, you don’t often hear of a company putting virtualization at the top of its strategic imperatives list. However, everyone has seen how Broadcom’s takeover of VMware has caused a ripple in the market, with customers seeking cheaper, more flexible alternatives that will not disrupt their current cloud transformation journeys. In fact, when we surveyed enterprise IT decision makers, 42% of respondents indicated they still intend to use VMware, but most plan to do so in a reduced capacity. Of those planning to continue using VMware, a notable 83% are still evaluating other options*.

 

“Options both have increased the prices across the board, 20% to 30%, which is pretty significant. So, you could say myself and my peers are not very happy with the Broadcom method on that, and we’re looking at, you know, definitely options to migrate off VMware when possible. We’re definitely looking at Citrix, and then options from Red Hat and Microsoft.” — CTO Portfolio Manager, Consumer Packaged Goods

 

As a reminder, after Red Hat revolutionized Linux in the early 2000s, the company’s next big endeavor was virtualization. With the rise of cloud-native architectures, Red Hat quickly pivoted around containers, and this is where the company remains most relevant today. However, through the KVM (kernel-based virtual machine) hypervisor, which would eventually be integrated with OpenShift, virtualization has always been a part of the portfolio. Over the past year, given the opportunity surrounding the VMware customer base, Red Hat has actively revisited its virtualization roots in a few primary ways.

 

First, given the risky nature of switching virtualization platforms, Red Hat crafted a portfolio of high-touch services around OpenShift Virtualization, including Migration Factory and a fixed-price offering called Virtualization Migration Assessment. These services from Red Hat Consulting, which are offered in close alignment with global systems integrator (GSI) partners, help customers migrate virtual machines (VMs) as quickly as possible while minimizing risk, which largely stems from helping customers migrate VMs before modernizing them.

 

Secondly, Red Hat has focused on increasing public cloud support. Red Hat announced at the summit that OpenShift Virtualization is now available on Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), in addition to previously announced support for IBM Cloud and AWS, officially making the platform available on all major public clouds. Making OpenShift Virtualization applicable across the entire cloud ecosystem reinforces how serious Red Hat is about capturing these virtualization opportunities. These integrations will make it easier for customers to use their existing cloud spend commitments to offload VMware workloads to any cloud of their choice while maintaining the same cloud-native experience they are used to.

 

Of course, there will always be a level of overlap between Red Hat and the hyperscalers, but ultimately the hyperscalers recognize Red Hat’s role in addressing the hybrid reality and enterprises’ need to move workloads consistently across clouds and within data centers, and they welcome a more feature-rich platform like OpenShift that will spin the meter on their infrastructure.

With virtualization, Red Hat is allowing partners to sell infrastructure modernization and AI as part of the same story

At the conference, we heard from established Red Hat customers that have extended their Linux and container investments to virtualization. Examples included Ford and Emirates NBD, which has over 37,000 containers in production and is now migrating 9,000 VMs to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization for a more consistent tech stack. Based on our conversations with customers, these scenarios — where VMs and containers run side by side — are not an easy sell and require a level of buy-in across the organization.

 

That said, if customers can overcome some of these change management hurdles, this side-by-side approach can offer numerous benefits, largely by creating greater consistency between legacy and cloud-native applications without significant refactoring. Though some GSIs may be better suited to the infrastructure layer than others, partners should recognize the opportunity to use OpenShift Virtualization to have client discussions around broader AI transformations. One of the compelling aspects of Red Hat is that even as it progressed through different phases — Linux, virtualization, containers and now AI — the hybrid platform foundation has remained unchanged. If customers can modernize their infrastructure on the same platform, introducing AI models via OpenShift AI becomes much more compelling.

Virtualization remains a key driver of telecom operator uptake of Red Hat solutions, but AI presents a significant upsell opportunity

Over the past few years, Red Hat has leveraged its virtualization technology in the CSP market, making significant progress in landing new CSP accounts and expanding its account share within this unique vertical. The company’s growth in this market has been aided by factors such as Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, which initially caused a wave of CSPs to migrate to Red Hat due to the uncertainty surrounding VMware’s portfolio road map. Broadcom’s price hikes are causing a second wave of switching that TBR anticipates will continue for several years.

 

However, Red Hat has also succeeded in more deeply penetrating the telecom vertical due to its savvy marketing, which at times emphasizes that its solutions are “carrier-grade,” along with persistent efforts to raise awareness within the CIO and CTO organizations of CSPs that virtualization and hybrid multicloud strategies will have significant ROI for CSPs. This has led to strong adoption of Red Hat OpenStack and OpenShift, although the Ansible automation platform has lagged in terms of CSP adoption, as this customer segment prefers to use the free, open-source version of Ansible.

 

As CSPs iterate on their AI strategies, Red Hat has the opportunity to play a significant role, including with its new Red Hat Inference Server, as CSPs increasingly embrace edge compute investments. CSPs need to invest upfront to capitalize on the cost efficiency and revenue generation opportunities offered by AI, and Red Hat can help guide them in this direction. CSPs have difficulty moving quickly when new, disruptive technologies emerge, and, with AI specifically, have trouble evaluating and testing AI models themselves due to a lack of in-house expertise. Additionally, they feel constrained by regulations and are concerned about compromising data privacy. Red Hat’s dedicated telecom vertical services can help alleviate these concerns and accelerate CSPs’ investments in AI infrastructure.

Final thoughts

Based on our best estimate, roughly 85% of AI’s current use is focused on training and only 15% on inferencing, but the inverse could be true in the not-too-distant future. Not only that, but AI inferencing will likely occur at distributed locations for the purposes of latency and scale — which, due to its hybrid platform and ability to help customers “write once, deploy anywhere,” remains core to Red Hat’s value proposition. That is one of the compelling aspects of a platform-first approach; even as new components such as AI models are introduced, the core foundation remains unchanged.

 

Though all of Red Hat’s new innovations, including AI Inference Server and the LLM-d project, do not necessarily suggest a deemphasis on model alignment with assets like InstructLab, it is clear Red Hat is pivoting to address the inference opportunity. With its trusted experience productizing open-source innovation and its ability to exist within a broad technology ecosystem of hyperscalers, OEMs and chip providers, Red Hat is in a somewhat unique position to help transition AI inference from an ideal to an enterprise reality.

 

Further, Red Hat’s virtualization prospects are growing, as TBR’s interactions with customers continue to indicate that they are looking for new alternatives. If the hyperscalers’ recent earnings reports are any indication, the GenAI hype is waning, and we suspect many enterprises will refocus on infrastructure modernization to ultimately move beyond basic chatbots and lay the groundwork for the more strategic applications that inferencing will enable. It will be interesting to see how Red Hat capitalizes on new virtualization opportunities with its hyperscaler and services partners as part of a joint effort to bring customers to a modern platform, where VMs and containers can coexist and drive discussions around AI.

 

*From TBR’s 2H25 IT Infrastructure Customer Research