Devices Benchmark

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Vendors will continue to leverage their global manufacturing footprints and supply chain agility as they navigate tariffs

Key 1Q25 Devices Benchmark takeaways

AI PCs will remain a focus of vendors’ investment and product strategies over the next several quarters

OEMs are focused on developing PCs that incorporate neural processing units (NPU), which enable PCs to handle AI workloads locally. Over the next several quarters, the three major Windows PC OEMs — Dell Technologies (Dell), Lenovo and HP Inc. — will continue to develop and promote these AI PCs, releasing them in waves as the technology matures. As 2025 progresses, vendors will continue to invest in methods to differentiate their AI PC lineups from the competition, looking to gain share in the burgeoning subsegment to drive long-term revenue and margin growth within their devices businesses. Commercial devices will remain a particular focus for vendors as they build out their AI-enabled PC portfolios, due to stronger demand and those devices tending to carry higher average revenue per unit (ARPU) and stronger attach rates for services and peripherals.

Vendors outline plans to navigate the current tariff environment

During several devices vendors’ recent earnings calls, leaders were asked how they intended to navigate the current volatile tariff environment. A common thread across the responses was the confidence in each company’s ability to leverage its current business model and diversified supply chain to handle the impacts of tariffs. Dell and HP Inc. cited wide geographic reach as beneficial for navigating a challenging tariff environment, with the latter outlining plans to ensure by June that almost none of its devices sold in North America are manufactured in China. Dell and Lenovo both downplayed the effects of tariffs on their 1Q25 results, with Lenovo executives noting that the company is less concerned with the tariffs themselves than with their rapid onset. Moving forward, Lenovo will continue to leverage the in-house design and manufacturing capabilities underpinning its ODM+ model, as well as its wide global footprint.

Vendors expect the commercial PC refresh cycle to gain momentum in 2H25

For several quarters, cautious spending among both enterprises and SMBs has resulted in soft demand in the commercial PC market. During this period PC vendors have remained confident that the next major commercial PC refresh cycle, induced by factors including an aging install base and the upcoming end of Windows 10 support, will drive a rebound in the market. In 4Q24 Dell reported strong results among small and midsize businesses, something the company claimed has historically been an early indicator of a rebound in the overall commercial market. During its 1Q25 earnings call, Dell cited growing demand among both SMBs and enterprises, reporting that the refresh cycle is ramping up, although it is still “behind prior cycles.” Given these factors, TBR expects the PC segment will continue to build momentum throughout 2025, with the strongest growth coming in the second half of the year.


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Google reported the strongest year-to-year devices revenue growth during 1Q25, while Apple continued to lead in terms of total revenue and gross margin

Graph: Devices Revenue Growth vs Devices Gross Margin

Graph: Devices Revenue Growth vs Devices Gross Margin (Source: TBR)

 

TBR expects PC services revenue to return to year-to-year growth during 2Q25, gaining additional momentum in 2H25 as PC unit shipments continue to climb

1Q25 conclusions on the PC Services segment

  • The majority of PC services revenue continues to stem from premium support, warranty, asset recovery, security and other close-to-the-box attached services.
  • PC services revenue is closely correlated with PC hardware revenue, but revenue recognition is often deferred. As a result, the trends in the overall devices market are slower to materialize in the PC services segment. For several quarters, segment revenue has declined as PC unit sales contracted sharply across the industry. During 1Q25, the segment declined slightly due largely to contracting revenue on the part of industry leader Dell.
  • Growth on the commercial side of the market will be vital to performance in this segment going forward, as those PCs carry higher attach rates for services than their consumer counterparts. As the PC market gradually recovers throughout 2025, TBR believes the PC services segment will return to year-to-year growth.
  • Vendors are currently focused on promoting PC services offerings designed to stimulate PC hardware refresh such as AI PC assessment services, Windows migration services and asset recycling services.

Google led benchmarked devices vendors in terms of growth during 1Q25, while Apple remained the largest vendor by total revenue

Graph: Smart Device Revenue Growth vs Smart Device Gross Margin

Graph: Smart Device Revenue Growth vs Smart Device Gross Margin (Source: TBR)

U.S. Federal Cloud Ecosystem Report

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Key IT Services Takeaways

Federal systems integrators (FSIs) are under mounting pressure to bring to market a broad portfolio of cloud offerings underpinned by a robust network of commercially centric cloud partners

TBR estimates the total available market in federal cloud was roughly $17 billion in FFY24, and we believe this figure is set to rise to between $20 billion and $21 billion in FFY25. We anticipate total federal cloud spending will expand by between $13 billion and $15 billion to surpass $30 billion by FFY28. Modernizing legacy IT infrastructures remains a paramount, strategic objective for civilian, defense and intelligence agencies that are actively migrating IT systems to the cloud and/or replacing outdated and monolithic IT networks with cloud-native technologies. The advent of AI, generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI, and the mandatory adoption of zero-trust security infrastructures are also accelerating cloud adoption. The Pentagon maintains a robust pace of cloud implementation, and the next iteration of the $9 billion Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) is in development. DOGE’s actions will upend civilian IT spending patterns through the remainder of FFY25, with disruption likely extending into the first half of FFY26. Federal IT vendors have struggled with budget cuts, headcount reductions, and delayed procurement and project delivery cycles at many civilian agencies since DOGE began reviewing budgets in January 2025. In the long run, TBR believes DOGE will prompt a resurgence in demand for cloud-based solutions as civil agencies and departments are vigorously pushed to outsource increasingly larger shares of IT functions (particularly tasks once provided by now dismissed government employees), migrate to multicloud and hybrid cloud environments, secure their IT networks with zero-trust architectures, and digitally enable mission-critical systems.

Key Cloud Takeaways

Leading vendors look for ways to extend commercial products and go-to-market motions to the U.S. federal space as cloud opportunities increase

The JWCC contract continues to represent the single biggest opportunity for the cloud market’s leading players within the U.S. federal government: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, Google Cloud and Oracle. As of 1Q25, roughly $2 billion in task orders have been allocated to these four vendors, with Oracle securing the biggest award to date, after the U.S. Army — with support from Accenture Federal Services (AFS) — migrated its legacy PeopleSoft deployment to Oracle’s Government Cloud. This win highlights the advantages of being rooted in legacy software and partnering with commercial SIs like Accenture that have experience modernizing business applications. JWCC is still in its early days — and an extended contract dubbed JWCC Next is under development — but Google’s recent IL6 (Impact Level) accreditation for Google Distributed Cloud (GDC), available as an air-gapped solution, should be a big step forward for not only Google but also JWCC, as all participating vendors can now deliver at the highest accreditation levels. That said, as the Department of Defense (DOD) starts to more actively leverage infrastructure from distinct cloud providers, it raises the question of interoperability; buying cloud services from multiple providers and leveraging multicloud environments are two different things. It will be interesting to see how agencies work to overcome integration challenges, which could include enlisting more PaaS vendors as part of JWCC Next, and if the four hyperscalers can deliver joint solutions that work with each other. Civilian spend remains strong, with the impacts of DOGE seemingly starting to fade, though defense spending will outpace civilian in the near term. AI opportunities within the sector are also increasing, namely for agencies that already have their infrastructure and applications in the cloud and are best positioned to take advantage of AI.


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Cloud technologies are the foundation for digital transformation across the federal market; overall demand and opportunities for IT modernization remain prevalent

How do IT services vendors view the cloud opportunity?

Despite the growth in cloud spending outlined earlier in this report, large swaths of the federal government’s IT infrastructure remain in dire need of updating to cloud to accommodate the implementation of various AI technologies, advanced zero-trust security solutions, and other emerging technologies (e.g., quantum computing). DOGE disrupted federal IT spending in 1H25, but federal IT vendors remain undeterred in their pursuit of cloud-based digital modernization opportunities. Vendors and their federal customers are collaborating closely to map out future cloud migration and consolidation programs that will increasingly leverage commercially sourced cloud technologies, such as shifting federal data centers to cloud-based architectures to enhance data accessibility.

What do vendors need to develop or deploy to tackle the cloud opportunity?

The Trump administration is prioritizing enhancing data security, availability and cost-effectiveness via cloud technologies as a cornerstone of its federal IT strategy, and vendors are pivoting to align with the administration’s IT vision. FSIs must showcase their successful deployments of mission-enhancing cloud infrastructures that improve agencies’ operating efficiencies while crafting strategies for agencies to reinvest savings from DOGE-driven budget cuts and for the eventual implementation of next-generation technologies to support future missions. FSIs are adjusting marketing messaging to emphasize their ability to deliver innovation at speed within outcome-based cloud deployment engagements. Possessing the scale to deploy cloud infrastructures across agencies is still important for vendors. Equally critical are offering customers the broadest possible suite of partner-enhanced cloud solutions and having a vendor-agnostic approach to migrating federal IT workloads to cloud environments. Agency IT decision makers prefer not to be restricted to using products or services from a single vendor or a small cadre of IT providers. FSIs believe federal agencies will continue leveraging the cloud as the principal destination for legacy systems and for modernizing those systems and fully expect to accelerate adoption of SaaS and PaaS solutions, as reflected by federal IT contractors’ M&A, alliance and joint venture-related activities in 2024 and 2025.

Microsoft’s and Oracle’s hold on the U.S. government is unwavering, but AWS’ early IaaS lead and defense ties are elevating its standing in JWCC and the broader market

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft and Oracle are driving the bulk of prime awards, with the overwhelming majority stemming from traditional license and support contracts. Prime award value for Microsoft dipped in 2024, as large support renewals from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of State that occurred in 2023 and have since expired. Meanwhile, Oracle’s jump in 2024 almost entirely reflects Cerner-related services for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Though AWS does not have the legacy software ties that Microsoft and Oracle do, the company is very competitive in the market. In 2024 AWS saw a big jump in defense-related wins, including those associated with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the JWCC contract. Other notable prime awards for AWS during this time include the National Nuclear Security Administration, within the Department of Energy, which is leveraging S3 and other IaaS services.

 

Graph: Hyperscaler Share of Prime Awards Won for FFY23 to FFY25

Graph: Hyperscaler Share of Prime Awards Won for FFY23 to FFY25 (Source: TBR)

Graph: Current Prime Award Value by Vendor

Graph: Current Prime Award Value by Vendor (Source: TBR)

Channel Partner Market Landscape

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Channel partners continue to invest in the expansion of services capabilities to bolster margins and win AI deals

Portfolio key trends

  • Channel partners across the industry continue investing in the expansion of their services capabilities and cloud marketplace platforms to increase their hardware-adjacent revenue streams. While this initiative is driven in part by recent softness in the hardware market, software and services margins also tend to skew higher than hardware margins, and by taking a solutions-led approach, channel partners can drive deeper customer engagements and a higher level of differentiation in the market.
  • TBR expects channel partners will increase go-to-market messaging around AI in 2025 as more industry-specific use cases develop, including by emphasizing that AI is built into their own service delivery platforms and by becoming certified to deploy and manage partners’ AI-based solutions.

Operations key trends

  • As channel partners remain focused on growing their services revenue mix, they will continue to strategically rebalance headcount in roles such as sales and services delivery to expand their capabilities while maintaining profitability.
  • Streamlining operations through digital transformation remains a key priority as channel partners seek to build a more agile business and buying experience while reducing costs. Examples include the proliferation of e-commerce portals, cloud marketplaces and analytics-based solution configuration. In growth areas, including cloud and services, digital transformation helps solution providers manage complex, multicloud environments and easily aggregate multivendor solutions.

Financial key trends

  • Despite pockets of demand strength, such as in AI infrastructure, the overall channel partner hardware market has faced challenges over the past two years tied to cautious commercial spending and increasing competition for deals from both OEM partners as well as global systems integrators (GSIs) that are becoming increasingly interested in the resale of hardware to support the delivery of full-stack AI solutions.
  • Multiple trends will likely help improve customer spending in 2025 including PC refresh in the commercial space and improving enterprise server demand.

M&A key trends

Acquisitions continued to be driven by channel partners’ desires to expand skill sets in cloud, cybersecurity and advisory services. TBR believes industry consolidation remains a pervasive trend among channel partners and will help companies acquire niche services capabilities. Additionally, channel partners will continue to target strategic acquisitions to expand their geographic footprints.

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Services revenue is expected to see the most robust growth among all segments of the channel partner market

Segment trends

Relatively soft hardware demand acted as a headwind for most channel partners in 2024. However, looking ahead to 2025, TBR sees the continued ramp of the next major commercial PC refresh cycle synergizing with rebounding enterprise infrastructure spend, leading to forecasted aggregate growth of 4.1% among covered channel partners.


Demand for AI solutions remains elevated, and VARs are competing with both OEMs and GSIs to develop and deliver end-to-end AI solutions to customers. However, TBR believes VARs’ recent services and portfolio investments, coupled with the sheer scale of the AI opportunity, will allow all parties to benefit from the industry trend in 2025.


As VARs continue to invest in the expansion of their services capabilities to drive solutions-led engagements and as distributors further develop their cloud marketplace platforms, TBR believes channel partners’ margins will gradually expand over the next few years.

Graph: Aggregate Channel Partner Revenue by Segment

Generally speaking, channel partners with greater services emphasis fared best in 2024 amid softness in the hardware market

2024 corporate trends

Estimated aggregate corporate revenue among covered channel partners remained flat on a year-to-year basis in 2024 as soft commercial hardware demand offset growing software and services segment revenues. However, the industry’s performance represented an improvement over the group’s results in 2023, when estimated aggregate corporate revenue contracted approximately 4.6% year-to-year.


Among all covered companies, Arrow Electronics’ ECS segment delivered the strongest growth in 2024 due to the rising success of its ArrowSphere platform, which drove industry-leading software segment revenue growth during the period.


Behind Arrow Electronics’ ECS business, TBR believes WWT delivered the second-strongest revenue growth rate in 2024 due to the company’s ability to leverage its labs and integration centers to help customers develop and validate their own AI solutions. Looking ahead, TBR expects WWT’s labs and integration centers to act as a significant tailwind to the company as an increasing number of enterprise customers adopt AI solutions.

Graph: Revenue Growth versus Operating Margin

Enterprise Systems Integrators Market Landscape

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Attributes related to vendors’ ability to execute on DT promises reflect changing buyer priorities from a year ago and send a strong message that vendors should not take relationships for granted

Main criteria for selecting digital transformation (DT) services vendors

Working knowledge of buyers’ IT infrastructure, digital-related security and privacy issues, and specific line of business or domain ranked as the top three attributes for vendor selection. The ranking was a major reshuffling from 2023, when industry knowledge, value-to-price, and complete line of professional services ranked as the top attributes. The change highlights buyers’ evolving priorities. While a year ago the attributes were oriented toward convincing stakeholders to spend on DT programs, this year it appears as though buyers are looking for vendors that can execute on the programs, aligning with the increase in overall DT spend. Existing vendor relationship remained the least critical attribute for vendor selection, underscoring that no single vendor’s position is guaranteed and that vendors must account for evolving stakeholder expectations.

Importance of Attributes in DT Services Vendor Selection

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Addressing common gaps such as technical expertise could help vendors build a foundation around scale and quality as GenAI adds another layer of complexity that has to be tied to business outcomes

Customer recommendations for DT services vendors by region

Improving technical expertise remained among the top recommendations across regions for vendors to consider, which reflects the IT fluency of DT buyers and illustrates portfolio and skills gaps vendors struggle with despite ongoing investments. Other common recommendations, such as GenAI knowledge tied to business operations, also underscore the need for vendors to find a way to balance their technology-led discussions with business process knowledge, especially as the majority of buyers’ budgets are shifting back to business and tech advisory services. Supporting and taking responsibility for enterprises’ IT environments cannot be done in a vacuum, and vendors need to account for the impact of broader stakeholder ecosystems, especially as the adoption of emerging technologies increases the level of complexity. This is particularly the case among EMEA buyers, who ranked vendors’ expertise in ecosystem management within the top five recommended improvements, highlighting the importance of collaborating with regional vendors as a critical link in otherwise fragmented European-sourced opportunities. In comparison, APAC and North American buyers see a gap in vendors’ ability help them understand the impact of AI on the business, creating an opportunity for providers with strong consulting skills that can also demonstrate business outcomes through proven use cases.


ESIs and acquisitions — strategies that work

Successful M&A strategies follow one of two cadences in TBR’s research: constant or infrequent. In-between approaches or inconsistent cadences fail to deliver expected returns on investment and do not support sustained revenue growth.
Most ESIs that have doubled their revenues post-pandemic have acquired at an Accenture-like pace, adding complementary capabilities and/or expanding into new geographies (e.g., Persistent and Stefanini). In contrast, some ESIs have maintained high revenue-per-employee results in part by eschewing frequent acquisitions in favor of more organic growth (e.g., Ensono and Protiviti).

Why are these two opposite approaches successful? Evaluating, financing, acquiring, absorbing and bringing to market new assets requires experience that builds muscle memory. Do it often and get good at it or do it rarely so you are not wasting time and money. Inconsistency leads to uncertainty and inefficiencies.

Increasingly, according to TBR’s research, an approach favored by some global systems integrators (GSIs) and consultancies appears appealing to ESIs: invest, do not buy. Most ESIs cannot match GSIs’ dollars invested in corporate venture capital funds or startup incubators, but ESIs can emulate the business model. Investing in niche technology or complementary services providers demonstrates differentiation in a crowded field and potentially provides additional revenue streams.


Increasingly, ESIs will invest in startups and boutiques, expanding their portfolios without the costs of acquisitions and realizing new revenue streams.

ESIs and technology partners — ESI perspective

In TBR’s research, successful SI partnerships with technology vendors require the SI to understand and align with the technology vendor’s sales team. Clear incentive and compensation structures lead to smoothly functioning go-to-market initiatives.

ESIs, by their nature, can be more flexible than GSIs and can benefit from being named the best SI partner in their particular country or for their particular skills. GSIs can compete for global accolades while ESIs show their technology partners the benefits of more local recognition.


Of cloud and software respondents, 33% said, “We use niche providers for small and midsize clients as they offer better pricing flexibility and domain expertise.” 
I want to work with all the major technology companies, but I work with smaller niche companies too. So, when we were rationalizing who to work with and who not to work with, ultimately, it comes down to the TAM [total addressable market]. I want some revenue potential behind any new partners, and any new go-to-market offerings. So that’s what kind of the think tank is deciding behind the scenes.” — Senior Manager of Global Channels and Alliances, CloudTBR’s Summer 2025 Voice of the Partner Ecosystem Report

ESIs face core challenges similar to GSI, namely how to differentiate and get technology partners to recommend and even sell an ESI’s services. Without expecting technology partners’ sales teams to be fluent in an ESI’s offerings and value propositions, ESIs can sell themselves in three ways:

  • Offer flexible and responsive commercial models that play to tech partners’ metrics and compensation models
  • Provide access to personas and buyers that tech partners cannot reach, such as enterprise business line leaders or wholly new logos
  • Augment with highly specialized and responsive talent when tech partners’ own professional services teams are stretched too thin

Cloud Ecosystem Report

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AI data needs raise expectations about how services vendors and hyperscalers should be thinking about their relationships, with region-specific guardrails further testing joint GTM durability

Key trends
Hyperscalers’ dispersion across the globe requires these vendors, along with their services partners, to carve out new operating models that prioritize both go-to-market success and adherence to local requirements. This balance translates into a case-by-case — or rather, country-by-country — approach with local partnerships being the common thread. This is especially true for hyperscalers competing for local market share — particularly in the European Union (EU) — to the extent of relinquishing operational control (e.g., Microsoft Bleu), creating a direct opportunity for regional system integrators (SIs) and local infrastructure operators. While global SIs (GSIs) are also in contention, they must account for these vendors as they build out local presence, along with their commercial, staffing and partner models. Meanwhile, regional legislation is pushing hyperscalers to commit to investment pledges to ensure business continuity, with implications for services partners and buyers, further testing the limits of their relationships.

Go-to-market strategy
Enterprise buyers are becoming increasingly conflicted in their expectations of how vendors can best support their technology needs. When it comes to interoperability, many customers look to leverage third-party vendors, and a smaller percentage expect their cloud vendors to address these concerns directly. At the same time, buyers continue to identify technology expertise as a key skills gap in vendors’ value proposition across regions. These dynamics are further amplified in vendors’ regional go-to-market strategies, especially when it comes to accounting for the role of AI and niche vendors that bring specialized knowledge. In a nutshell, vendors cannot rely on a one-size-fits-all AI ecosystem strategy across regions. Success will require region-specific approaches: IP-led initiatives in APAC, orchestration frameworks in Europe, and startup-centric marketplaces in the Americas. All must be underpinned by interoperable APIs and strong governance to help IT services providers capture and monetize local demand. Executing against such expectations while continuing to rely on a traditional labor-arbitrage model will test professional services firms’ readiness to transform their own operations while maintaining trust with hyperscalers, which continue to explore the opportunity to drive professional services revenue by simplifying the sales process and marketplace through the use of agentic AI.

Vendors
In addition to launching bespoke operating models and investing in local infrastructure, hyperscalers are investing at the infrastructure layer to support workload portability and management capabilities that help customers adhere to sovereignty regulations. Google Distributed Cloud is probably the most sovereignty-forward example, but similar comparisons can be made for both Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Security is another critical area hyperscalers are investing in, whether it is Microsoft’s new deputy chief information security officer (CISO) role for Europe or Google’s continued effort to expand Mandiant’s assets to prevent breaches. Orchestrating these evolving offerings into a cohesive IT estate will be an opportunity for services vendors, especially when deciding how to configure them in a way that is suitable for country-specific needs. Services — including migration, implementation, consulting and advising — all play a role in navigating the increasingly complex regulatory and security environment, requiring broad hiring in the EU, where the opportunities are the greatest.

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Data location will remain a leading barrier to cloud adoption, but interoperability and breaking down data barriers across platforms will present the bigger opportunity for services vendors

As highlighted in TBR’s 2H24 Cloud Infrastructure & Platforms Customer Research, data location ranked as the second-highest cloud pain point after security, with 40% of respondents expecting their cloud vendors to directly address these concerns — largely due to vendors doing a better job of making customers aware of the various data center hosting and encryption options. Conversely, when it comes to interoperability, many customers will leverage third-party vendors, and a smaller percentage expect their cloud vendors to address these concerns directly. This speaks to both the skills that services-led firms have amassed across multiple technology platforms and the high degree of lock-in the hyperscalers still create across their infrastructure. That said, from a technology perspective, vendors are doing a better job of integrating their offerings, particularly in the area of agentic AI, which necessitates more robust data sharing. As more open frameworks, including Google’s A2A (Agent2Agent), mature and become enterprise-ready, they could create a needed level of standardization that GSIs can leverage to build new agents alongside their ISV partners. Deloitte’s partnership with Google Cloud to build ServiceNow-specific agents on A2A is a good example.

“It [sovereign cloud] helps, significantly helps. A completely separated, air-gapped environment different from the regular public cloud itself. And Switzerland, by the way, is a great example. AWS put up two regions in Switzerland. It’s a tiny country. But even then, they had two regions to satisfy this condition of resilience, etc.” — Managing Director (Firmwide) & Chief Data Architect, Financial Services

Cloud vendor insights excerpt

Microsoft’s Cloud Services & Ecosystem Strategy

Microsoft Cloud’s Latest Ecosystem Initiative (Source: TBR 1H25)

Microsoft Cloud’s Estimated Ecosystem Statistics for 1H25 (Source: TBR)

 

Private Cellular Networks Market Forecast

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While the 5G PCN ecosystem is maturing, it remains underdeveloped compared to older technologies such as Wi-Fi and LTE, slowing the pace of adoption

Robust Wi-Fi and LTE ecosystems, coupled with an underdeveloped 5G-compatible device ecosystem and relatively higher costs, hinder private 5G adoption

The private 5G network market will see robust growth through this decade as a wide range of industries and governments adopt the technology. However, TBR now projects the market will reach $5.3 billion in 2030, down dramatically from our October 2022 forecast of $15 billion in 2030. TBR still believes the private 5G network market will ultimately be several times larger than the projected peak of the private LTE market, but the market is taking much longer to scale than previously expected.

The private 5G network market is challenged by enterprises viewing Wi-Fi and/or LTE as good enough for most non-mission-critical use cases. 5G (including infrastructure as well as endpoint devices and modules) remains far more expensive than Wi-Fi, and enterprises are more comfortable using Wi-Fi; most enterprises choose Wi-Fi as the primary connectivity medium for their private network, with private cellular typically utilized for internet redundancy, backup and failover. Essentially, enterprises have more clarity around LTE and Wi-Fi and are uncertain about 5G PCN ROI, causing them to lean toward existing options.

The limited selection of 5G-compatible endpoint devices (excluding smartphones) remains one of the greatest impediments to private 5G network adoption among enterprises. Ultimately, the device ecosystem for 5G needs to become broader and more dynamic to more closely resemble the device ecosystems for LTE and Wi-Fi and to provide greater selection and lower costs to adopters.

The slow development of the PCN market is partially due to vendor offerings that are not tailored to the enterprise and require trained resources to manage what are effectively scaled-down versions of communication service provider (CSP) RAN infrastructure. However, firms such as Celona are increasingly coming to market with lightweight, Wi-Fi-like PCN solutions that are built for enterprises and do not require specialized labor resources to roll out and manage. Incumbent telecom vendors are also scaling down their offerings to compete with Celona. These innovations will help alleviate this slow development over the course of the forecast.

U.S. will overtake China as the highest-spending country on 5G PCNs, partially due to maturation of the CBRS ecosystem

China has led the market in 5G PCN spend since the market’s inception, but TBR estimates the U.S. will outspend China in 2026. TBR expects the maturing CBRS ecosystem in the U.S. to contribute to growth. Vendors are increasingly coming to market with CBRS-based solutions to meet demand. In September Ericsson debuted Ericsson Private 5G Compact, its scaled-down CBRS-based solution, which followed Nokia’s October 2023 launch of a scaled-down version of its Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) PCN solution called DAC Private Wireless Compact. These solutions are aimed at small and midsize industrial sites, carpeted office environments, and campuses — areas where the traditional private 5G solutions from these vendors would be unnecessarily large and expensive. Ericsson and Nokia are the suppliers for some of the best reference cases for CBRS-based 5G PCN deployments, including Tesla (Ericsson) and Deere & Co. (Nokia) factories. In carpeted enterprises, Celona has made significant inroads, thanks to its lightweight PCN solutions that aim to make PCNs as easy and cost-effective to deploy as Wi-Fi.

5G CBRS momentum should spur growth for minor players in the market. For example, Samsung’s alliance with Amdocs focuses on PCN opportunities that use CBRS spectrum, with Amdocs providing systems integration (SI) in joint engagements. Although DISH has gained minimal traction in PCN thus far, the vendor will benefit from its vast CBRS PAL (priority access license) spectrum licenses, which cover 98% of the U.S. population; DISH won the most CBRS licenses in the 2020 auction.

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TBR estimates the private 5G network market will grow at a slower rate than the industry originally expected, reaching $3.5B in 2028, due to persistent ecosystem maturity challenges

Private 5G Network Infrastructure Spend for 2023 through 2028 Estimate (Source: TBR)

TBR Assessment: TBR expects the private 5G market to grow at a more gradual rate and take longer to reach maturity than the industry originally expected as compatible endpoint devices and key 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) standards are slowly commercialized.

Most non-CSP entities are being selective about where and how to use 5G. The more mission-critical the environment, the more likely 5G will be utilized. In instances where reliability, speed and/or security are the top concerns, companies are prioritizing 5G.

Though enterprise and government interest in 5G remains robust, the timing of deployments is contingent on ROI and the availability of compatible endpoint devices. The fact that Wi-Fi remains a legitimate alternative to cellular technologies for private networks, mitigating some of the need for 5G, is also a headwind.

Private 5G spend will lag private LTE spend through the forecast as the market is hampered by a slowly maturing device ecosystem and lack of certainty around ROI

Global Private Cellular Networks 5G & LTE Spend for 2023 through 2028 Estimate (Source: TBR)

TBR Assessment: TBR expects growth in the private LTE market will slow and then decline during the remainder of the forecast period, but the slowdown will be more than offset by robust growth in private 5G investment as enterprises and governments adopt the next-generation technology for a broad range of use cases.

Private LTE has been in use for over a decade, and there is a robust vendor, device and application ecosystem that underpins this market, which reduces costs. LTE is sufficient in handling many popular and proven use cases for PCN, reducing the need for 5G. Enterprise CIOs who adopt LTE are reassured about achieving ROI, while 5G ROI is unproven.


Another reason LTE remains the dominant technology is that some vendors offer software upgradability of private LTE solutions to 5G. This approach optimizes TCO and entices enterprises to commit to their platforms before they adopt 5G. Due to these dynamics, TBR expects 5G spend to lag LTE spend through the forecast period.

Telecom AI Market Landscape

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CSPs have an opportunity to capture meaningful value from AI, but realizing this opportunity requires action and investment

Most CSPs look for quick-hit ROI from GenAI; there is still hesitancy to commit to larger-scope AI initiatives that require significant upfront investment

Leading CSPs are all dabbling with GenAI, with some use cases already commercially scaling, especially in customer care and BSS.

CFOs at some leading CSPs are getting directly involved in AI programs to give visibility to these initiatives and ensure they are paying off, looking for quick ROI.

So far, CSP managers like what they are seeing and are hopeful about the prospects of AI delivering significant outcomes, but this hope has yet to translate to large-scale investments tied to broad transformations. Rather, CSPs are focused on more tactical, smaller-scope solutions that address specific pain points or that promise fast ROI.

TBR believes it will take some time for most CSPs to evolve this investment behavior, but some other considerations also need to be factored into the equation, such as uncertainty about governance, regulation and data efficacy. For example, AI’s effectiveness correlates closely with the volume and quality of the data input into the model. The reality is that data inside CSP organizations are usually highly disaggregated in silos and on legacy systems, which poses a major challenge to undergoing large-scale AI transformations.

Realizing the $170 billion total opportunity TBR estimates AI presents the telecom industry by 2030 requires CSPs to act differently

AI presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the telecom industry to achieve two key objectives: generate new revenue and reduce costs.

However, there is real risk that most CSPs globally will miss out on the AI opportunity due to cultural (behavioral) and regulatory encumbrances, such as long decision cycles, an unwillingness to invest what it takes to win and general risk aversion. These encumbrances, which are endemic to the telecom industry, have resulted in CSPs largely missing out on every major opportunity in the last two decades (e.g., cloud computing opportunity, video streaming opportunity, digital advertising opportunity), many of which were won by the hyperscalers that were willing and able to take these risks.

Though leading CSPs have been investing in AI, TBR notes that most of these investments seem to be myopically focused on quick-hit wins, which is acceptable in the short term, but true opportunity capture will be contingent on broader-scope initiatives, coupled with upfront investment.

CSPs cannot afford to miss out on another opportunity, especially one that has such transformational qualities as AI. Getting AI right should be of paramount concern to CSPs, as competitors that transform with AI may obtain unapproachable differentiation compared to CSPs that do not invest in AI. Said differently, CSPs that do not get AI right may not be competitive anymore, leading to longer-term questions about their viability.

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CFOs need to evangelize AI across their organizations to seize this critical opportunity. True digital transformation with AI will require significant upfront investment, and the payoff of some investments take a longer time to realize than others. CFOs need to balance investment levels with outcomes, but more support is needed from the top to approach AI in a broader manner.

TBR notes that of the $170 billion CSP AI opportunity by 2030, an estimated 50% is likely to be realized in APAC, where there are many CSPs aiming to take a leadership role in the AI market. The lack of domestic hyperscalers (outside of the U.S. and China) and government desire to have sovereignty over technologies of national importance gives CSPs an opportunity to fill in the gaps in the market. China-based CSPs are already diving headfirst into the AI opportunity, and they are likely to generate billions of dollars in new revenue and save billions of dollars in costs from AI by 2030.

Telcos have a data usability problem, which could slow the pace of AI adoption in their businesses; addressing this issue requires significant additional investment

CSPs have a data preparedness problem, which is an underestimated issue and will be costly to rectify

The efficacy of and value provided by AI are contingent on the quality, type and volume of data the AI model is trained on. It is therefore imperative that CSPs ensure their data is ready for AI and that the data is managed and governed in a sustainable way. This is especially pertinent now that GenAI can train on a broad range of structured and unstructured data.

The reality is that CSPs’ data does not reside in one data lake. Rather, it is highly disaggregated and siloed across the organization and, in some cases, may be incomplete. There are also restrictions (e.g., regulatory, privacy) and security considerations around certain types of data, which hinder the utility and accessibility of the data, creating another major challenge that companies will have to address before they can appropriately leverage AI.

Individual CSPs have access to petabytes of data, but most of this data resides in legacy systems and/or is subject to other restrictions, creating challenges around pooling and preparing the data to be leveraged for AI.

To rectify this issue, CSPs will need to clean up their technical debt and assemble their data in a single, unified platform. This horizontal data layer will be required to run and realize AI-driven outcomes at scale. Most CSPs will likely need assistance with this task, opening up opportunities for the vendor community.

Addressing this issue will also require significant investment and human resources, and TBR believes CSPs that are in the initial stages of their GenAI initiatives have underestimated or overlooked the problem.

TBR believes this issue could extend CSPs’ timelines for AI commercialization. Vendors and hyperscalers will try to mitigate the data issue by training AI models on their own datasets, which could also be fed by partners’ data, but there is a risk that this will not be sufficient and that AI models will need to be tuned to a specific CSP’s needs to realize desired outcomes. TBR also believes it will be common for stakeholders in the telecom ecosystem to be protectionist regarding their data, not wanting to (or being able to) share their data for fear of regulatory reprisals and a nullification of competitive advantages.

Sovereign cloud requirements have the potential to be a meaningful revenue driver for CSPs in select regions and countries

Countries (e.g., China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, South Korea) and alliance entities (e.g., NATO) that are more impacted by geopolitics and/or have strong data privacy rules and regulations (e.g., European Union [EU] member countries) are looking into establishing national AI infrastructure (e.g., data centers), also referred to as sovereign cloud.

Sovereign clouds would theoretically be set up and managed by domestic players for national security reasons and could be an area of opportunity for CSPs that reside in those countries or regions, whereby the CSP might host the cloud and provide some value-added services to manage those environments on behalf of the government and related entities.

However, TBR ultimately believes it is more likely that U.S. hyperscalers will participate in some way in the AI value chain for most countries given the broad scope of their involvement and dominance in the global AI ecosystem, despite intentions for national sovereignty. This includes CSPs partnering with hyperscalers to jointly develop, operate and manage cloud resources in-country, as evidenced by Orange’s use of Microsoft’s cloud and AI technology for its sovereign cloud joint venture with Capgemini (called Bleu) in France.

TBR estimates the potential annual AI-related opportunity for CSPs will reach $170B by 2030, approximately 53% of which is new revenue and 47% is cost efficiencies

CSPs have been largely sidelined from the new revenue opportunity presented by AI since the emergence of GenAI in 4Q22, but this is starting to change, evidenced by significant deals won by Lumen and Zayo to provide transport between data centers for AI workloads. There are also some green shoots of demand for hyperscalers to leverage CSPs’ network facilities (e.g., wire centers and central offices) and other real estate assets to colocate AI infrastructure closer to end users, as evidenced by efforts being made by Verizon and AT&T.

All CSPs that are investing in AI currently expect to reap cost efficiencies from the technology. The new revenue opportunity is more nuanced and is CSP- and market- specific in nature. APAC-based CSPs are likely to be the largest beneficiaries of new revenue from AI due to government protections, stimulus and cultural orientations toward early adoption of emerging technologies.

Total Annual Potential Value of AI to CSPs by 2030 (Source: TBR)

IT Infrastructure Market Forecast

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Organizations will continue to prioritize spending on AI infrastructure

Growth drivers

  • Investment in, renewed focus on and adoption of enterprise AI are increasing demand for high-performing infrastructure.
  • Private and hybrid cloud deployments increase demand for hyperconverged infrastructure form factors.
  • Organizations are prioritizing investments in denser and more energy-efficient infrastructure solutions to make way for AI.
  • Edge deployments are creating new-new workload opportunities for OEMs.

Growth inhibitors

  • The enterprise and SMB spend environment remains cautious and fragile as trade wars erupt.
  • ODMs are largely capturing cloud growth as they produce low-cost, custom, commoditized hardware for hyperscalers.
  • Commodity hardware and the popularity of software-defined infrastructure reduce OEMs’ pricing power.
  • Heightened demand for InfiniBand threatens traditional Ethernet-based networking solutions providers.

 

IT Infrastructure Market Forecast for 2024-2029 (Source: TBR)


 

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TBR predicts that the top 5 covered IT infrastructure OEMs will achieve double-digit revenue growth from 2024 to 2029 but their respective market shares will decline

IT Infrastructure Market Share for 2024 and 2029 (Source: TBR)


 

Despite shipping over $11B in Blackwell products in 4Q24, NVIDIA is racing to increase production to meet the market’s seemingly insatiable demand for AI servers

Within the OEM market, AI server demand continues to be driven primarily by services providers and model builders, but sovereigns are showing increased interest in OEMs’ AI infrastructure solutions, presenting the OEMs with a major opportunity. Additionally, although enterprise demand for on-premises deployments of AI infrastructure remains soft, especially for the most powerful and thereby highest-revenue-generating systems, the industry expects enterprise AI demand will accelerate throughout 2025 and 2026 as customers pursuing tailored AI solutions increasingly transition from the prototyping phase to the deployment phase.

TBR predicts Dell will lead covered vendors in terms of storage revenue growth due in part to increased attached sales opportunities associated with the company’s growing server business

Key takeaways

TBR forecasts the storage market will grow at a 13.4% CAGR from 2024 to 2029 as organizations across a variety of industries invest in modernizing and hybridizing their storage estates to support current and future workloads, including those related to AI. Organizations’ data volumes will continue to grow over the next five years as the rise of AI further underscores the value behind organizations’ proprietary data.

 

The storage market typically lags trends in the traditional server market, as is presently the case. However, as organizations increasingly transition from prototyping to deploying AI solutions, data management and orchestration has risen toward the top of key customer pain points. Recognizing this, storage OEMs are selling customers on the capabilities of their storage platforms, comprising software, adjacent services and sometimes hardware. Additionally, storage OEMs are forming partnerships with hyperscalers and other ecosystem players, like NVIDIA, to have their storage solutions validated and certified for operability and AI system reference architectures. TBR believes Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) are well positioned for growth in storage over the next five years due to their strong data management capabilities and increased opportunities around attaching storage sales to server deals.

 

In 2024 TBR estimates Lenovo overtook NetApp for the third-largest storage market share among covered vendors. The storage market has become more of a priority for Lenovo in recent years due to the segment’s higher margins, evidenced by the company’s recently announced acquisition of Infinidat. TBR forecasts NetApp will outperform Lenovo in five-year storage revenue CAGR, but Lenovo will retain its positioning in the market among covered vendors.

 

Storage Revenues and Market Share of Top 5 Vendors for 2024 and 2029 (Source: TBR)

 

IT infrastructure OEMs are expanding manufacturing capabilities in Saudi Arabia

EMEA market changes and vendor activities

Relative to the U.S., European economies have had more difficulty recovering from the pandemic; however, looking ahead to 2029, TBR forecasts covered vendors’ IT infrastructure revenue derived from the EMEA region will grow at a 12.9% CAGR due in large part to AI. While the EMEA market pales in comparison to that of the Americas, TBR believes the region’s strong growth will be driven both by rising AI adoption — especially among sovereigns — as well as rapidly increasing technology and infrastructure investments in countries like Saudi Arabia.

 

TBR believes HPE is among the best-positioned covered vendors in the EMEA geography. Sovereigns in the region already have a strong working relationship with HPE due to their legacy investments in high-performance computing based on Cray systems, and the company has made some of the strongest commitments among covered vendors to develop infrastructure manufacturing capacity in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East.

AI & GenAI Model Provider Market Landscape

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Interest in AI capabilities has not waned as enterprises view the technology as critical to long-term competitive positioning

The buzz around GenAI persists as enterprise interest is leading to adoption. Yet it is still early days, and many enterprises remain in exploration mode. Some use cases, such as data management, customer service, administrative tasks and software development, have already moved from the proof-of-concept stage to production. Still, the exploration phase of AI adoption will be a slow burn as enterprises seek opportunities beyond these low-hanging fruit. As seen in the graph to the right, most enterprises are evaluating AI qualitatively, forgoing quantitative measures to keep up with peers based upon the assumption that the technology will bring transformational improvement to business operations.

 

Source: TBR 2H24

Reasoning models excel at performing complex, deterministic tasks, and have become the most popular models at the back end of agentic AI

The capability improvement brought by the iterative inferencing process has made reasoning models the focal point of frontier model research. In fact, most of the models sitting atop established third-party benchmarks are reasoning models, except for OpenAI’s GPT-4.5, which the company stated would be its last nonreasoning LLM. Put simply, the difference in output quality is too pronounced to ignore, especially regarding complex, deterministic tasks. As seen in the graph, reasoning models outperform their nonreasoning predecessors across the board, with the greatest distinction appearing in coding and math benchmarks. The strength in complex, deterministic tasks makes reasoning models particularly adept at powering agentic AI capabilities, offering a wider range of addressable use cases and greater accuracy. In addition, reasoning frameworks can be leveraged at any parameter count, with available reasoning models ranging from fewer than 10 billion parameters to more than 100 billion.

 

As SaaS vendors continue to build proprietary, domain-specific SLMs [small language models] to power their agentic capabilities, incorporating reasoning frameworks will be an important part of their development strategies. Although the capabilities of reasoning models are impressive, the models bring new challenges and are not necessarily the best choice for every application.

 

Simple content generation and summarization, for instance, do not necessarily require iterative inferencing. Moreover, the greater compute intensity caused by repeated processing at the transformer layer will compound existing challenges to scaling AI adoption. Not only will these models be more expensive to run for the customer, but they will also exacerbate the persistent supply shortages facing cloud infrastructure providers. Microsoft has noted infrastructure constraints as a headwind to AI revenue growth in the past several quarters, and the emerging need for test-time compute adds to these infrastructure demands. As discussed in TBR’s special report, Sheer Scale of GTC 2025 Reaffirms NVIDIA’s Position at the Epicenter of the AI Revolution, NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang stated that reasoning AI consumes 100 times more compute than nonreasoning AI. Of course, this was a highly self-serving statement, as NVIDIA is the leading provider of GPUs powering this compute, but we are dealing with magnitudes of difference. For the use of reasoning models to continue scaling, this high compute intensity will need to be addressed.

 

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SaaS vendors will need to get on board with the new Model Context Protocol to ensure customers can use their model of choice

SaaS vendor strategy assessment

From a strategic positioning perspective, TBR does not expect the rising popularity of the Model Context Protocol to have an outsized impact, primarily because we anticipate all application vendors will adopt the framework to ensure customers can leverage the model of their choice. Furthermore, cloud application vendors are positioned to benefit from the standardization of API calls between models and their workloads. Through a standardized API calling framework, these vendors will be better positioned to drive cost optimization and improve workload management for embedded AI tools.

Recent developments

The Model Context Protocol is becoming the standard: The idea of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) has been steadily gaining popularity following its release by Anthropic in November 2024. At its core, MCP aims to address the emerging challenge of building dedicated API connectors between LLMs and applications by introducing an abstraction layer that standardizes API integrations. This abstraction layer — commonly referred to as the MCP server — would establish a default method for LLM function calling, which software providers would need to incorporate into their applications to access LLMs.

 

This standardization offers several benefits for model vendors, such as eliminating the need to build individual connectors for each service and promoting a modular approach to AI service integration, potentially unlocking long-term advantages in areas such as workload management and cost optimization.

 

For SaaS vendors, there is little reason to resist the shift toward MCP, and its growing popularity may make adoption inevitable. Application vendors like Microsoft and ServiceNow have already begun implementing the protocol by establishing MCP servers for the Copilot suite and Now Assist, respectively, and TBR expects other vendors to follow.

 

It is important to recognize, however, that this approach better suits vendors taking a model-agnostic stance — meaning they aim to empower enterprises to use any LLM to automate agentic capabilities. A possible exception lies with vendors that are less model-agnostic. For instance, Salesforce’s emphasis on proprietary models reduces the need for MCP and favors the company’s focus on native connectors between Customer 360 workflows and xGen models.

 

Ultimately, TBR expects Salesforce to adopt MCP, but there is an important distinction in how different SaaS vendors may approach standardization. Today, the BYOM [bring your own model] philosophy remains a priority for Salesforce, but if the company were to eventually push customers to use its proprietary models exclusively with Customer 360, its commitment to MCP could be deprioritized in favor of tighter customer lock-in.

Google enhances AI capabilities with the launch of Gemini 2.5 Pro, revolutionizing search functionality, healthcare solutions and multimodal content generation

Google remains differentiated in the AI landscape through the deep integration of its proprietary models across a broad product ecosystem, including Search, YouTube, Android and Workspace. Although many competitors focus on niche capabilities or open-source development, Google positions Gemini as a comprehensive, multimodal foundation model designed for widescale consumer and enterprise adoption. Google’s infrastructure, proprietary TPUs (Tensor Processing Units), and access to vast and diverse data sources provide a significant advantage in training and deploying next-generation models. Gemini 2.5 Pro is a testament to this strength, offering the best performance and largest context window available on the market. Although TBR expects the top spot to continue exchanging hands, we believe Google’s models will remain among the frontier leaders for years to come.

OpenAI advances AI development with GPT-4.5, cutting-edge agent tools and a premium ChatGPT Pro subscription to expand capabilities and improve user experiences

OpenAI is the most valuable model developer in the market today, largely due to the company’s success in productizing its models via ChatGPT. The mindshare generated by ChatGPT is benefiting the company’s ability to reach custom enterprise workloads, though OpenAI must be mindful of the widening gap in price to performance relative to peers. From a sheer performance perspective, TBR believes the company’s emphasis on securing compute infrastructure via the Stargate Project, as well as its ongoing partner initiatives to gain access to high-quality training data, will ensure its models remain near the top of established third-party benchmarks over the long term.

ServiceNow Ecosystem Report

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ServiceNow’s evolving value proposition, centered on seamless tech integration and sales alignment, provides a strong backbone in its alliances’ strategy, appealing to client-mindshare-hungry partners

Key trends

The need to unlock data and break down integration barriers between the back, middle and front office is as relevant as ever as customers look to deploy generative AI (GenAI) within their workflows. Acting as an abstraction layer on top of the enterprise system of record (SOR), ServiceNow is in a strong position to message around business transformation and to have more outcome-based conversations with clients, which is aligned with the IT services companies and consultancies’ business models. IT services companies and consultancies that have experience reducing organizations’ technical debt and implementing systems like SAP, Workday and Salesforce are well positioned to use ServiceNow to deliver added value. As evidenced by ServiceNow’s introduction of consumption-based pricing for AI Agents, ServiceNow is focused on selling value as part of its GenAI portfolio, which is certainly in step with the market, though outcome-based pricing may be something for ServiceNow to consider to further align with the global systems integrator (GSI) ecosystem and stay ahead of its growing list of SaaS competitors.

Go-to-market strategy

As ServiceNow continues to grow and pursue new market opportunities, the company is doing a better job of enabling the ecosystem in both sales and delivery. Unlike some of its SaaS peers, ServiceNow is not as established in the market, underscoring a clear need to leverage partners that have the C-Suite relationships, particularly in the line of business (LOB) that can articulate ServiceNow’s value as it exists alongside core enterprise applications. Despite its rapid expansion into more SaaS markets, ServiceNow remains a platform company at its core, but being a true platform company requires an ecosystem that can build on that platform. We suspect the Build motion, where partners sell custom, often industry-specific offerings they develop on the Now Platform, will be an increasingly critical motion, helping ServiceNow capitalize on opportunities.

Vendors

Given the smaller size, ServiceNow is unsurprisingly among the fastest-growing practice area within the GSIs, with average practice-related revenue up 12.9% year-to-year in 4Q24. Several partners have more than $1 billion commitments with ServiceNow, and in early 2025 Infosys and Cognizant joined their competitors in the Global Elite tier of the ServiceNow Partner Program. Cognizant is also the inaugural partner for ServiceNow’s Workflow Data Fabric platform, a key offering that rounds out ServiceNow’s portfolio, offering zero-copy integrations with key platforms, including Google Cloud and Oracle, to feed ServiceNow’s AI Agents. On the technology side, ServiceNow is also strengthening its partnerships with hyperscalers beyond Microsoft, which could unlock new points of engagement for services partners as they start to embrace the multiparty alliance structure. For example, Deloitte is looking at how it can build agents for ServiceNow-specific use cases, with an immediate focus on the front office, on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), while Accenture included ServiceNow on its partner list for the recently announced Trusted Agent Huddle for agent-to-agent interoperability.

Emergence of multipartner networks will test vendors’ trustworthiness and framework transparency

Prioritizing the needs of partners and enterprise buyers over internal growth aspirations will position vendors across the ICT value chain as leading ecosystem participants. It sounds like an idea born in marketing, but positive digital transformation (DT) outcomes will require multiparty business networks that bring together the value propositions of players across the technology value chain. By leading with their core competencies, players can establish needed trust among partners and customers alike, increasing their competitiveness against other players that have spread themselves too thin with aspirations of being end-to-end DT providers.

 

To better understand these approaches, we have identified three back-office ecosystem relationship requirements that guide how the parties work together.

 

TBR Ecosystem Value Chain (Source: TBR)

TBR has identified 4 cloud ecosystem relationship requirements that guide how the parties work together

ServiceNow ecosystem relationship best practices

1.Consider PaaS layer and its role in the SaaS ecosystem: As discussed throughout our research, the value is shifting from “out of the box” to “build your own,” and customers clearly believe building their own custom solutions around a microservices architecture will give their business a competitive advantage. Naturally, we expect ServiceNow wants partners to take the lead in Now Assist delivery, but for the GSIs to see value, GenAI has to actually change the business process.

 

2.Drive awareness through talent development efforts: ServiceNow’s growing portfolio outside the core IT service management (ITSM) space is creating new channel opportunities for services partners to capitalize on, compelling them to invest in training and development programs. Gaining the stamp of approval from a ServiceNow certification program enhances services partners’ value proposition, especially in new areas such as the Creator Workflow and Build portion of the ServiceNow portfolio, which positions them to drive custom application and managed services opportunities. Standing out in a crowded marketplace where services and technology providers vie for each other’s attention will elevate the need to invest in consistent messaging and knowledge management frameworks that elevate buyer trust.

 

3.Prioritize IT modernization ahead of GenAI opportunities and scaling NOW deployment: Some vendors have made GenAI capabilities available only to cloud-deployed back-office suites, meaning customers still on legacy systems must first migrate to the cloud before they can adopt the emerging technology. Partners must account for this modernization prerequisite by prioritizing traditional migration services through broader programs like RISE with SAP if they hope to pursue new opportunities over the long term. Reducing legacy technical debt will also free up resources, both human and financial, which will allow for broader ServiceNow portfolio adoption.

 

4.Set up outcome-based commercial models to scale adoption across emerging areas and protect against new contenders: Aligning commercial, pricing and incentive models that resonate with buyer priorities and achieving business outcomes can allow partners to expand addressable market opportunities, especially as scaling GenAI adoption necessitates greater trust in the portfolio offerings. ServiceNow’s consumption-based model provides a short-term hedge against potential tech partner disruptors, which may take on the risk to offer similar solutions but are able to better align with services partners’ messaging through the use of outcome-based pricing.

 

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Acting as an abstraction layer, ServiceNow has a unique opportunity to further expand into the back office to address integration pain points but risks further overlapping with its SOR peers

ServiceNow positions as system of action to expose gaps in core system of record

Existing as a platform layer that orchestrates and integrates workflows, ServiceNow has long been able to successfully enter new markets without encountering a lot of head-to-head competition. But this is changing as ServiceNow, a $10-plus billion company, continues to drive traction with the LOB buyer by challenging a lot of the fragmentation that exists within front- and back-office systems. Over the past several quarters, ServiceNow has continued to launch new products in areas like talent management, finance and supply chain. One of the company’s biggest moves was in the front office with the launch of Sales & Order Management (SOM), giving customers the ability to use CPQ (configure, price, quote) and guided selling in a single product. Though ServiceNow famously integrates with all of the systems of record, these new innovations could pose a risk to the likes of SAP, Workday and Salesforce, which perhaps do not have the platform capabilities to build custom processes that can be tied back to the workflow, at least in a truly modern way. To be clear, ServiceNow is not interested in being a core CRM, ERP or human capital management (HCM) provider, and today acts as a service delivery system. But having customers store their data in the service delivery layer, as opposed to the core system of record so they can use that data against a specific workflow, is how ServiceNow aims to position as a “system of action.”

DXC Technology’s ServiceNow Ecosystem Strategy in Review

TBR assessment

DXC Technology has an established history and deep expertise within the ServiceNow ecosystem, with a partnership spanning more than 15 years, a talent pool of over 1,800 ServiceNow experts, and a track record of more than 7,200 global implementations with over 350 instances managed worldwide, all of which position the company as a mature and experienced service provider for ServiceNow. Notable client wins, such as with the city of Milan (medical supply delivery during a crisis), Nordex Group (workplace safety management) and Swiss Federal Railways (unified customer inquiry management) underscore DXC’s ability to leverage the partnership to address diverse and critical business challenges across different industries and sectors. These successes highlight DXC’s capacity to translate its deep ServiceNow knowledge and implementation capabilities into tangible business value for its clients, suggesting a well-established and impactful ServiceNow practice.

Strategic portfolio offering

Through a strategic alliance with ServiceNow and bolstered by a dedicated global business group and acquisitions such as Syscom AS, TESM, BusinessNow and Logicalis SMC, DXC delivers a comprehensive range of ServiceNow-focused solutions. This approach enables DXC to digitize processes, enhance user experiences, and transform service management across the full ServiceNow platform, driving business innovation at scale, including specialized solutions such as those for the insurance industry, where DXC has had core competencies and long-lasting customer relationships. DXC’s offerings span enterprise applications transformation, security solutions, and compute and data center modernization, all designed to maximize client efficiency and agility utilizing the ServiceNow platform. The establishment of a new Center of Excellence in Virginia in November 2024, combining DXC’s industry strengths with ServiceNow’s solutions, further solidifies the two companies’ commitment to streamlining AI adoption and delivering cutting-edge solutions.

 

DXC Technology’s ServiceNow Ecosystem Strategy in Review (Source: TBR ServiceNow Ecosystem Report)