TBR Talks: Decoding Strategies and Ecosystems of the Globe’s Top Tech Firms
Join TBR Principal Analyst Patrick Heffernan each week as he chats with special guests on disruptions in the broader technology ecosystem and answers key intelligence questions TBR analysts hear from executive and business unit leaders in the globe’s top IT professional services firms, IT vendors, and telecom vendors and operators.
TBR Talks features current market, competitive and intelligence insights to help you make timely and actionable business and financial decisions. Past guests include PwC Managing Director and Global Lead of Analyst Relations Rob Donnelly, Principal and Head of Strategy and Investments for KPMG Advisory Kevin Bolen, Astadia CEO Scott Silk, and many of TBR’s top subject-matter experts.
Season 4 Featured Guest
AI in Strategy and Geopolitics at BCG Henderson Institute
In this episode of “TBR Talks,” Senior Director David Martinez shares his point of view on key topics covered by his BCG Henderson Institute team, particularly regarding geopolitics and artificial intelligence. The BCG Henderson Institute is an internal think tank at Boston Consulting Group.
David Zuluaga Martínez is a Senior Director at the Geopolitics & Society Lab, based in BCG’s Brooklyn office. Prior to his current role, David was a partner affiliated with BCG’s Public Sector practice. Previously, as an Alum Ambassador at the Tech & Biz Lab (2023-2024), he co-authored research on generative AI and, as an Alum Ambassador at the Strategy Lab (2021), on business resilience amid the COVID-19 pandemic and collective business action to address climate change. Since joining BCG in 2018, David has worked on strategy, operations and technology projects primarily for social impact and public sector organizations. His recent engagements include designing and operating an emergency food assistance program during the COVID-19 pandemic for one of the largest U.S. cities, leading the assessment of COVID’s economic impact for a large U.S. state, and conducting a strategic review of the procurement division of a large U.S. state. Prior to BCG David completed a PhD. in political theory at Princeton University.
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“When you’re working with a client, the role of trust, the role of conversation, the importance of being able to persuade someone and being persuaded in turn … they might seem soft and fluffy components of the value proposition. Sure, that’s because we often don’t have to spell them out because there has been no alternative to the human delivery of, you know, the insight, the strategy and whatnot. But once you have a non-human alternative for the delivery of exactly that content, you start realizing that there were these other features that are just as important to the full package, to the whole value proposition, that are not nearly as easily replaceable, and that’s not a function of technological capabilities. It’s a function of the kind of entity that a piece of technology is, namely, not a human.” — David Martinez, Senior Director at the BCG Henderson Institute’s Geopolitics and Society Lab
Listener Favorites
Building an Analyst Relations Team
SoftwareOne Global Head of Industry Analyst Relations Dr. Jochen Wolf joins TBR for a discussion on developing a successful career in analyst relations and building an effective analyst relations team. Jochen shares his perspective on how to support executives, sales, partners and the broader market for today’s AR professionals and provides realistic insights into an often overlooked, yet critical role within the technology ecosystem.
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The Secret World of Analyst Relations
Rob Donnelly, Managing Director, Global Lead: Analyst Relations for PwC, shares his insights into the evolving role of analyst firms and analyst relations. Rob also gives his viewpoint on how both can help each other win in an increasingly competitive landscape.
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The Coming Telco Reckoning: 5G ROI, AI/GenAI Telco Use Cases & Network APIs
Principal Analyst Chris Antlitz shares key takeaways from TBR’s Telecom team’s meetings with industry leaders at Mobile World Congress 2024. Key topics include AI/generative AI (GenAI) use cases and early wins, network APIs and hyperscalers, as well as noticeably subdued discussions of 5G and 6G and the obvious shortfalls of the type of return on the heavy investments made in that technology.
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Client Retention of IT Services Firms
Principal Analyst Patrick Heffernan and Senior Analyst Boz Hristov discuss key intelligence questions centered on enterprises’ desire to optimize growing IT expenses. Boz dives into the role innovation, GenAI hype and quality control have been playing in contract renewals among the world’s leading consultancies and systems integrators.
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