TBR’s Business Insights

Skills Shortage Will Challenge the Scaling of Sovereign AI in 2026

02.20.26

AI-related skills will remain scarce across both buyers and ecosystem partners as the rapid pace of innovation and the technical complexity required to enable sovereign AI continue to hinder adoption. These challenges, combined with a lack of clearly defined and compliant use cases among sovereign customers, gaps in sovereign cloud infrastructure availability and steep AI learning curve faced by ecosystem partners, will constrain meaningful investment and implementation of sovereign AI throughout 2026.

PaaS Revenue Will Outpace SaaS Revenue for Cloud Software Vendors

02.17.26

Enterprise customers are prioritizing the modernization of their existing SaaS estates rather than adding new applications, driven by market saturation, accumulated technical debt, and a growing imperative to become AI-ready. As IT buyers shift their focus toward modern platforms, traditional SaaS leaders should expect their PaaS segments to continue significantly outperforming their core SaaS businesses in revenue growth.

Dee Angela, Canva Pro

Alliances Will Extend Beyond Core Offerings as AI-driven Sales and Marketing Reshape Ecosystems

02.12.26

IT services companies have their limits, and clients have preferred technology vendors, leading IT services companies to look to alliances to drive new growth. We have seen this pattern before, but in 2026 we will see IT services companies extend those alliances into devices, connectivity and even silicon, requiring a multiparty alliance approach that will strain commercial models, sales strategies and alliance leaders across the ecosystem.

Consulting Will Rebound in 2026

02.10.26

After a period of relative softness, consulting revenues are expected to rebound to high-single- or low-double-digit growth as pervasive uncertainty pushes enterprises to seek external guidance. Demand will be particularly strong around risk mitigation, strategic planning and AI adoption, positioning forward-deployed engineers, supply chain management and people advisory services as leading revenue drivers in 2026.

Bad Debt Expenses Will Rise for CSPs in 2026

02.06.26

In a K-shaped economy that increasingly separates financial winners from losers, the majority of households and businesses on the lower arm of the “K” are under mounting financial strain and are finding it more difficult to pay their bills. As these economic pressures persist, communications service providers (CSPs) should expect bad debt expenses to continue rising, with the potential to meet, or even exceed, levels experienced during the Great Recession.

How Will Advanced AI Impact Pricing, Labor Practices and Client Expectations?

02.05.26

Advanced AI may be front and center in IT services strategy, but execution challenges remain a familiar story. Despite ongoing hype around unlocking new efficiencies and nonlinear growth, IT services firms continue to grapple with the reality of needing labor arbitrage in the short term and meeting client expectations.

Gustavo Quiroga Gaitan, Canva Pro

AI Alliances Will Increasingly Target OT

02.03.26

New and expanding partnerships are increasingly targeting the convergence of IT and OT, as system integrators (SIs) align with OEMs, manufacturing ISVs and silicon providers. This momentum is driven by the strong growth potential in high-tech manufacturing, where solutions that improve accuracy, efficiency and safety can be deployed on-site without reliance on rack-scale compute systems in neoclouds or Tier 1 clouds. As a result, while AI has long operated at the edge, these partnerships will accelerate both the sophistication of AI-driven use cases and the pace of solution framework development.

Agentic AI Adoption Is Pressuring Security Architectures to Converge

01.29.26

The emerging pattern of multicloud security consolidation has direct implications for both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft, as enterprises reassess detection pipelines, governance models and operating frameworks heading into 2026. Although AWS remains well positioned in analytics-heavy workloads, the company needs to reevaluate its long-established “building block” approach, especially as peers deliver more integrated platforms. For Microsoft, its strengths will continue to be with organizations where Microsoft 365 already anchors their identity and collaboration strategies.

Saitharn, Getty Images via Canva Pro

The U.S. doesn’t have a Spectrum Shortage — It has a Utilization Problem

01.13.26

The mobile industry continues to beat the drum for more spectrum, but it should instead focus on fully utilizing the spectrum already allocated. TBR notes there are vast tranches of spectrum in the U.S. market that are broadly underutilized, either for technical or economic reasons. And challenges will only worsen as the industry aims to bring upper midband frequencies into the fray, which have greater propagation challenges and are less suited for macro coverage.

Previous Next

Our most-read analysis, free in your inbox each week!

Fill out the form to the right to subscribe to Insights Flight today

Ensuring Competitive & Market Intelligence Models Suit Your Needs

02.24.23/by admin

There’s no one playbook or set of “hacks” that can help you build models that are actionable for addressing your business challenges. For that, only collaboration and iteration (read: hard work) will do. However, there are a number of key success factors that we believe can help ensure that a CI/MI.

The Top Metrics You Should Be Modeling In Competitive/Market Intelligence (CI/MI)

02.23.23/by admin

TBR dives into the top categories of metrics and specific metrics that we typically see as part of a foundational CI/MI modeling program

How To Build Trust In Financial Model(ing)

02.22.23/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

A model is only as valuable as the validation, sourcing and trust that underly the numbers. In other parts of this series, we’ve talked about what a financial model is and how it can be used, but none of those things matter without trust in the data. At TBR, this fact plays into every step of working with clients on financial modeling engagements: upfront, during the modeling process, and in the final delivery of the models and our recommendations based on them. Here are some of the techniques we recommend for building trust in your financial models.

Blog series: Gimme 3 Insight Interviews with TBR's Subject-matter Experts

Technology Business Research, Inc.

IBM makes smart IT services play in the U.S. federal sector IT services space

02.17.23/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

This month Patrick chats with Senior Analyst John Caucis, lead author of TBR’s Federal IT Services Benchmark, and Senior Analyst Elitsa Bakalova, who leads TBR’s coverage of IBM, about IBM’s investments in serving the U.S. federal IT market.

PwC offers rosy outlook for Middle East economies in 2023

02.03.23/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

PwC recently expressed optimism in the Middle East regarding macroeconomic trends, the challenges local companies face and what is needed from the region to be more competitive globally.

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Landscape Shifts In Management Consulting Require Consulting Firms To Change Their Approach

01.30.23/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Learn which ongoing landscape shifts within the management consulting space have pushed firms to re-evaluate business structures and portfolio offerings

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Industrial IoT (IIoT) – Challenges in the marketplace

12.07.22/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Learn why IT services vendors and consultancies must make smart choices around IP and ecosystems in industrial IoT (IIoT)

What’s next for Lockheed Martin after being left out of ABMS consortium?

11.28.22/by James Wichert, Analyst

Notably, Lockheed Martin was left out of the ABMS Digital Infrastructure Consortium, despite ramping up its efforts to underpin the DOD’s JADC2 vision.

Special Report: TBR 2023 Digital Transformation Predictions

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Top 3 Predictions for Digital Transformation (DT) in 2023

11.21.22/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

TBR starts off 2023 with 3 predictions surrounding Digital Transformation. The report includes commentary revolving around Metaverse, AI and how hyperscalers will kill technology agnosticism.

Special Report: TBR 2023 Professional Services Predictions

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Top 3 Predictions for Professional Services (IT Services Vendors) in 2023

11.21.22/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Many IT services vendors and consultancies are reconstituting in new forms, bringing some chaos to the digital transformation landscape and upending alliances in 2023. TBR discusses this and more in our Top 3 Predictions for Professional Services in 2023 report.

Free Data & Analysis

Subscribe to Insights Flight today!