TBR’s Business Insights

Shutdown Ends, but Federal Contractors Face a Slow Return to Normal

12.17.25

The 43-day U.S. federal government shutdown, the longest in history, came to a welcome end on Nov. 13, 2025, but for some federal systems integrators (FSIs), the shutdown’s impact could linger well into federal fiscal year 2026 (FFY26). According to the Professional Services Council, the national trade association for federal technology and professional services contractors, it will take three to five days for agency functions to return to normal for each day of the shutdown, implying that operations at some agencies may not return to normal until March 2026.

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Partnerships, Not Products, Will Define How Consultancies and Native AI Companies Share Value in Agentic AI Era

11.03.25

Just like supporting startup programs, many traditional IT services companies and consultancies have struggled to adequately put themselves in their alliance partners’ shoes. And when those partners are startups or immature native AI companies, that struggle will be harder in the absence of leadership, strategic direction and sustained investment. But that’s the potential downside. The upside is that consultancies are perfectly positioned to be change management specialists, helping their largest clients adopt the best new AI.

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Human Capital Management in the Age of (Agentic) AI

10.07.25

Fundamentally HR management remains a back-office function that IT services companies and consultancies can use to drive managed services engagements. And TBR’s research shows that managed services can lead to additional consulting opportunities, particularly when managed services providers (whether a traditional IT services company or consultancy) partners smartly with technology companies, leveraging the data and insights generated through back-office platforms to uncover issues and opportunities.

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GenAI Outcomes or Autonomous AI Architecture: Where Should CIOs Focus?

10.01.25

What good are AI-enabled solutions if an enterprise’s IT environment and architecture can’t handle the data orchestration demands and IT becomes a roadblock to faster, better, clearer insights from AI, rather than the business accelerator expected of IT departments in the AI era? After more than a decade of consultancies and IT services companies helping IT departments become business drivers, will inadequate architecture slow down AI adoption and AI agents at scale?

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Amdocs Is Well Positioned to Continue Absorbing Market Share in the Telecom Industry; AI Is a Key Growth Vector

09.24.25

Although TBR believes it is very early days for agentic AI branding, Amdocs’ early foray into this emerging area and thought leadership underscore how the company is seeking to move into new and adjacent areas as it expands its offerings, especially around consulting, design and transformation enablement.

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HCLTech’s Expanding KYC Journey: From Technology Provider to Trusted Compliance Partner

09.11.25

By evolving its KYC offerings across platforms and clients, HCLTech has shifted from tech implementer to outcomes-driven partner.

DOGE drives civil sector slowdown; defense contractors gear up as Trump’s budget shifts billions to military priorities

08.04.25

The Trump administration’s recent “skinny” budget proposal for FFY26 suggests that nondefense spending will fall from around $720 billion in FFY25 to approximately $557 billion in FFY26, representing a 23% decline. Contractors with any level of exposure to the civilian sector can expect agency reorganizations, layoffs, budget reductions and in-depth contract reviews within civil agencies for the remainder of FFY25 and likely into at least the first half of FFY26. The pace of new awards has already slowed significantly at some civilian agencies, as has the rate of new bookings on existing civilian engagements.

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Geopolitics with Purpose: EY-Parthenon Drives Strategy, Not Just Awareness

07.17.25

TBR has long maintained that the Big Four firms have an inherent advantage against all competitors when it comes to understanding and advising on geopolitical risk. Perhaps only the U.S. government has the same global spread of talent, with professionals in nearly every country, most intimately aware of local business, economic and even political trends. When EY-Parthenon showed off its Geopolitical Advisory team recently, TBR wanted to know: Is this something special?

Manufacturing Growth Slows, But EMEA IT Services Vendors Find Lifeline in Public Sector Wins

07.16.25

This quarter, we look at Accenture, Atos, Capgemini and IBM Consulting in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) market, and compare how their industry diversification, portfolios and localization strategies position them for revenue growth. Atos and Capgemini, the two IT services companies whose EMEA revenue makes up over half of total revenue, experienced a steady decline in trailing 12-month (TTM) year-to-year revenue growth in recent quarters. Yet, Accenture and IBM were better able to maintain growth as macroeconomic conditions deteriorated in recent quarters.

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Inflation’s Effect on SaaS & ITO Operating Models – An Update

02.28.22/by Kevin Collupy, Senior Analyst

Who today has experienced a long-term economic inflationary period? Inflation is very much in the U.S. news as it reaches 40-year highs. This means a person has to be near the end of their professional careers to have experienced the previous inflationary period. One of the authors dimly recalls his economics professors trying to parse […]

2H21 Hyperscaler Digital Ecosystem Market Landscape infographic

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Hyperscalers’ cloud-based modern network architecture provides strategic advantage over legacy network technologies

02.14.22/by Chris Antlitz, Principal Analyst

Hyperscaler-built networks will look very different from traditional networks Hyperscalers are building end-to-end networks that embody all the attributes and characteristics coveted by communication service providers (CSPs) as part of their digital transformations. The most significant differences are in the software stack and the access layer, where new technologies enable hyperscalers to build dense mesh […]

Amid a sea of portfolio offerings, Accenture’s TS&A practice helps the company translate tech into business outcomes

02.01.22/by Bozhidar Hristov, Principal Analyst

Accenture’s TS&A practice provides path into re-architecting clients’ DT programs Accenture’s value proposition continues to revolve around the company’s ability to deliver services through integrated scale, addressing clients’ pain points across the various stages of the advise-build-run life cycle. In mid-December TBR had a chance to hear from the leaders of Accenture’s Technology Strategy and […]

Will the quantum computing investment summer of 2021 continue?

01.24.22/by TBR

Volume of information being released around quantum initiatives leads TBR to believe the so-called quantum winter has passed Last year the demand for agile solutions to persistent global challenges helped raise awareness of quantum computing’s potential. Investors took notice, as the quantum computing industry saw unprecedented backing from investors and progress in alliances around innovation, […]

Business ecosystems must invest in massive supply chain pivots

01.05.22/by admin

COVID-19 supply chain impact COVID-19 laid bare the underinvestment in contingency capabilities during the decades-long pursuit of cost optimization. In short, business leaders assumed a certain status quo in business continuity and did not leave sufficient capital tied up in unfinished inventory to provide necessary buffers in supply chain efficiency. Firms had over-rotated on optimization […]

Informatica returns to the public market with an emphasis on data democratization and hyperscale partnerships

11.29.21/by Catie Merrill, Senior Analyst

Informatica’s fall 2021 launch, which consisted of a new cloud-native marketplace, automated data quality features and new data scanners, comes alongside the company’s return to the market in an $840 million IPO. The announces offerings, from new services to partner integrations, largely complement the Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) platform — the key announcement at […]

Big Blue and big government: Enhancing security and co-innovation operations improves IBM’s chances in the U.S. public sector

11.15.21/by Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

IBM is strengthening public sector resources in the U.S. to capture modernization opportunities While the public sector accounts for less than 10% of IBM’s revenue, in TBR’s estimates, IBM is expanding resources in the U.S. to ramp up activities. IBM developed its delivery capabilities for the U.S. federal sector by establishing the IBM Center for […]

Lenovo Turnkey Solutions: How Lenovo’s art of the practical enables clients to practice the art of the possible

10.19.21/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

New offerings built on a smart long-term strategy In advance of Lenovo’s Oct. 18 announcement of Lenovo Turnkey Solutions, executives with the company’s Industry Solutions group briefed TBR on elements of the new offering. In building the turnkey solutions, executives emphasized Lenovo’s continued focus in three critical areas: simplicity, core competencies and smart partnering. Keeping […]

Opportunities for IT services abounding in a resurgent APAC market

10.08.21/by Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

In the most recent edition of the quarterly IT Services Vendor Benchmark, which published Oct. 7, TBR analysts took a deep dive into services vendors’ performance in APAC over the last few quarters, noting trends and anticipating how the market would react to easing pandemic restrictions and new investments in people and capabilities. The following […]

Technology Business Research, Inc.

CSP demand for 5G infrastructure is expected to remain robust for at least the next few years

10.07.21/by Steve Vachon, Senior Analyst

Key Insights Traditional RAN will remain the predominant architecture through 2025. Open vRAN will take time to mature and go mainstream. Mobile broadband (MBB) and fixed wireless access (FWA) will remain primary use cases for 5G; government and enterprise pursuit of digital transformation wil drive other use cases. APAC will lead the world in 5G […]

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