TBR’s Business Insights

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.

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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Russia-Ukraine war: Is Saudi Arabia’s consideration of the yuan the camel’s nose under the tent of U.S. economic sanctions policy?

03.31.22/by admin

As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, analysts monitoring the war’s global repercussions have also noted Saudi Arabia intriguingly stating the kingdom would consider accepting yuan payments for oil sold to China.

Russia-Ukraine war: 3 factors critical to IT services vendors and consultancies

03.28.22/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Expecting little change but some opportunities in the near term In the near term, ceased or slowed operations in Russia and Belarus will not significantly affect the revenues or strategic directions of most IT services vendors and management consultancies. Firms will stay clear of Russia, understanding any lost revenues will be well worth forgoing to […]

Atos: Digital twin enables decarbonization

03.24.22/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

At scale, digital twin is a sustainability play “Digital twin is a decarbonization enabler” and in the next five years “people will generate carbon credits out of digital twin.” Sandeep Bhan, Atos’ global senior expert on digital twin made those assertions at the end of a LinkedIn webinar today in response to TBR’s question about […]

Inflation, cybersecurity and taxes: PwC’s update from Dubai

03.10.22/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

What happens in Dubai … well, happens everywhere On March 1, PwC Dubai hosted a LinkedIn webcast, “Transforming Our Region,” featuring commentary by Stephen Anderson, PwC Middle East markets leader; Richard Boxshall, PwC chief economist for the region; and Hanan Abboud, a partner in PwC’s International Tax & M&A practice. This latest episode of the […]

Capgemini aims for growth in digital marketing services

03.10.22/by Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

Building regional capabilities through acquisitions to disrupt the APAC market In TBR’s most recent Digital Transformation: Digital Marketing Services Benchmark, my colleague Boz Hristov examined trends across different regions and wrote, “While regional nuances … compel vendors to build local resources to ensure they can tailor culturally aligned campaigns, the evolving nature of the DMS […]

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 […]

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