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Chris Antlitz, Principal Analyst2026-02-06 09:46:502026-01-29 10:40:43Bad Debt Expenses Will Rise for CSPs in 2026You are here: Home1 / Competitive Insights – Analyst Perspectives – TBR2 / Competitive Insights and Analyses Blog
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Chris Antlitz, Principal Analyst
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Chris Antlitz, Principal Analyst2026-02-06 09:46:502026-01-29 10:40:43Bad Debt Expenses Will Rise for CSPs in 2026
How Will Advanced AI Impact Pricing, Labor Practices and Client Expectations?
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 ProAI Alliances Will Increasingly Target OT
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
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 ProThe U.S. doesn’t have a Spectrum Shortage — It has a Utilization Problem
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
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.
Getty Images via Canva ProPartnerships, Not Products, Will Define How Consultancies and Native AI Companies Share Value in Agentic AI Era
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.
Getty Images via Canva ProHuman Capital Management in the Age of (Agentic) AI
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.
Getty Images via Canva ProGenAI Outcomes or Autonomous AI Architecture: Where Should CIOs Focus?
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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DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: Booz Allen Hamilton
/by John Caucis, Senior AnalystThe disruption that has very suddenly overtaken BAH’s civil business has prompted the firm to craft what Rozanski called a “one-time reset” of its civilian operations, including a 7% reduction in global headcount (about 2,500 employees) in 2Q25 that will disproportionately impact BAH’s civilian operations. The decline in civilian award activity has been so abrupt that BAH has not been able to sufficiently redeploy civilian project staff to DOD, IC or commercial sector programs, despite the firm’s expectations that growth will continue in its DOD and IC units in FY26.
GenAI Reshapes IT Services Talent Strategy as Vendors Balance Innovation, Ecosystem Alignment and Economic Headwinds
/by Bozhidar Hristov, Principal AnalystIn the short-to-mid-term, TBR expects generative AI (GenAI)-specific training to become a standard part of an IT services or consulting professional’s basic tool kit, with specialized training around technology partners’ solutions or a company’s own IP and platforms reserved for those professionals dedicated to AI roles. While some may argue every role is an AI role, the near-term reality is that only a select few among the broader professional services talent base will need specialized training, and the associated budgets will decrease in the coming years.
DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: Leidos
/by John Caucis, Senior AnalystIn FY25 Leidos will tout its mission-critical solutions to enhance outcomes quickly, cost-effectively and at scale for federal agencies. Leidos will accelerate efforts to draw closer to its federal clients, emphasizing how they can more effectively utilize the company’s delivery scale and depth of mission expertise to comply with DOGE’s mandates, the overarching IT objectives of the Trump administration and the enduring need to modernize federal technology infrastructures.
DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: CGI Federal
/by John Caucis, Senior AnalystCGI Federal is confident it can adapt to outcome-focused contracting in federal IT but is uncertain how quickly the transition can be completed. CGI Federal has been a perennial margin leader in TBR’s Federal IT Services Benchmark due to its traction with its ever-expanding suite of homespun intellectual property (IP)-based offerings like Sunflower and Momentum, and demand for these offerings will at least endure, but likely increase, under DOGE.
DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: General Dynamics Technologies
/by John Caucis, Senior AnalystGDT is not going to give up on the federal health market or on consulting, but TBR anticipates the vendor will increasingly prioritize defense opportunities in the interim, such as a recently awarded contract worth up to $5.6 billion to manage the DOD’s Mission Partner Environment. The DOD has historically been GDT’s largest client and was responsible for more than 58% of its revenue in 1Q25. While the Trump administration is asking for a 23% reduction in nondefense discretionary funding in its FFY26 budget proposal, it wants to keep the DOD’s discretionary spending roughly on par with the $892.5 billion stopgap for FFY25. GDIT is well positioned to capitalize on the DOD becoming increasingly interested in emerging technologies, given its experience with fixed-price and outcome-based contracting.
DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: IBM Federal
/by John Caucis, Senior AnalystCACI believes demand will remain strong through the remainder of its FY25 and into its FY26 for technologies and capabilities at the core of the company’s portfolio. Uninterrupted sales growth and consistent margin performance indicate CACI’s offerings remain well aligned to the Trump administration’s IT investment priorities, particularly as the new administration prepares to expand investment in cybersecurity, national security and national defense, and advanced space-based communications systems for defense, intelligence and civil applications. CACI executives also noted that the federal budget environment is slowly becoming more constructive and more transparent, a positive harbinger for CACI and its fellow federal IT contractors.
DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: CACI
/by John Caucis, Senior AnalystCACI believes demand will remain strong through the remainder of its FY25 and into its FY26 for technologies and capabilities at the core of the company’s portfolio. Uninterrupted sales growth and consistent margin performance indicate CACI’s offerings remain well aligned to the Trump administration’s IT investment priorities, particularly as the new administration prepares to expand investment in cybersecurity, national security and national defense, and advanced space-based communications systems for defense, intelligence and civil applications. CACI executives also noted that the federal budget environment is slowly becoming more constructive and more transparent, a positive harbinger for CACI and its fellow federal IT contractors.
Trade Wars and the Professional Services Fallout: Talent, Growth and Operational Models in Flux
/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystTrade wars and tariff uncertainties conjure up visions of cargo ships, ports, factories and stacks of goods stranded by economic chaos, not consultants and IT services professionals. Fear, uncertainty and doubt are usually good for the consulting business, while the higher costs of running a business fuel demand for more outsourcing. This time, things might be different. This trade war, even if partially suspended for now, may significantly disrupt professional services, especially if tariffs continue creeping into new areas and the trust deficit continues to grow. Steel now, services later.
Infosys, Cognizant, TCS and Wipro ITS Double Down on Competitive Pricing Strategy While Trying to Enhance Client Engagement
/by Jill CookinhamThis quarter, TBR Fourcast looks at four India-centric vendors — Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro IT Services (ITS) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) — and analyzes how investments in portfolios, training and innovation are positioning them for growth.
5 Key Questions on Big Four Evolution and Strategy
/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystThe Big Four professional services firms — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — have all been undergoing organizational changes in the last couple years. TBR regularly hears five questions about how these firms manage themselves, grow and change. Taking a longitudinal view allows TBR to see that recent restructurings, layoffs and offerings all reflect how these firms are trying to address the following: who gets the best talent, who decides what’s next, who sells, how everyone in a firm knows what everyone else does, and what role will managed services play.