TBR’s Business Insights

Convergence Takes Center Stage as U.S. Telecom Operators Pursue the Next Phase of Growth

08.24.26

The U.S. telecom market is entering a new phase in which convergence, broadband scale, and higher-value connectivity services such as AI infrastructure connectivity are becoming increasingly important competitive differentiators.

A Winning Strategy in IT Services and Consulting

08.21.26

We have voluminous data at TBR, 30-plus years of data and analysis on the largest and leading companies across the technology stack, from McKinsey & Co. to Wipro, from Amazon Web Services to Verizon. Because we publish data and analysis quarterly, looking back one year and forward two to five years, we don’t often take the longitudinal view. Looking at our research since October 2021 (18 months after the start of the pandemic) to today, what can we say about the strategies, business models and investments that have separated leaders from laggards, particularly in the IT services and consulting space?

AI-wrapped IT Modernization Opportunities Will Serve as Both Marketing and Revenue-generating Engines as Infosys Builds Verticalized Use Cases Tied to Outcomes to Expand AI Revenue Share

08.20.26

Infosys’ opportunity is not simply to sell more AI tools but also to use AI as the reason clients modernize applications, clean data, rethink workflows and consolidate vendors. That positioning matters because buyers remain practical: They want productivity, measurable outcomes and lower operating complexity, not another layer of technology hype.

The Paradox of AI Infrastructure: Hyperscalers’ Ambition Collides With the Power Grid and What This Means for Telcos

08.17.26

The AI infrastructure supercycle is entering a new phase. The central question is no longer whether hyperscalers have the capital or appetite to build AI infrastructure but whether the power grid can support what they intend to build.

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Hidden Costs of AI Market Intelligence

07.28.26

The enterprises that succeed will not be those that provide unrestricted AI access to every employee. The winners will build trusted intelligence architectures enabled with proprietary, non-public data and analysis that prevent organizations from paying thousands of times for the same expensive thought. The future of enterprise AI is not simply broader access. It is governed intelligence aligned to enterprise strategy, with CFO approved efficiency. And increasingly, that efficiency may prove more valuable than the AI models themselves.

The Race for Digital Sovereignty: How 4 IT Services Leaders Are Positioned

07.21.26

TBR Fourcast is a quarterly blog series examining and comparing the performance, strategies and industry standing of four IT services companies. The series also highlights standouts and laggards according to TBR’s quarterly revenue projections as well as its geographic and segment estimates. With discussions about sovereignty in Europe only becoming louder, TBR thinks it is worthwhile to examine Atos Group, CGI, Fujitsu and Kyndryl. Our intent is to shine light on these similarly sized companies that have a strong presence in Europe and/or a strong presence in ITO and consulting and to discuss where each company’s opportunity lies.

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Telecom Infrastructure Services Market Expected to Become More Dependent on Hyperscalers and Fiber Technology Deployments

07.02.26

TBR research shows hyperscaler investment across multiple network domains will intensify through the forecast period, both to support cloud and AI as well as for general connectivity, driving TIS spend growth for this customer segment

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In the Agentic Era, Teradata’s Hybrid Strategy Will Drive Its Success

05.28.26

As enterprises look to operationalize AI across distributed environments, scale becomes less about where the infrastructure sits and more about how effectively the underlying data can be governed, accessed and turned into value. Teradata’s ability to deliver AI to where customers’ data already lives — without the need to modernize their infrastructure — will become more relevant.

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Will C&SI Revenue Growth Accelerate Significantly Due to AI Adoption at Scale?

05.14.26

Nearly all IT services companies and consultancies have adopted a customer-zero approach to emerging technologies. With enough experience and scale, they should move into the latter half of the 2020s with compelling use cases for clients and opportunities to benefit from their internal AI adoption.

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

02.12.26/by Bozhidar Hristov, Principal Analyst

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/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

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/by Chris Antlitz, Principal Analyst

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/by Jill Cookinham, Research Analyst

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.

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AI Alliances Will Increasingly Target OT

02.03.26/by Angela Lambert, Principal Analyst and Practice Manager

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/by Bozhidar Hristov, Principal Analyst

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.

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

01.13.26/by Chris Antlitz, Principal Analyst

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/by John Caucis, Senior Analyst

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/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

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/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

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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