TBR’s Business Insights

5G’s Next Act Is About Monetization, While 6G Builds on the 5G Foundation

10.09.26

TBR believes the path to 6G runs directly through unfinished 5G work. Operators that expand 5G SA, improve spectrum efficiency, commercialize differentiated connectivity and build programmable, AI-ready networks will be better positioned for an economical 6G migration. FWA will remain the near-term revenue anchor, but longer-term value will increasingly depend on whether CSPs can turn AI, sensing and network capabilities into standardized services that enterprises and governments can easily buy. The transition to 6G is about proving that operators can finally monetize the capabilities 5G was designed to enable.

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Exploring KPMG’s Role in Quantum

10.08.26

KPMG has positioned itself as ready to help clients prepare for when quantum shifts from an expensive idea to an immediate opportunity and threat. Can the firm create near-term revenue as PQC meets its Y2K moment, provide reliable and useful services through hybrid computing, and manage the ecosystem and orchestration layer in quantum? Maybe. At scale with clients? Likely. Are KPMG’s clients really ready for that? Are all of KPMG’s partners, principals and directors?

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Holiday Shopping Is Becoming an AI Story: How Value-conscious Consumers, Rising Memory Costs and Connectivity Are Reshaping Retail

10.07.26

As retailers invest more heavily in AI to capture increasingly value-conscious holiday shoppers, the effectiveness of those investments will depend on the infrastructure supporting them. AI recommendations, computer vision, mobile point-of-sale, real-time inventory and in-store personalization only create value when data can move reliably between devices, stores, edge systems and cloud platforms.

Technology Business Research, Inc.

AI Is Changing Enterprise Networking, but Not All Disruption Looks the Same

10.06.26

Our initial results show an industry in transition. HIRI and operating margins are improving across the peer group, but AI is only one part of the story. Restructuring efforts, revenue growth, subscription adoption and portfolio consolidation continue to strongly influence workforce productivity. Additionally, customer demand for AI-based solutions to support their own AI transformations boosts financial performance independent of the vendors’ internal AI investments.

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Exploring KPMG’s Role in AI

10.03.26

What struck TBR most about KPMG’s frequent evocations of trust was the humility that went with it. Knowing trust has to be earned, maintained and renewed seemed to inform how KPMG leaders spoke about the firm’s capabilities and relationships. And in casual discussions with KPMG clients at the Utah event, trust came up repeatedly as a key reason they were there.

The Midmarket Opportunity: Which GSIs Can — and Should — Pursue It?

09.25.26

Expanding into the midmarket has been a recurring theme for GSIs for many years, and some are dusting off that strategy yet again. This time, platform-led operating models that are less linked to FTE-based pricing may change the game. When looking at Accenture, Atos Group, Capgemini and Deloitte, which company could reasonably enter or expand into the midmarket? More importantly, which should?

The Time to Start Building Your Multiparty Alliance is Now

09.11.26

Every software and technology company should be building multiparty alliances through codeveloped solutions supported by joined-at-the-hip sales teams. Additionally, executives should be thinking about, planning for, acting on and beginning to deliver around outcome-based pricing.

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?

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Anthropic, OpenAI and Palantir: Who Gains and Who Loses in the Federal Fallout

04.16.26/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Insights into how important the recent developments between Anthropic, OpenAI and Palantir are considering the implications for the largest agency (DOD), within the single largest buyer of IT in the world (U.S. Federal Government), relating to the single largest technology priority (AI).

Salesforce Highlights Strengths in Innovation and Relationships at Agentforce World Tour

04.14.26/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

With the recent hype around the “death of SaaS” and other pressures on the business models of technology companies, Salesforce’s growing presence, success, and apparent disruption of competitors and alliance partners alike underscore Salesforce’s strengths in creating stickier client relationships and continually innovating, two qualities essential in the agentic AI age.

Pexels, Canva Pro

Federal IT Spending Trends: Why Growth Is Contracting and Where It Is Shifting

03.30.26/by TBR

The Trump administration has proposed a double-digit increase in defense spending, which will flow through to IT budgets in the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, particularly in areas of national security, which will receive top priority. Federal IT acquisition is also slowly pivoting to embrace outcome-based contracting, while the DOD looks to accelerate IT purchasing by adopting new and innovative IT procurement approaches.

Katherinasim, Canva Pro

Governance Becomes a Prerequisite for Success with AI

03.30.26/by Chris Antlitz, Principal Analyst

Governance was a recurring theme across content sessions and executive meetings at Mobile World Congress 2026. As telecom operators move from experimentation to operational in AI, creating a corporatewide, centralized framework for data management, model oversight and regulatory compliance is becoming essential. Without clear governance, AI initiatives often remain fragmented across business units, leading to inconsistent outcomes, duplicated efforts and limited enterprise impact.

Getty Images via Canva Pro

New Growth in Consulting Is Emerging from an Unexpected Place: Managed Services

03.18.26/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

A scaled managed services practice trained in spotting consulting opportunities and armed with AI-enabled solutions will unquestionably win some management consulting market share. More significantly, from TBR’s objective view, is whether the Big Four firms can manage their staffing, brand promise and technology alliances to take advantage of the managed services practices they’ve already built and use those opportunities to return to robust management consulting growth. Maybe, but probably not all four. The next two years will be telling, and TBR expects the existing differences between the Big Four will become even more pronounced.

Skills Shortage Will Challenge the Scaling of Sovereign AI in 2026

02.20.26/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

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/by Alex Demeule, Senior Analyst

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/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.

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