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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Fear of the death of ‘digital’

01.24.20/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

When we published our professional and IT services predictions for 2020, we anticipated feedback would center on the seemingly most controversial forecast: the end of “digital” as an industry catch-all term, nearly always followed by “transformation.” Initial comments from clients suggested we touched a bit of a nerve. We do not believe a possible economic […]

Economic advantage: Preparing for lift off

01.23.20/by admin

Talent poaching within industry first warning of things to come JPMorgan Chase announced on Jan. 22, 2020, the hiring of Marco Pistoia from IBM. A 24-year IBM employee with numerous patents to his credit, Pistoia most recently led an IBM team responsible for quantum computing algorithms. Algorithm development will be key to developing soundly engineered […]

Can IBM pivot fast enough?

01.22.20/by admin

This week, TBR publishes its initial thoughts on IBM’s 4Q19 performance, featuring insights from our data center and professional services analysts. “Another quarter, another IBM Initial Response from TBR. And while our initial report on IBM’s earnings release remains constant, IBM’s strategy and investment focuses continue to pivot,” says Analyst Stephanie Long. “This quarter we’re […]

HP Inc. reaffirms its rejection of Xerox offer

01.15.20/by TBR

As of this writing, Xerox is attempting a hostile takeover of HP Inc., after HP Inc.’s board reiterated its rejection of Xerox’s offer on Jan. 9, 2020, and has obtained a commitment for the necessary $24 million loan to complete the deal should HP Inc. accept a Xerox offer. HP Inc. continues to contend Xerox’s […]

Sustained growth provides Accenture with the flexibility to enact internal and operational changes

01.14.20/by admin

In this week’s Accenture report, Senior Analyst Boz Hristov notes, “Accenture’s robust account management capabilities and diversified footprint supported continued profitable growth in FY1Q20 (CY4Q19), leading to increased market share. TBR does not expect major changes to the course of the company’s go-to-market strategy following the announced changes on Jan. 13 to its growth model, […]

Twins born early in 2020

01.07.20/by Bozhidar Hristov, Principal Analyst

New year, new buys. And if your name is Accenture, it may be not too surprising to see twin acquisitions within the first week of 2020. In back-to-back announcements less than 24 hours apart, Accenture unveiled its plans to acquire Germany-based SAP shop maihiro and Symantec’s Cyber Security Services business. Maihiro will deepen Accenture’s SAP […]

Informatica empowers business users and improves customer success in its Winter ’20 release

12.20.19/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

The new capabilities of Informatica’s winter release make data more consumable for business users Organizations have a bevy of data spanning their on-premises and cloud environments and a growing number of employees utilizing that data — from more technical personnel, such as data scientists who are using the data to create AI and machine learning […]

Proximity or scale? Will Latin America’s startup scene challenge India’s?

12.18.19/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Here’s a simple question: Can a startup scene in nearshore Americas rival the one in India? Could countries and markets geographically closer to the U.S. provide the kind of energy and entrepreneurship coming from India, particularly in emerging technologies? A few weeks ago, TBR analysts spoke at length with a PwC partner in India about […]

As digital transformation matures, customers voice their concerns about data and scale

12.18.19/by admin

This week TBR wraps up its 2019 digital transformation insights research with our Voice of the Customer report, in which Senior Analyst Boz Hristov notes, “More buyers are beginning to embark on full transformations as new technologies promising faster, scalable outcomes push buyers to ramp investments and AI and analytics gain mindshare. Vendors can take […]

Traditional business models continue shifting for management consultancies

12.09.19/by admin

This week TBR publishes its semiannual Management Consulting Benchmark, and Senior Analyst Elitsa Bakalova notes the following: “Vendors compete for holistic transformation opportunities and expand the breadth of their portfolios and resources to provide clients with offerings that augment consulting value propositions by integrating consulting with IP-based solutions and managed services. As consulting teams continue […]

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