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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Quick Quantum Quips: Hardware entrants gain VC funds while established innovators partner across architectures to secure a place in the broader quantum ecosystem

12.04.19/by admin

The quantum market changes rapidly, and the hype can often distract from the realities of the technological developments. In our new monthly newsletter, Quick Quantum Quips (Q3), TBR will brief readers on the latest market announcements, stripping that hype to dig deeper into how recent events will impact the market as a whole. Contact Stephanie […]

Traditional ports and quantum computing: The now and the future

12.03.19/by admin

Principal Analysts Geoff Woollacott and Patrick Heffernan are each publishing a piece this week that touches on the business of digital transformation. Geoff focuses on the massive change expected from quantum computing as the business applications begin to catch up to the science. In his opinion, “Quantum is on the cusp of delivering economic advantage. […]

Test bed for smart cities: One port’s potential

12.02.19/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

At a recent event in Oulu, Finland, I heard about the local port’s efforts to undergo a full-scale digital transformation, to include everything from 5G connectivity to analytics to drones to enhanced customer experience, sparking a kind of epiphany, for me, on the potential for a relatively small port to serve as a test bed […]

Traditional management consultancies continue evolving toward the digital transformation future

11.26.19/by admin

This week TBR will publish recent insights on two of the management consultancies we cover: The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and McKinsey & Co. Regarding BCG, Analyst Kelly Lesiczkanotes, “Earning consistent rankings as a top employer and avoiding negative publicity enable BCG to attract and retain employees and to support innovation efforts and delivery of […]

HCL Technologies’ onshore centers provide entry points for larger-scale upselling opportunities tied to cloud, AI and cybersecurity

11.20.19/by Kelly Lesiczka, Senior Analyst

Vendors are strengthening offshore and low-cost talent, particularly in India, to offset investment costs related to infusing digital into their portfolios as well as to supplement delivery and innovation efforts. For example, Atos opened a delivery center in the city of Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, India, that is expected to house 2,300 software engineers, and […]

Federal IT vendors capitalizing on a growth-friendly spending environment expected to see healthy top-line expansion

11.19.19/by admin

Senior Analyst John Caucis reports on three federal IT services providers this week, each delivering robust, double-digit revenue growth amid the strongest federal technology market witnessed in many years. “The strongest performance was tendered by CACI, whose revenue rose 16.9% year-to-year to $1.36 billion in 3Q19, showing the tight alignment of its differentiated solutions with […]

Revving the engine in Stuttgart: Accenture in the heart of the German auto zone

11.13.19/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

In July, Accenture announced a new Customer Experience Center in Stuttgart, Germany, focused on working with automobile manufacturers and their partners to accelerate the future of connected cars. With seemingly every IT services vendor and consultancy rolling out initiatives around automobiles, TBR spoke last week with Accenture’s Axel Schmidt, senior managing director and industry managing […]

IBM continues to separate itself from the pack

11.12.19/by admin

Senior Analyst Nicki Catchpole reports this week on IBM’s cloud and software practice, noting: “While IBM’s 3Q19 overall results continued to experience a downward slide, its Cloud & Cognitive Software sector experienced immediate positive effects from the much-anticipated $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat. Red Hat’s OpenShift technology and channel-driven approach have boosted IBM’s cloud […]

Betting on business model transformation through appointment of new leaders

11.07.19/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

As companies must manage multidisciplinary andmultigenerational workforces, maintaining properlytrained leaders, with visions closely aligned to theorganization’s DNA rather than investor expectations,will provide a strong foothold in a largely disrupted ITservices market. The impact on employee culture,morale, purpose and other organizational behaviorlargely depends on the CEO of the company, particularlyif a new one needs to be […]

Quick Quantum Quips: A call for quantum supremacy sends ripples through the market

11.06.19/by admin

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