TBR’s Business Insights

Should Accenture Enter Assurance?

10.16.26

The opportunity is not for Accenture to become the fifth member of the Big Four but rather to challenge their position as trusted enterprise advisers by making independent AI assurance a critical component of enterprise transformation. The strategic risk is that, without credible independence, Accenture Assurance would become another consulting offering wrapped in the language of trust.

Technology Business Research, Inc.

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.

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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.

Gustavo Quiroga Gaitan, Canva Pro

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.

Saitharn, Getty Images via Canva Pro

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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GenAI Outcomes or Autonomous AI Architecture: Where Should CIOs Focus?

10.01.25/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

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?

Bakhtiar Zein, via Canva Pro

Amdocs Is Well Positioned to Continue Absorbing Market Share in the Telecom Industry; AI Is a Key Growth Vector

09.24.25/by Chris Antlitz, Principal Analyst

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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