TBR’s Business Insights

Skills Shortage Will Challenge the Scaling of Sovereign AI in 2026

02.20.26

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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Relaunched Security Benchmark highlights emerging security trends

09.25.19/by admin

TBR’s Security Benchmark makes its return to the data center portfolio this week, covering many of the current trends impacting the enterprise security market. With a new look and feel, the Security Benchmark now covers insights into emerging security trends, in addition to the traditional eight TBR segments of the enterprise security market. For example, […]

Acquisitions and internal changes strengthen Capgemini in consulting

09.18.19/by admin

Every spring and fall, TBR releases a Management Consulting Benchmark with details on 13 leading vendors, including strategies, performance, positioning, and expectations for the next few years. For most of those consultancies, TBR also publishes individual profiles, providing additional details and analysis. The first of those profiles, on Capgemini, will be released this week, with […]

BPO 2.0 is alive at TELUS International in Bulgaria

09.10.19/by Bozhidar Hristov, Principal Analyst

On a recent trip to my native Bulgaria, my colleague Elitsa Bakalova and I visited one of TELUS International’s local sites. Country Managing Director Kristina Ivanova and Director of Operations Gergana Ralchovska hosted us in the recently opened TELUS Tower in downtown Sofia. With over 3,000 staff members in Bulgaria split between three offices, TELUS […]

Technology products enable Atos to get closer to IT buyers

09.03.19/by Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

Atos takes a pragmatic approach to executing digital transformation initiatives through the BullSequana Edge server Consumerization of business applications, demand for data quality and governance, and the adoption of connected technologies compel vendors such as Atos to explore opportunities around managing customer data and to invest in solutions that can help clients protect their competitive […]

Acquiring to expand in IoT: Capgemini, Altran and Engineering/Industry 4.0

08.29.19/by Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

The Altran acquisition will develop Capgemini’s OT capabilities and improve its ability to compete in segments such as IoT and edge computing The acquisition of Altran, announced on June 24, will expand Capgemini’s engineering and R&D services capabilities and complement the company’s established consulting and IT capabilities. Capgemini is positioning as an “intelligent industry” vendor […]

IoT is not a technology or a market, but it certainly drives revenue

08.27.19/by admin

TBR estimates the contribution of commercial IoT to the overall IT market will increase from $456.1 billion in 2019 to $1.7 trillion in 2025, a CAGR of 24.9%. IoT is not a technology or a market, but a technique for applying IT components, made more relevant by the increased ease of connecting sensors and collecting […]

HCLT sets strategy; makes smart move to software

08.26.19/by Kelly Lesiczka, Senior Analyst

HCLT’s recent acquisitions will develop software services and consulting capabilities, enabling the firm to evolve its strategy to better compete in the dynamic IT services market At the end of June, HCLT finalized its acquisition of IBM Software products (analysis and details of which can be found in our most recent full report on the […]

Embedding multicloud and software-driven services in portfolios helps vendors execute on strategy, expand addressable markets

08.20.19/by admin

Google Cloud revenue surpassed the $2 billion mark in 2Q19, doubling in size in six quarters. Under the guidance of CEO Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud is improving its enterprise appeal by launching its multicloud management tool set, Anthos; leveraging acquisitions to build out its migration, storage and analytics capabilities; and expanding its global sales and […]

Why license when you can buy? Salesforce to acquire ClickSoftware

08.13.19/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

After 3-plus years of licensing, Salesforce intends to acquire ClickSoftware to augment Field Service Lightning One week after Salesforce completed its acquisition of Tableau, the vendor announced its intent to acquire ClickSoftware, a field service management solutions provider, for $1.35 billion. ClickSoftware is a practical acquisition target for Salesforce; the vendors have been partners since […]

Acquisitions help European-heritage vendors Atos and Capgemini continue expanding in North America and globally

08.12.19/by admin

Atos is preparing to accommodate the explosion of data across enterprises by effectively managing, storing, securing and analyzing data. Revenue and cost synergies from the Syntel acquisition will enable Atos to achieve its financial goals in 2019. Newly established relationships with technology partners, the release of new product offerings that support edge and quantum computing, […]

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