TBR’s Business Insights

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.

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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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, […]

Blockchain in the context of digital transformation: A slow-moving, inevitable revolution

08.05.19/by admin

In fast-approaching fourth industrial revolution, bureaucratic labor will become as nonessential as manual labor became to the agrarian economy with the advent of the combustion engine. Blockchain technology will enable smart contracts throughout our economy and will be the red thread stitching together multi-enterprise business networks for frictionless commerce that will greatly reduce demand for […]

Investments in acquisitions and startups enrich Capgemini’s next-generation solutions portfolio and improve its competitive position

08.01.19/by admin

“Capgemini has taken multiple steps to enhance its portfolio to drive transformations through next-generation technologies and create business value for clients. The acquisition of Altran to deliver digital transformation in the industrial sector, enhanced relationships with Microsoft around Microsoft Azure solutions and with SAP around certification of industry innovation accelerators in manufacturing and retail, and […]

Understanding an acquisition: Capgemini snaps up Germany’s energy-centric KONEXUS

07.30.19/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Capgemini’s acquisition of KONEXUS, a 30-person Germany-based energy strategy and management consultancy, triggered a reaction at TBR, as earlier this year we had looked at consulting for the energy sector and had been surprised at the relatively small number of acquisitions across the firms we track. Thirty management consultants will be a fractional addition to […]

While competitors stumble and struggle, Raytheon continues to outperform in IT services for the U.S. federal government

07.24.19/by admin

The U.S. federal earnings season kicks off the week of July 22, with legacy defense contractors General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon releasing their fiscal results for the second calendar quarter of 2019. General Dynamics IT (GDIT) passed the one-year anniversary of its $9.7 billion acquisition of CSRA in 2Q19. Absent the inorganic impact of […]

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