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.

Getty Images via Canva Pro

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.

Getty Images via Canva Pro

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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TBR upcoming research dives into quantum computing market

07.17.19/by admin

If you are a skeptic of or bullish on the quantum computing market, or somewhere in between, TBR has insights to share with you! Over the next few months, TBR will dissect the developments occurring in the quantum computing market and share a lot of interesting findings. The week of July 15 TBR’s blog […]

Executive change at Accenture portends changes for the market leader

07.16.19/by admin

With Julie Sweet appointed the next CEO of Accenture and David Rowland named the executive chairman of the board, the company doubles down on its proven go-to-market strategy and delivery frameworks. However, as Accenture strengthens its core as a technology organization and Accenture Technology plays a pivotal role in North America’s performance (Sweet was previously […]

IBM and Red Hat close the deal — will it be red washing or blue washing?

07.10.19/by admin

On July 9 IBM held a 30-minute Q&A with industry analysts, led by Red Hat EVP of Engineering Paul Cormier and IBM SVP of Cloud and Cognitive Software Arvind Krishna. The discussion confirmed the overarching strategic benefits both parties see in the union while stressing the intentions to keep Red Hat vendor agnostic. Around three-quarters […]

IoT and quantum emerge as new growth frontiers in IT services

07.01.19/by Elitsa Bakalova, Senior Analyst

Data is exploding, and vendors are preparing to accommodate this trend by effectively managing, storing, securing and analyzing data and by driving business results through next-generation solutions. During Atos’ Technology Days, held May 16-17 in Paris, Atos CEO Thierry Breton stated that while 80% of data is currently stored in data centers and in the […]

Enterprises leverage disruptive emerging technologies within their operations to improve processes and accelerate digital transformation

06.24.19/by admin

Extension remains the most natural jumping-off point for digital transformation (DT) initiatives, as enterprises can experiment with disruptive technologies within familiar business operations, see their value in generating new business insights, and then use those insights to re-imagine processes. TBR’s Digital Transformation Insights Report: Voice of the Customer shows that vendors need to orient toward […]

Deloitte’s willingness to go into unorthodox markets supports growth

06.17.19/by admin

“Broad-based investments including low-cost resources and platform-based solutions are among the recent examples of Deloitte’s efforts to expand its addressable market, resulting in improving non-management consulting revenue performance,” says Senior Analyst Boz Hristov. “While Deloitte is far from reaching revenue diversification compared to the likes of Accenture, the firm is making inroads in unorthodox markets […]

Salesforce to acquire Tableau as the market moves to no-code and low-code environments

06.12.19/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Salesforce’s acquisition of Tableau Software would make additional data visualization and analytics capabilities available to business users Salesforce announced its intent to buy Tableau Software in an all-stock deal valued at $15.7 billion, in which Salesforce will exchange 1.103 shares of its common stock for each of Tableau’s Class A and Class B common stock. […]

TBR’s Quantum Computing Market Landscape details emerging uses cases, economic disruption and alliances

06.10.19/by admin

TBR’s first Quantum Computing Market Landscape focuses on multiple facets of the quantum computing market, exploring the vendor landscape of a variety of competing hardware vendors with differing quantum theories, as well as software services and security vendors playing in the quantum computing space. Emerging customer sentiments, as well as recent alliances, emerging use cases […]

Integration challenges ahead for Perspecta and SAIC as federal sector IT services vendors position for the rest of 2019

06.04.19/by admin

Publishing this week from TBR’s federal IT research program are our initial assessments of SAIC’s and Perspecta’s 1Q19 earnings performances. Perspecta is wrapping up its first complete fiscal year as an independent business entity. Its inaugural year has been characterized by significant challenges integrating a trio of large-scale legacy federal IT competitors, and we expect […]

Booz Allen Hamilton keeps winning, even when the government shuts down

05.29.19/by admin

TBR’s initial response to Booz Allen Hamilton’s (BAH’s) 1Q19 earnings published on Tuesday, and we expect another strong quarter from BAH to close out its FY19. BAH boasts a soundly differentiated market position and multilayered alignment of its technology and advisory portfolio with the primary objectives of its federal customers. Consulting-led offerings are increasingly interwoven […]

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