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5 Key Questions on Big Four Evolution and Strategy
The Big Four professional services firms — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — have all been undergoing organizational changes in the last couple years. TBR regularly hears five questions about how these firms manage themselves, grow and change. Taking a longitudinal view allows TBR to see that recent restructurings, layoffs and offerings all reflect how these firms are trying to address the following: who gets the best talent, who decides what’s next, who sells, how everyone in a firm knows what everyone else does, and what role will managed services play.

DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: Accenture Federal Services
The full impact of the 10 canceled task orders on Accenture Federal Services (AFS) remains unclear, but TBR’s secondary research indicates the terminated work has a total contract value of nearly $93 million, including a $35 million order from DOE’s CIO office and a $2 million order for geospatial services. If we assume all $93 million worth of orders was booked by AFS as the prime awardee, that sum would represent just under 2% of AFS’ estimated FY24 revenue of $5.4 billion.

DOGE Federal IT Vendor Impact Series: SAIC
TBR was surprised by SAIC’s FY26 (CY25) outlook, which was consistent with CEO Toni Townes-Whitley’s comment during the company’s 4Q24 earnings call that SAIC’s “current revenue with agencies under particular scrutiny by DOGE is immaterial.” In fact, SAIC elevated several elements of its FY26 guidance in 4Q24.

Google Recognizes Critical Role of Security, and Its Standing in the Cloud Market, in Acquisition of Wiz
With the business environment changing and cybersecurity perhaps more relevant than ever, Google saw an opportunity to repursue the Wiz acquisition, and a $32 billion offer, marking a major uptick in valuation, was simply too good for Wiz to ignore. Should the deal close in 2026 as expected, Wiz — with roughly 1,800 employees and ties to half the Fortune 500 — will join the Google Cloud division, offering synergies with Mandiant, an added layer of protection for the Google Security Operations platform, and the potential to help Google Cloud formalize cybersecurity as an agentic AI use case.

Hardware-centric Vendors Continue to Make Their Move Into Software
Though revenue mixes are increasingly shifting in favor of software, driven in part by acquisitions (e.g., Cisco’s purchase of Splunk), hardware continues to dominate the market, accounting for 80% of benchmarked vendor revenue in 3Q24. Industry-standard servers being sold to cloud and GPU “as a Service” providers are overwhelmingly fueling market growth, more than offsetting unfavorable cyclical demand weakness in the storage and networking markets.

PwC Middle East Experts Weigh In on Economic Trends and Transaction Activity
PwC Middle East’s webcast provides excellent monthly insights into the region’s economies, but it is not the only active Big Four firm. As TBR reported in our Fall 2024 Management Consulting Benchmark, KPMG “announced the opening of Risk Hub in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in collaboration with Microsoft and IBM, paving the way for more in-person, tech-enabled GRC [governance, risk and compliance] discussions with regional clients embarking on their digital transformation programs.” TBR also learned in February that KPMG intends to open a new Ignition Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2025, building on the firm’s global network of innovation and transformation centers.

Deployment Services in Telecom Face Post-5G Slowdown, Shifting Market Dynamics and Growth in Fiber Expansion
The deployment services market faces growing headwinds, including communication service provider (CSP) consolidation, open vRAN’s lower installation costs, and reduced demand for site location and construction (SL&C), offset somewhat by hyperscaler spend and 5G rollouts in select developing markets. Hyperscaler investments provide incremental volume to the market, and TBR notes these companies are increasing their investments in access technologies (e.g., Google Fiber).

TBR Case Study: Price Benchmarking
Explore this competitive pricing example from TBR's Tailored Services team, which helped this global Top 3 hardware OEM capitalize on their investment in pricing research.
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Four by four by four equals four
/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystFour straight weeks of traveling for work, to four different cities to meet with four different clients, brought out four thoughts about where the IT services and consulting markets stand as we move into the autumn rush of 2018. First, the next few years will finally bring the shift in the consulting model that we’ve […]
Postcards from the edge: Complexity is here — wish it were not
/by admin“Analog dollars to digital pennies” is a phrase used to discuss the continued compression on technology price points as Moore’s Law economics, coupled with continued IP abstraction, creates economic trigger events aimed squarely at legacy business model best practices. Recently, I attended analyst events in New York City — one sponsored by Lenovo and one […]
As the 2018 finish line nears, will McKinsey continue its breakaway or slip back into the peloton?
/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystEvery six months, we review McKinsey’s performance, analyze its strategy and consider likely scenarios for the firm in the near term Back in June, we said, “If McKinsey truly gains market permission to take digital transformation from design through execution, its peers will be pressured to emulate the firm.” In advance of the November profile, […]
VMware leans on partners IBM and AWS to go increasingly all-in on cloud
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The JEDI contract: We don’t see the force; do you?
/by adminConsiderable ink has been sacrificed parsing both the wisdom and the potential winners and losers of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract award, which is estimated to be worth up to $10 billion over 10 years. TBR wrote two commentaries around the topic in June that handicapped the potential bidders and outlined the fundamental […]
SaaS sweetens the cloud pot but requires vendors to up their ante to participate
/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystDespite the simple graph in Figure 1 depicting SaaS market size, the space remains difficult to sum up. In the eyes of customers, SaaS options are proliferating and spanning a wide swath of business functions and stakeholders. Yes, SaaS is the largest segment of the “as a Service” cloud market—and yes, it will continue to […]
The 4 P’s of marketing – people, process, partners and platforms – emerge behind AI and compel vendors to adopt S-centric frameworks
/by adminMarket dynamics will evolve in the next 5 years, with voice and video the core conduits for trusted and tangible AI-based marketing campaigns The digital marketing services (DMS) market will grow at a CAGR of 16.2% from 2017 to 2022, reaching $125 billion, as organizations across geographies adopt artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled, customer experience-based voice and […]
Robots laundering IT budgets?
/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal AnalystAutomate a bad process or fix the process first? As consultancies start expanding their robotics process automation offerings (RPA) and the software and related services begin permeating through enterprises’ procurement, human resources, IT, and even internal audit, a curious debate has surfaced between the merits of opting for careful and meticulous process assessment, documentation and […]
Digital transformation advances analytics and insights
/by adminRealizing the dream of AI-embedded business processes must start with people and data management Every enterprise looks to use emerging technologies to cut costs, grow revenue or create new business models. The combination of changes in how people work and what new technologies can best be applied creates massive opportunities for services vendors. This new […]
IoT Customer Spotlight: Colfax survived the stormy seas of IoT after righting its ship, and its story can serve as a navigational aid for peers still caught in the squall
/by adminColfax is an industrial conglomerate with two operating companies under it, ESAB and Howden. ESAB produces equipment and filler metals for most welding and cutting applications, and Howden delivers precision air and gas handling equipment for numerous industrial applications. Both are worldwide industrial suppliers with multiple manufacturing plants and globally distributed support apparatus. I learned […]