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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IBM makes major strides in quantum with Volume and AI

03.18.19/by admin

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Genpact adapts its service delivery model to help customers succeed with their digital transformations

03.14.19/by Kevin Collupy, Senior Analyst

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Three years later: PwC’s Miami Experience Center led the way

03.13.19/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Three years ago, almost to the day, we went to Miami and saw something truly new, an “Experience Center” that PwC built to physically embody its emerging idea of coalescing consulting engagements around business, experience and technology. Saying we were impressed would be an understatement. Here’s what we said in our March 2016 special report […]

TBR Weekly Preview: March 11-15

03.11.19/by admin

We’re going all over the technology space this week, with reports spanning U.S. federal government IT services to long-established hardware and data center providers, plus a couple of European-centric companies. Wednesday: Talent continues to be the constraining factor on ManTech’s bright revenue growth outlook. Focus in defense and intelligence segments of the U.S. federal market […]

TBR Weekly Preview: March 4-8

03.04.19/by admin

As we start winding down beginning-of-the-year earnings calls, here’s what you can expect from the TBR team this week: Tuesday: In 3Q18 TBR noted Salesforce built on its industry-specific strategies by releasing Financial Services Cloud for retail banking and by expanding its target audience for Education Cloud. Salesforce’s ongoing innovation to address vertical use cases […]

Key findings from TBR’s 2H18 Hyperconverged Platforms Customer Research

02.19.19/by admin

TBR forecasts the HCI market will reach $15 billion by 2023, representing a significant growth opportunity for data center vendors. Survey incidence data indicate that the majority of potential customers have not yet begun their hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) journey. Emerging solutions, such as Lenovo’s TruScale Infrastructure Services and AWS Outposts have the potential to shake […]

Lenovo unveils TruScale Infrastructure Services, consumption-based data center pricing

02.12.19/by admin

In February Lenovo’s Data Center Group (DCG) unveiled TruScale Infrastructure Services. A Hardware as a Service (HaaS) solution with subscription-based pricing, TruScale makes DCG’s entire ThinkSystem and ThinkAgile portfolio available to customers “as a Service” through both Lenovo sales associates and channel partners. For a monthly fee, customers will gain access to data center infrastructure, […]

Reconsidering TCS’ SWOT assessment: M&A comes alive

01.16.19/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

In November our detailed report on Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) performance and strategy included a SWOT slide with the following item in the Threat category: “Competitors are building assets and scale quickly through acquisitions; TCS retains a conservative M&A stance.” Just a couple of weeks into 2019, we’re seeing a change from the company: a […]

Services Weekly Preview: January 14-18

01.14.19/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

As the first quarter of the new year gets rolling, TBR’s Services team will be reporting on IT services vendors’ 4Q18 earnings, evaluating their performance and strategies, and pulling through trends across the entire IT services space. A recap of TBR’s 3Q18 findings can be found in the IT Services Vendor Benchmark, now available for […]

Deeper convergence of mobility, broadband and video services creates revenue opportunities and disruption for CSPs

12.27.18/by Steve Vachon, Senior Analyst

The digital era is bringing fundamental, disruptive changes to traditional business models for communication service providers (CSPs), including telecom operators and cable providers, as the mobility, broadband and video industries converge more deeply. These shifts are driven by the following trends, which will gain further traction over the next several years: The rise of cable […]

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