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.

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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.

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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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Smart city solutions have to think outside the trash bin

07.10.18/by admin

The “Connecting Your Business to the Smart Cities We All Live In” panel during PTC’s LiveWorx event included ideas consistent with TBR’s previous views on smart cities. One of the most interesting speakers was Nigel Jacob, the co-founder of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, an R&D organization within Boston’s City Hall. Jacob gave […]

‘Popcorn market’ and ‘shrink-wrapped’ IoT: TBR gets creative with industry terms

07.09.18/by admin

Observers of emerging tech trends often seek the “hockey stick” moment, or that period when the market takes off following an explosion of activity. However, as TBR Principal Analyst Ezra Gottheil explains in his special report ‘Shrink-wrapped’ IoT will drive accelerating growth; an explosion of activity, or huge moment of growth, will likely never occur in the overall […]

Your digital transformation center needs leadership

06.28.18/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Start with a new space, furnish it with funky chairs, nontraditional work spaces and all the latest technologies. Recruit creative talent, mixed with some data scientists and wonder-tech folks, plus seasoned strategists. Bring in current clients and consult on digital transformation. As companies implement this playbook, a couple of common themes and challenges are emerging, […]

Will digital transformation be the catalyst for adoption of new outcome-based pricing models?

06.27.18/by admin

Every day I find myself reading about the developments happening in business-to-consumer (B2C) pricing. Here’s a sample of those that jumped out recently: Uber announced a feature that would allow more price-sensitive customers to wait longer for rides in exchange for cheaper fares. Disney recently pursued a similar approach, creating a “sneak peek” package of […]

Pricing research is not always about price

06.27.18/by admin

I recently read an article summarizing an onstage interview with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at the George Bush President Center. During the interview, Bezos described Amazon’s data mindset: “We have tons of metrics. When you are shipping billions of packages a year, you need good data and metrics: Are you delivering on time? Delivering on […]

Is the IT hardware market ready for Hardware as a Service?

06.27.18/by Angela Lambert, Principal Analyst and Practice Manager

Hardware as a Service — or maybe you call it PCaaS, DaaS or XaaS — is basically referring to bundling some type of hardware (e.g., phones, PCs, servers) with life cycle services and charging a recurring fee over a multiyear contract. The customer never really owns the hardware, and the vendor takes it back at […]

Key findings from TBR’s upcoming HCI customer research

06.27.18/by admin

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a growing market ripe with opportunity for vendors. TBR forecasts the market will reach $11.7 billion by 2022. Although TBR research indicates that incumbent vendors with a strong presence in the converged infrastructure (CI) market, such as Dell EMC and Cisco, have an advantage in the space, findings also indicate that […]

Democratization now: It’s good for business

06.27.18/by TBR

Data democratization is a hot topic now. Spokespeople from Google, SAP, Capgemini and other tech companies have spoken and written about how making data available to as many people as possible will both unleash the power of technology and prevent abuse of closely held data. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sprinkles his talks and interviews with […]

Critical success factors for successful pricing research

06.13.18/by admin

In my day-to-day life at TBR, I regularly interact with clients seeking to undertake pricing research. Their needs are varied. Some want to understand pricing for a new product or service or sustain their competitive position for an existing offering, while others seek to design an overarching commercial strategy or to increase the effectiveness of […]

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The next 5 years: A successful strategy for Infosys

10.13.13/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Updated available: Click here to read about Infosys’ 2025 strategy in this new TBR blog, Infosys’ Future: Scaling GenAI and SLM Innovation to Drive Growth and Stakeholder Trust. In July, after resuming his role as executive chairman, N.R. Narayana Murthy said the following about Infosys’ future: “The strategy is to focus on opportunities from […]

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