TBR’s Business Insights

Should Accenture Enter Assurance?

10.16.26

The opportunity is not for Accenture to become the fifth member of the Big Four but rather to challenge their position as trusted enterprise advisers by making independent AI assurance a critical component of enterprise transformation. The strategic risk is that, without credible independence, Accenture Assurance would become another consulting offering wrapped in the language of trust.

Technology Business Research, Inc.

5G’s Next Act Is About Monetization, While 6G Builds on the 5G Foundation

10.09.26

TBR believes the path to 6G runs directly through unfinished 5G work. Operators that expand 5G SA, improve spectrum efficiency, commercialize differentiated connectivity and build programmable, AI-ready networks will be better positioned for an economical 6G migration. FWA will remain the near-term revenue anchor, but longer-term value will increasingly depend on whether CSPs can turn AI, sensing and network capabilities into standardized services that enterprises and governments can easily buy. The transition to 6G is about proving that operators can finally monetize the capabilities 5G was designed to enable.

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Exploring KPMG’s Role in Quantum

10.08.26

KPMG has positioned itself as ready to help clients prepare for when quantum shifts from an expensive idea to an immediate opportunity and threat. Can the firm create near-term revenue as PQC meets its Y2K moment, provide reliable and useful services through hybrid computing, and manage the ecosystem and orchestration layer in quantum? Maybe. At scale with clients? Likely. Are KPMG’s clients really ready for that? Are all of KPMG’s partners, principals and directors?

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Holiday Shopping Is Becoming an AI Story: How Value-conscious Consumers, Rising Memory Costs and Connectivity Are Reshaping Retail

10.07.26

As retailers invest more heavily in AI to capture increasingly value-conscious holiday shoppers, the effectiveness of those investments will depend on the infrastructure supporting them. AI recommendations, computer vision, mobile point-of-sale, real-time inventory and in-store personalization only create value when data can move reliably between devices, stores, edge systems and cloud platforms.

Technology Business Research, Inc.

AI Is Changing Enterprise Networking, but Not All Disruption Looks the Same

10.06.26

Our initial results show an industry in transition. HIRI and operating margins are improving across the peer group, but AI is only one part of the story. Restructuring efforts, revenue growth, subscription adoption and portfolio consolidation continue to strongly influence workforce productivity. Additionally, customer demand for AI-based solutions to support their own AI transformations boosts financial performance independent of the vendors’ internal AI investments.

Technology Business Research, Inc.

Exploring KPMG’s Role in AI

10.03.26

What struck TBR most about KPMG’s frequent evocations of trust was the humility that went with it. Knowing trust has to be earned, maintained and renewed seemed to inform how KPMG leaders spoke about the firm’s capabilities and relationships. And in casual discussions with KPMG clients at the Utah event, trust came up repeatedly as a key reason they were there.

The Midmarket Opportunity: Which GSIs Can — and Should — Pursue It?

09.25.26

Expanding into the midmarket has been a recurring theme for GSIs for many years, and some are dusting off that strategy yet again. This time, platform-led operating models that are less linked to FTE-based pricing may change the game. When looking at Accenture, Atos Group, Capgemini and Deloitte, which company could reasonably enter or expand into the midmarket? More importantly, which should?

The Time to Start Building Your Multiparty Alliance is Now

09.11.26

Every software and technology company should be building multiparty alliances through codeveloped solutions supported by joined-at-the-hip sales teams. Additionally, executives should be thinking about, planning for, acting on and beginning to deliver around outcome-based pricing.

Convergence Takes Center Stage as U.S. Telecom Operators Pursue the Next Phase of Growth

08.24.26

The U.S. telecom market is entering a new phase in which convergence, broadband scale, and higher-value connectivity services such as AI infrastructure connectivity are becoming increasingly important competitive differentiators.

Previous Next

Our most-read analysis, free in your inbox each week!

Fill out the form to the right to subscribe to Insights Flight today

Services weekly preview: Nov. 5-9, 2018

11.05.18/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Well into the third quarter of industry earnings and our periodic assessments of IT services vendors, TBR’s analysts this week will also share their semiannual analysis on vendors in the management consulting space Monday: In 3Q18 Infosys signed 12 large deals with a total contract value over $2 billion, but the company’s delivery framework remains fragile as Infosys […]

Voice assistant volume is increasing

10.31.18/by admin

A survey conducted by Adobe Analytics found that 32% of U.S. consumers owned a smart speaker in September 2018, compared to 28% in December 2017. The report also projected that near half of the U.S. consumer base could own one by the end of December 2018, supported by Adobe Analytics’ finding that nearly 80% of […]

Big Blue opens its arms, and its wallet, to Red Hat

10.30.18/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Red Hat’s projected growth is enough to justify the hefty purchase price On Oct. 28, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) executives announced a proposed acquisition ― one that will be the industry’s third-largest acquisition should it gain approval. The deal, valued at $34 billion, would bring Red Hat into IBM’s hybrid cloud […]

Whether by R&D or acquisition, money can’t buy SaaS performance

10.26.18/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

The SaaS market appears to provide an easy opportunity for vendors to garner significant revenue and growth. SaaS is the largest segment of the cloud market — bigger than the IaaS space, which draws so much attention due to leaders Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. The SaaS market is also much more fragmented, littered […]

Customer preferences are forming around hybrid and shifting around open source as vendors focus on acquisitions

10.23.18/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Prebuilt devices are a ray of clarity amid the fogginess of hybrid Hybrid can be a difficult thing to define in cloud computing. The term “hybrid” is overused by vendors but underused by customers, causing general confusion over its definition as well as solid examples of hybrid solutions. An area of the market that cuts […]

ICO as a ‘medicine show’: EY finds abysmal performance in wild west of initial coin offerings

10.19.18/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Last December, EY Global Blockchain Leader Paul Brody recognized the breakout market for initial coin offerings (ICOs) and launched a longitudinal study, centered on class of 2017 companies that is fueled by this new way of raising money for software startups. One year later, as detailed in EY’s report published today, market valuations for the […]

Four by four by four equals four

10.10.18/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Four 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

09.27.18/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?

09.26.18/by Patrick Heffernan, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

Every 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

09.20.18/by Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst

What’s new from VMworld on the cloud front? VMworld 2018 in Las Vegas came to a close just a few short weeks ago, but the impact from the slew of cloud-related announcements from VMware and its partners continues to reverberate. After multiple changes in course over the past 10 years as VMware reacted to the […]

Free Data & Analysis

Subscribe to Insights Flight today!