The future of managed services: Partner-led growth and the ongoing market disruption

Once dominated by global systems integrators (GSIs) and traditional outsourcers, the managed services market has seen rising competition over the past few years as cloud providers, infrastructure OEMs, VARs and specialized pure play managed services providers (MSPs) vie to deepen their engagements with customers and grow their recurring revenue bases.

Join TBR’s Principal Analyst Patrick Heffernan and Senior Analyst Ben Carbonneau Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, at 1 p.m. EDT/10 a.m. PDT for live insights into how a widening variety of industry groups are leveraging their unique strengths, expanding partnerships, and providing new offerings and pricing models to differentiate their value propositions and cement their share in the ever-growing managed services market. From traditional IT outsourcing to cybersecurity offerings and managed AI solutions, TBR market analysts will discuss how these enterprise and SMB services continue to evolve.

In this session on the future of managed services you’ll learn:

• How commercial models in the managed services market are evolving
• The emergence of multivendor collaboration: How GSIs, hyperscalers and pure play MSPs forge partnerships for scale and specialization
• TBR’s forward-looking expectations for the managed services market in terms of leaders, laggards and emerging disruptors

TBR Insights Live sessions are held typically on Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous sessions can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

Commercial Model Alignment Begins to Trump Technology Integration

In this TBR Insights Live session Principal Analyst Boz Hristov and Senior Analyst Catie Merrill discuss AI and data sovereignty in technology partnerships and alliances. Additionally, TBR’s team examines how the intersection of regional regulations and emerging AI capabilities is reshaping partner ecosystems.

As governments and enterprises demand greater control over data, global systems integrators (GSIs) are increasingly relying on locally based employees to meet sovereignty requirements, ensure compliance and build trust. Boz and Catie explore how this shift is influencing partner strategies, resourcing models and AI deployment approaches across regions. They also dive into the commercial implications for technology vendors and GSIs, as aligning commercial models is becoming just as critical as technical integration.

The session below on alignment with GSIs includes:

• An exclusive look at our newly expanded regional breakdown of GSI headcount and revenue, part of TBR’s Cloud Ecosystem Report, and what the data reveals about hyperscaler practices in the Americas, EMEA and APAC
• A look at how European Union AI and data regulations are impacting staffing and training within GSI practices
• An overview of our new ServiceNow Ecosystem Report and its implications for partners and alliances
• Key insights from our Voice of the Partner research, including what’s next in AI ecosystem management and multiparty collaboration
• A discussion on the increasing importance of commercial model alignment over technology integration and how ServiceNow is moving into the core enterprise SaaS market among the likes of SAP, Salesforce, Workday, Adobe and others

Excerpt from AI & Data Sovereignty in Technology Partnerships and Alliances

Cloud and services vendors think similarly about multiparty alliances, creating opportunity to convince OEMs through engaging with common partners

“The complexity of the ecosystem … forced you then to think about a different model, which was called triparty … No one’s going to turn away revenue … However, the end of the day, the KPI that drove success was making sure that we were driving 3x to 4x services revenue.” — Global Alliance Leader, Cloud

Visit this link to download this session’s presentation deck here.

TBR Insights Live sessions are held typically on Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous sessions can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

A combustible and pressured consulting market is leading management consultancies to make more significant changes to their strategies than experienced over the past few years. Technology partners, including hyperscalers and software vendors, may not be impacted by direct changes in the near term, but the fallout from choosing the right or wrong strategy will affect how well each management consultancy delivers alongside their ecosystem partners.

The primary focus on the Big Four firms will be shared with strategy-led consultancies, including McKinsey & Co. and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as they navigate the diverging market and face the influence of AI on the traditional consulting model.

Join TBR’s Management Consulting team on Thursday, June 26, 2025, for exclusive insights from our upcoming Spring 2025 Management Consulting Benchmark. This semiannual report provides key service line, regional, vertical, and operational data and analysis for 13 learning management consulting firms: Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC, Kearney, Bain & Co., BCG, BearingPoint, McKinsey & Co., Oliver Wyman, Accenture, Capgemini and IBM.

Watch the below session on management consulting industry predictions to learn:

• The different strategies management consultancies will take in 2025, and what these adjustments will mean for the consultancies’ partners
• TBR’s predictions for which approaches will result in above-peer growth and which firms will stagnate or regress
• How competitors, including IT services companies with consulting capabilities, can calibrate their strategies in the consulting market to take advantage of missteps by the Big Four firms, McKinsey and BCG

Excerpt from Consultancy Prediction: Diverging Strategies to Widen the Gap Between Winners and Laggards

Managed services will support overall revenue growth acceleration in 2025 for the vendors covered in TBR’s IT Services Vendor Benchmark

IT services spending will continue as clients switch from innovation to run-the-business managed services opportunities that enable them to operate in challenging market conditions.

Visit this link to download this session’s presentation deck here.

TBR Insights Live sessions are held typically on Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous sessions can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

Silicon vendors and OEMs working together to support AI adoption

While OEMs are responsible for developing and delivering AI-driven and AI-enabling hardware offerings to market, silicon vendors’ innovations are at the heart of the AI hardware revolution.
 
The first wave of AI hardware demand has centered on high-performance AI infrastructure purpose-built to support large-scale AI model training workloads. But the rise of AI inferencing is giving way to a second wave of AI hardware demand as clients increasingly transition from the prototyping phase to the deployment phase with custom AI solutions. On the infrastructure side of the AI hardware market, OEMs such as Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Supermicro are integrating accelerated computing platforms from companies like NVIDIA. On the client devices side of the market, OEMs such as HP Inc. and Lenovo are developing new AI PC offerings based on system on a chip (SoC) platforms developed by AMD, Intel, Qualcomm and the like.
 
In this TBR Insights Live session Senior Analyst Ben Carbonneau and Principal Analyst Angela Lambert share an update on developments within the rapidly expanding AI PC and AI server markets as well as key findings from TBR’s AI PC and AI Server Market Landscape. This new research explores the nuances and interconnectedness of the semiconductor and OEM hardware industries, comparing market shares across various industry views and highlighting competitive analysis and forward-looking insights.

Watch this session on AI hardware market trends to learn:

• TBR’s forecast for the AI PC and AI PC SoC markets
• Our performance outlook for the AI server and AI server GPGPU (general-purpose computing on GPUs) markets
• The latest industry trends and ecosystem partnerships
• Key market dynamics contributing to and inhibiting growth

Excerpt from Inside the AI Hardware Shift: Market Trends Every IT Decision Maker Should Watch in 2025

AI PC market drivers and inhibitors

Market drivers:

• End of Windows 10 support
• AI PC advisory and training services
• Channel incentives for AI PC adoption

Market inhibitors:

• Lack of killer apps leveraging the neural processing unit (NPU)
• Lengthening device life cycles
• Organizations delaying purchases to wait for more powerful NPUs

Visit this link to download this session’s presentation deck here.

 
TBR Insights Live sessions are held typically on Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous sessions can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.

Acquisitions, Convergence and Fixed Wireless Access Drive Revenue Growth in U.S. Wireless Market

U.S. operators are focused on advancing their convergence strategies to grow revenue and create a stickier ecosystem to reduce churn long-term. Operators are improving their ability to offer mobile and broadband service bundles by increasing the availability of their broadband services (including wireline and fixed wireless access [FWA] offerings) and focusing on acquisitions, such as Verizon’s pending purchase of Frontier Communications and T-Mobile’s proposed joint ventures to acquire Metronet and Lumos.
 
In this TBR Insights Live session, Senior Analyst Steve Vachon gives for an in-depth, exclusive review of TBR’s latest research in the U.S. mobile operator space. Steve discusses the financial and go-to-market performance of leading U.S. wireless operators as well as recent key developments impacting the U.S. market, such as convergence and FWA.
 
TBR’s U.S. mobile operator research stream details and compares the initiatives, strategies and performance of the largest U.S. operators, including AT&T, DISH Network, Optimum Mobile, Spectrum Mobile, T-Mobile, UScellular, Verizon and Xfinity Mobile.

In the above session on the U.S. wireless market outlook you’ll learn:

• The impact convergence is having on the market via initiatives around M&A and fiber expansion as well as increased competition among cable MVNOs
• How FWA services are disrupting the U.S. broadband market
• How U.S. operators are expanding the scope of their FWA strategies to maximize opportunity capture
• Insights into wireless capex trends in the U.S. and the next phase of 5G investments

Excerpt from U.S. Wireless Market Outlook: Acquisitions, Convergence and Fixed Wireless Access Drive Revenue Growth in U.S. Wireless Market

Operators target acquisitions to strengthen their convergence strategies

Convergence (aka bundling) creates a stickier ecosystem to reduce churn via:

• Discounted pricing compared to buying services separately
• Convenience of purchasing services from the same provider

Operators are strengthening convergence strategies via:

• Expanding broadband service availability (FWA and fixed)
• Cable operators are increasing their focus on their wireless brands to retain customers
• Pursuing acquisitions

M&A and continued fiber builds will expand cross-selling opportunities:

• Verizon/Frontier: The combined company expects to provide fiber to 30 million passings by the end of 2028 and eventually up to 40 million passings
• T-Mobile/Metronet/Lumos: Expects to offer fiber services to 12 million to 15 million households by the end of 2030
• T-Mobile/UScellular: Will create new opportunities for T-Mobile to target FWA in rural markets
• AT&T: AT&T’s fiber network will reach 50 million locations by the end of 2029 (45 million via organic builds, 5 million via Gigapower Joint Venture)

Visit this link to download this session’s presentation deck here.
 
TBR Insights Live sessions are held typically on Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET and include a 15-minute Q&A session following the main presentation. Previous sessions can be viewed anytime on TBR’s Webinar Portal.