TBR Talks: Decoding Strategies and Ecosystems of the Globe's Top Tech Firms
Welcome to “TBR Talks: Decoding Strategies & Ecosystems of the Globe’s Top Tech Firms.” Each week TBR Principal Analyst Patrick Heffernan chats with special guests on disruptions in the broad technology ecosystem. Patrick also answers key intelligence questions TBR analysts hear from executives and business unit leaders among top IT professional services firms, IT vendors, and telecom vendors and operators. TBR is an independent market, competitive and ecosystem intelligence firm that provides timely and actionable business and financial analyses in formats tailored to clients’ needs.
Episodes
Technology executive Darlene Wilson joins “TBR Talks” for a discussion on tech disruptions, business model evolutions and life as a technology expert.
Darlene is a seasoned technical strategist with over 20 years of leadership experience at companies like Amazon Web Services, Whole Foods Market, and E*TRADE, where she has driven growth through both market- and customer-centric efforts. She is known for building high-performing team...
In this episode of “TBR Talks,” Senior Analyst Kelly Lesiczka and Principal Analyst Boz Hristov share insights into EY’s People Advisory Services after their meeting with senior leadership and partners during a recent showcase of the service line.
Additionally, Kelly, Boz and “TBR Talks” host Patrick Heffernan discuss how EY manages the critical aspect of people advisory in digital transformation within its partner model, how ente...
Principal Analyst Boz Hristov and Analyst Alex Demeule join “TBR Talks” for an exclusive look at TBR’s Ecosystem Reports, which detail how the top global systems integrators (GSIs) most important technology partners — Amazon Web Services, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, SAP, Oracle, Workday, ServiceNow, Salesforce, Adobe — collaborate with integrators and consultancies.
How many certified, trained staff do these practices bring to th...
In this episode of “TBR Talks,” Principal Analyst Boz Hristov and Senior Analyst Kelly Lesiczka join Patrick for a discussion on the challenges occurring amid reductions in force and labor rationalization across the global tech marketplace.
The pair, who specialize in digital transformation, ecosystems and management consulting research, also look at the trends and predictions TBR’s teams noted in 2023 and continue to observe in 202...
Post-KPMG Global Analyst Day 2025, Senior Analyst Kelly Lesiczka joins “TBR Talks” host Patrick Heffernan for top takeaways from the February event. The pair review KPMG’s strategy, including its emphasis on IT and Strategy Consulting, within the context of its legacy Tax & Audit business model, and its position as client zero in implementing and adoption AI across its global operation.
Kelly and Patrick and look at broader tre...
Principal Analyst Bozhidar Hristov, Senior Analyst Catie Merrill and Analyst Alex Demeule join “TBR Talks” to share key takeaways top announcements from KPMG’s Global Analyst Day 2025, held in February at KPMG’s global training facility, Lakehouse. The group also discusses strategies of the leading advisory firm as well as multipartner ecosystem management and co-investment across declared and committed partners, generative AI and ...
Who gets the best talent? Who decides what’s next? Who does the selling? How does everyone know what everyone else is doing? And what role will managed services play?
Despite their digital transformations over the years, TBR is still hearing these five questions from the Big Four — KPMG, EY, PwC and Deloitte — and in this episode of “TBR Talks,” we leverage our recent publications on the firms to address these questions on internal...
Research Analyst Alek Maxfield and Senior Analyst Ben Carbonneau of TBR’s hardware research practice share insights into the performance forecasts and emerging solutions of leading semiconductor providers and OEMs. Additionally, the pair discuss their predictions for the hardware market in 2025, including the possibility that the much-discussed AI PC refresh will be overshadowed by other drivers of enterprise spend.
Listen and learn...
How are research firms, including TBR, and market and competitive intelligence groups within technology vendors using powerful new generative AI (GenAI) tools? In this episode of TBR Talks, TBR Senior Vice President Dan Demers joins Patrick to discuss how global systems integrators, telecom vendors, hyperscalers and others are deploying GenAI internally to improve operations as well as how they are delivering GenAI solutions to ent...
TBR’s Public Sector Senior Analyst John Caucis joins the podcast to share how the very real concerns have led to net-zero impact on federal systems integrators’ financial performance in the last fiscal quarter, with some leading services firms revising guidance upward. Are the fears going to be substantiated into the next fiscal quarter, or will demand for IT modernization within the U.S. federal government remain?
Public Sector An...
What challenges will IT decision makers face in the current macroeconomic environment and amid the need to manage enterprise data, workload migration and ongoing services? In this episode of TBR Talks, TBR Principal Cloud Analyst Allan Krans shares his analysis of and predictions for cloud market share in 2025, including expectations for generative AI (GenAI) spend and the impact the technology will have on the market. Patrick and ...
From post-proof of concept use cases of generative AI and adoption rates of fixed wireless access to missed ROI opportunities of 5G and the vision of 6G, in this episode of “TBR Talks” Telecom Principal Analyst Chris Antlitz joins Patrick to highlight his top takeaways from Mobile World Congress 2025.
Chris considers the implications for the global telecom market and how the market must change. Additionally, he discusses the founda...
Senior Analyst John Caucis and Analyst James Wichert, of TBR’s U.S. Public Sector Professional Services research team, share key challenges our clients in the space — including four of the top six federal systems integrators — and their partners face amid uncertainty in funding as the Trump Administration implements funding reviews and contract cancellations stemming from the work of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency ...
TBR Principal Analyst Chris Antlitz dives deep into the stark reality of 6G rollout and the implications of the technology for telecom operators and vendors as well as other over-the-top data and service providers. Additionally, Chris discusses the implications of these investments for consumers, enterprises, governments and IT vendors.
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Download TBR's 2025 6G Predictions: https://bit.ly/4hzB2lQ
In this episode of TBR Talks, TBR Principal Analyst Bozhidar Hristov and TBR Analyst Alex Demeule join Patrick for a discussion on partnership predictions for 2025. Boz and Alex share insights into the partnerships between cloud vendors and software vendors as well as with their systems integrator partners, including the increase in collaboration to deliver modernization, cloud migration and GenAI solutions to the world’s leading e...
TBR Talks host Patrick Heffernan began his professional career in diplomacy, with Middle East postings as a foreign service officer with the State Department and counterterrorism assignments with the National Security Council and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In this bonus episode of TBR Talks, Patrick gives his unique perspective on the impact of Saudi Arabia’s recent decision regarding PwC and on consulting and IT services...
Astadia CEO Scott Silk joins Patrick for a discussion on cloud migration and the mainframe modernization needs of enterprises globally. A recent Amdocs acquisition, Astadia focuses on the mainframe modernization opportunity within the broader digital transformation services space. Scott also shares insights into Astadia’s core partner strategy and how a smaller firm partners with larger hyperscalers, global systems integrators and ...
In this episode of TBR Talks, SoftwareOne Global Head of Industry Analyst Relations Dr. Jochen Wolf joins TBR for a discussion on developing a successful career in analyst relations and building an effective analyst relations team. Jochen shares his perspective on how to support executives, sales, partners and the broader market for today’s AR professionals and provides realistic insights into an often overlooked, yet critical role...
ManTech & Peraton: How Two Leading Federal Systems Integrators Are Navigating the U.S. Public Sector
Securing recompetes and maximizing execution on existing bookings are driving leading federal systems integrators (FSIs) ManTech and Peraton to success. From the challenges of private equity involvement to bidding on key government technology investments, TBR Senior Analyst James Wichert joins Patrick to discusses key trends leading into 2025.
Listen and learn with TBR Talks!
In this episode of TBR Talks, Principal Analyst Chris Antlitz details how 6G will be rolled out in light of 5G having not delivered commercialization successes to date. Chris also reviews takeaways from the recent 6G Summit hosted by Nokia and looks at energy and sustainability, funding and commercialization challenges as well as the still unmet expectations of 5G.
Listen and learn with TBR Talks!
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