rssservices

AI's Impact on Pricing Models for Business Consulting Services Buyers — Detailed Perspective Version

Bill Latshaw — Thu, 21 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines the commercial dynamics shaping how buyers of business consulting services evaluate, price, and contract for AI-enabled engagements. Drawing on IDC's November 2025 AI-Powered Services Pricing Model Survey (n = 178, North American buyers), it finds that buyers are willing to pay a meaningful premium for AI-enabled consulting when AI can be shown to improve analysis, strengthen recommendations, and support better business decisions. Discount pressure rises when AI is perceived primarily as a delivery efficiency tool. The document explores premium and discount dynamics, packaging preferences, value measurement practices, and the role of trust and governance in AI adoption decisions, with practical guidance for technology buyers on how to structure commercial relationships that deliver measurable AI value over time.

"The pricing data from this survey tells a story providers need to hear: buyers are not asking whether AI belongs in consulting but asking whether providers understand what they are actually buying when they invest in AI-enabled advice. The answer to that question is what separates the firms that will define the next generation of consulting from those that will simply describe it." — Bill Latshaw, research director, Business Consulting Services

IDC Market Glance: Value-Based Health Services Market, 2Q26

Jennifer Eaton — Thu, 21 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Glance provides the segments and subsegments of the value-based health services market. Vendors continue to expand their service scope beyond installation to support clients in strategy, operations, workflow design, and implementation.

“Looking back across 2025 and into 2026, one truth has held firm: technology sets the stage for healthcare evolution, but it is human insight, collaboration, and a willingness to change that bring real transformation to life. As the policy environment has matured, with new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) models demanding measurable outcomes, interoperable data, and long-term accountability, the role of the services vendor has evolved alongside it. The organizations successfully scaling their value-based strategies are those that have found partners capable of building more than just platforms. They built the organizational infrastructure, governance models, and enterprise frameworks that allowed technology to actually perform,” says Jennifer Eaton, research director, Value-Based Healthcare Digital Strategies, IDC.

IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Sciences R&D Strategic Consulting Services 2026 Vendor Assessment

Nimita Limaye — Wed, 20 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Health Insights study is a refresher of the life sciences R&D IDC MarketScape, which has a specific focus on strategic consulting in the life sciences R&D space. This document seeks to compare major service providers with each other based on criteria that should be important to life sciences companies when considering the selection of a strategic consulting partner to help provide guidance for strategic, operational, and tactical transformation issues within the R&D space. The IDC MarketScape assessment of strategic consulting outsourcing in life sciences R&D was previously performed in 2011, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2021, and 2023.

"The life sciences strategic consulting market is undergoing a fundamental reset — driven by the convergence of agentic AI, mounting execution pressure, and a sharply more demanding buyer. Organizations are seeking business transformation partners that can close the AI-to-value gap, navigate regulatory complexity, and align their commercial models to client outcomes. The firms that can bridge a blend of scientific depth, digital fluency, organizational change capability, and a willingness to share risk will define the next era of strategic consulting," said Dr. Nimita Limaye, research VP, Life Sciences R&D Strategy and Technology, IDC Health Insights.

IDC Survey Spotlight: What Enterprise Skills Are the Most Important to IT Leaders in 2026?

Gina Smith, PhD — Wed, 20 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight explores the top in-demand skills for enterprise leaders this year. The results are from the IDC 2026 Global IT Skills Survey, which surveys global IT leaders and professionals about their training priorities, skills gaps, certification plans, and technology adoption goals for the year ahead.

HP Imagine 2026: Going All in on Edge AI to Drive the Future of Work

Robert Palmer — Mon, 18 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective focuses primarily on the announcements and activities from the HP Imagine 2026 event that relate more closely to HP Inc.'s printing and imaging business. HP Imagine 2026 highlighted HP Inc.'s continued focus on edge AI: unveiling new AI-powered devices, security innovations, and workflow solutions aimed at transforming the future of work. Central to this vision are HP IQ, an AI orchestration layer, and advanced HP LaserJet devices with embedded AI and quantum-resistant security. The event underscored HP Inc.'s strategic shift from products and solutions to platforms and ecosystems designed to enable and empower employees within the evolving digital workplace.

"Edge AI is fundamentally changing how work gets done, and every endpoint is now a catalyst for workforce productivity," says Robert Palmer, research VP, IDC Imaging Domain. "In the office printing market, edge AI is poised to foster a wave of hardware innovation, with the AI MFP emerging as a key enabler for tomorrow's workplace."

IDC Survey: Survey Excerpt — Outsourced Mailroom Services Trends

Robert Palmer — Mon, 18 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey looks into a United States–based B2B survey of organizations to assess how enterprises structure, contract, and evaluate outsourced mailroom services programs, focusing specifically on organizations that engage third-party providers for mailroom management.

The survey assesses contractual ownership models spanning mailroom specialists and BPO providers, the predominance of managed print services as the primary procurement vehicle, and buyer governance expectations. It also evaluates reported business outcomes, highlighting that value extends beyond cost reduction to include data compliance, mailroom efficiency, customer communication, and technology currency.

In addition, the survey identifies the performance attributes most closely tied to buyer satisfaction, clarifying that visibility, promised savings delivery, and consistent SLA execution are the strongest drivers of positive vendor experience, and where suppliers can innovate to move providers from baseline execution to differentiated performance.

AI-Driven Evolution of Salesforce Services Ecosystem in 2026

Jason Bremner — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective discusses how Salesforce's services partner ecosystem is changing as the company shifts its strategic direction from a product-centric business applications focus to a platform-led enterprise solution focus with Agentforce 360. The document leverages in-depth analysis of 43 services vendors operating in the Salesforce space, selected from the 124 companies with more than 200 certified experts.

"Salesforce is revamping the consulting track within its partner program in 2026 to better align with its agentic and consumption-led strategy. The changes will impact the growing Salesforce economy that fuels the revenue opportunity for GSIs, RSIs, digital agencies, boutiques, business consultants, and MSPs in the ecosystem. Services firms must realign to Salesforce's strategic pivot to remain relevant to the company and its clients and maximize their revenue opportunity," says Jason Bremner, research vice president, IT Consulting and Systems Integration services, IDC.

Agentic AI's Impact on Services

Fri, 15 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation examines how agentic AI is transforming the IT services industry, covering the shift from generative AI (GenAI) to agentic AI platforms, how leading services providers are building proprietary platforms to differentiate, and what this means for delivery models (from labor-based to platform-driven) across support, managed, and project services. This document maps the emerging platform archetypes, walks through AI-powered delivery scenarios, lays out new business-model and metric frameworks for providers to defend outcome ownership, and closes with an infrastructure and security roadmap for deploying agentic services at scale.

"The winners of the agentic era won't be the firms with the most people; they'll be the ones whose platforms do the most thinking with unique domain knowledge. Providers that redesign their business around agentic AI, not alongside it, will own the next decade of enterprise value." — Group Vice President Linus Lai, Services, IDC

IDC Mailroom Survey: Print Versus Digital Mail Trends

Robert Palmer — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey examines selected results from specific data from IDC's 2025 U.S. Mailroom Management and Customer Communications Strategies Survey.

IDC conducted a United States–based survey of organizations to assess how business communications are shifting from printed mail to digital channels and what this transition means for operational strategy.

The goal of the survey was to understand the current and expected mix of printed versus digital communications; perceptions of channel performance, including customer preference, response rate, and ROI; the influence of remote and hybrid work on communications execution; tactics used to improve response; and differences in channel preference across age cohorts. This survey examines respondent perspectives regarding the shift from printed mail to digital communications, the rise of digital-first approaches, and the continued role of hybrid print and digital strategies.

IDC Survey Spotlight: How Are European Print Providers Guiding Customers Through the Windows Protected Print Transition?

Jacqui Hendriks — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight highlights an extract from IDC's European Imaging, Printing, and Document Solutions (IPDS) B2B Print Opportunity Survey, conducted in April 2026 among 2,057 respondents from Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, the Nordics, Poland, Spain, and the U.K. This document highlights how aware European print decision-makers are of Windows Protected Print (WPP) and how print providers are supporting customers through the transition.

This survey also covered topics such as contractual print behaviors, print security, print/device management adoption and benefits, the pace of digitization, and AI-related print and document management investments.