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Poste Italiane Moves to Take Telecom Italia to Create a Leading Provider Capable of Reshaping the Digital Ecosystem Landscape

Daniela Rao, Ahmad Latif Ali — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note examines the Poste Italiane launch of a cash-and-share offer to buy Telecom Italia (TIM) and the significant implications on the Italian telecom and digital services market landscape, likely opening also a new phase of consolidation in Europe's telecom industry.

"Poste Italiane's move marks a renewed strengthening of the Italian state's influence over the telecom industry governance, reshaping the digital providers' competitive landscape, and accelerating the convergence of logistics, payments, and connectivity services," said Daniela Rao, senior research and consulting director, European Telecom at IDC.

IDC Survey Spotlight: Is Dynamic Content Optimization a Service, an App, or the Victim of AI Change?

Roger Beharry Lall — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight examines the current state and near-term evolution of dynamic creative optimization (DCO) in the context of generative AI (GenAI) adoption among advertising organizations, focusing on whether GenAI is augmenting or displacing existing DCO operating models.

Drawing on survey data from B2B and B2C marketing and advertising leaders, the document assesses how organizations currently deploy DCO — across managed services, standalone platforms, and integrated solutions — and how these models are expected to evolve over the next 12 months.

Braze Closes FY26 with Strong Fourth Quarter as Enterprise AI and Cross-Channel Engagement Drive Momentum

Gerry Murray — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Braze reported fourth-quarter revenue of $205.2 million, up 28% year over year, contributing to $738.2 million in full-year revenue (24% YoY). Growth was accompanied by improving profitability, with non-GAAP operating income of $14.5 million and $13.9 million in free cash flow in the quarter.Cofounder and CEO Bill Magnuson framed the quarter as part of a broader inflection point: large, sophisticated enterprises are increasingly standardizing on Braze as a foundational platform for AI-driven customer engagement.

IDC Survey Spotlight: What Are the Biggest Security and Compliance Challenges Facing European SMBs?

Mark Child — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey Spotlight examines European SMBs' top security and compliance challenges. It also provides insights into the specific nuances affecting organizations in the three biggest European markets: the U.K., France, and Germany. This presentation draws from IDC's March 2026 Worldwide Small and Medium-Sized Business Survey.

IDC Survey: SMB Communications Services Survey, 2025 — AI Adoption in SMB Communications

Jason Blackwell — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

AI investment is moving from exploration to structured deployment:

Generative AI is now the top SMB technology investment priority, with agentic AI emerging as well, confirming that SMBs are moving beyond passive evaluation toward structured spending plans and operational deployment in the next 12–18 months.

Competitive advantage is increasingly tied to customer engagement and data-driven decisioning:

SMBs are now viewing GenAI to reshape how they engage customers and use data to inform decisions, reframing AI from an internal efficiency tool to a growth and differentiation lever embedded within communications, collaboration, and analytics-driven workflows.

Execution readiness determines the pace of scale:

Although interest is high, scaling AI remains difficult due to challenges like regulatory and data‑governance requirements, cost control, and limited in‑house expertise. This underscores the need for secure‑by‑design solutions and well‑defined ROI models and marketing.

AI monetization will flow through bundled, managed connectivity models:

Broadband remains the anchor service in the SMB relationship, but strategic influence over AI/AIOps road maps is consolidating with cloud providers and integrators, pressuring telecom and cable providers to evolve toward integrated, managed, and consultative service models to protect wallet share and relevance.

Meta's Newest Commerce Strategy: Partnering with Shopify, Payments, and AI to Close the Transaction Loop

Roger Beharry Lall, Heather Hershey — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Friction is the enemy of impulse. Frictionless checkouts almost always convert better than the alternatives. That's exactly what Meta is partnering to tap into via the strategies announced at Shoptalk on March 24, 2026. Meta wants to reduce or eliminate redirection off its platform for the completion of purchases to compress the customer journey to maximize impulse-driven opportunities.

Beyond Stripe, Meta is building out a broader payments ecosystem that gives merchants flexibility at checkout. Initial rollouts center on Stripe and PayPal, both of which power the current one-tap, in-app transaction flow. Additional integrations with Adyen are already planned, with merchants able to select their preferred provider at the point of purchase.

Stripe brings modern, developer-centric infrastructure; PayPal contributes global wallet reach and consumer familiarity; and Adyen extends enterprise-grade acquiring and international coverage. The result is a flexible checkout architecture where Meta owns the interface and optimization layer, while payment execution is distributed across specialized partners. Beyond this, Shopify is providing a layer of commerce orchestration to the table that makes for a more complete offering for catalog management, checkout, fulfillment, and reporting.

Interestingly, Meta shut down its own native checkout (Facebook/Instagram Shops) as of mid-2025, moving buyers back to merchant sites to complete the transaction. The aforementioned partners are essentially building what Meta stepped away from.

This IDC Link will focus on Meta, Stripe, and Shopify, since those three companies have been the center of the announcements to date.

European Telco Diversification Beyond Connectivity and Devices in the SMB Market

Daniela Rao — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective focuses on European telcos' digital solutions propositions for SMBs, beyond connectivity and devices. These digital solutions encompass a wide range of services to address SMB customers' digital transformation, efficiency and flexibility needs, to compete successfully in the European digital economy.

"Telcos' success in the SMB market depends on their ability to propose digital solutions in which security, trustability, and resilience are embedded in scalable, user-friendly suites that increase customers' agility," said Daniela Rao, senior research and consulting director, IDC Telecom and UCC Global Team.

European Telcos Move to Integrate Energy Plans in Their Consumer and SMB Portfolios

Daniela Rao — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Perspective focuses on the European telcos’ strategic move to integrate in their portfolio energy services like green electricity, gas, and solar solutions for consumers and SMBs. Energy diversification has long been a strategic focus for many telecom operators, but from 2024 onward, collaborations with energy providers and the rollout of energy offerings have accelerated, marking a significant step toward becoming full-fledged digital service providers.

“Leveraging their digital expertise, infrastructure, and customer relationships, European telcos have the potential to become key players of the multi-utility retail market and become co-creators of new energy services, improving consumers and SMBs segments loyalty and profitability,” said Daniela Rao, senior research and consulting director, European Telecoms, IDC.

European Telco Best Practices on Advanced VoIP Solution Offerings for SMBs

Daniela Rao, Graham Fruin — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Presentation provides an overview of European telcos' best practices on advanced VoIP solution offerings for SMBs.

The presentation summarizes drivers and market value and provides an in-depth look at European telcos' best practices on the advanced VoIP service offerings of four major European telcos targeting SMBs with different messages and solutions. It also contains key recommendations for telco providers acting in this market area.

Account-Based Advertising Vendor Landscape

Roger Beharry Lall — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation looks at the account-based advertising (ABA) vendor landscape. ABA is rapidly emerging as the execution layer that unifies B2B intent, identity, and media at scale. Its importance is increasing in an environment defined by dark-funnel buying behavior, expanding buying committees, and persistent cross-device engagement.

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation provides a comprehensive view of the evolving ABA vendor landscape, outlining the capabilities, strengths, and trade-offs that differentiate providers. It focuses specifically on ABA — the tactical, paid media extension of account-based marketing (ABM) — and examines how digital advertising reaches key stakeholders within target accounts across channels such as display, social, CTV, and audio.

Vendor profiles are grounded in a structured capabilities framework that spans ABM foundations, programmatic functionality, walled garden strategies, intent data, orchestration, AI, integrations, service models, and extended media options. The result is a clear, benchmark-oriented perspective showing vendors excel and where limitations may exist.

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation is intended for senior B2B marketers, advertising leaders, demand generation leaders, and revenue teams seeking to evaluate or rationalize ABA partners, operationalize always-on account-based programs, and consolidate fragmented ABM investments into a cohesive, media-driven growth engine.