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Delinea and StrongDM: A Stitch in Time, Secure Privilege Before It Unwinds

Emanuel Figueroa — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

For years, organizations relied on checkpoints authenticate once, then assume trust for the rest of the journey. That approach worked when IT environments were relatively static. But today’s reality isn’t a straight flight; it’s a turbulent mix of cloud, SaaS, DevOps pipelines, and AI agents operating at machine speed. Static trust doesn’t fly anymore.

Delinea’s acquisition of StrongDM signals a strategic shift: moving from static, vault-based PAM to dynamic, just-in-time (JIT) runtime authorization. The goal is to enforce least privilege at the moment of action, across traditional infrastructure, cloud-native environments, and AI-driven workflows without rip-and-replace or added friction.

Accenture FY 1Q26: Reinvention Takes Hold with Revenue Up 5% in Local Currency, New Bookings Up 10%

Lars Goransson — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

On December 18, 2025, Accenture announced its FY 1Q26 results, reporting $18.7 billion in quarterly revenue, a 6% increase year-over-year (YoY) in U.S. dollars and 5% in local currency, at the high end of its guidance. New bookings totaled $20.9 billion, rising 12% in U.S. dollars and 10% in local currency, with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.1 and 33 clients each exceeding $100 million in quarterly bookings. Advanced AI bookings reached $2.2 billion for the quarter, while revenue from advanced AI was $1.1 billion, up 76% and 120% YoY in U.S. dollars, respectively.

Quarterly growth was broad-based across Accenture’s traditional reporting areas. By type of work, consulting revenue totaled $9.41 billion, up 4% in U.S. dollars and 3% in local currency. Managed services revenue expanded to $9.33 billion, up by 8% in U.S. dollars and 7% in local currency. The Americas grew 4% in both U.S. dollars and local currency. EMEA increased 8% in U.S. dollars and 4% in local currency, while Asia/Pacific grew 7% in U.S. dollars and 9% in local currency. Industry-wise, Financial Services (up 14% in U.S. dollars, 12% in local currency) and Communications, Media & Technology (up 9% and 8%) were the strongest sectors. In contrast, Health & Public Service remained flat in U.S. dollars and declined 1% in local currency. Products and Resources grew 6% and 3% in U.S. dollars, respectively.

GAAP operating margin for the quarter was 15.3%, down 140 basis points YoY, reflecting $308 million of business optimization costs tied to talent rotation and other actions initiated in FY 4Q25. On an adjusted basis, operating margin expanded by 30 basis points to 17.0%. Free cash flow was $1.5 billion (versus $0.9 billion in the prior year quarter), and Accenture returned $3.3 billion to shareholders through $2.3 billion of share repurchases and $1.0 billion in dividends, including a quarterly dividend of $1.63 per share, up 10% YoY. The company reaffirmed its FY26 revenue growth outlook of 2–5% in local currency (3–6% excluding an estimated one percentage point headwind from its U.S. federal business), and continues to guide to an adjusted operating margin of 15.7–15.9%, and expects adjusted EPS growth of 5–8%.

AI Agents Are Scaling Fast — Are CIOs Ready to Manage Them?

Mona Liddell — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Survey Spotlight examines how organizations are adopting and scaling AI agents, based on data from the Future Enterprise Resilience and Spending Survey, Waves 8 and 9. The findings show a clear divide: Digital-native organizations are already ahead, with many running AI agents in production and at scale, while non-digital natives are less mature but planning rapid expansion over the next two years. By 2026, large-scale AI agent deployments are expected to be common across both groups, signaling a shift from experimentation to operational reality.

The challenge for CIOs is not whether AI agents will scale, but whether their organizations are ready to manage that scale. This spotlight explores where ambition may be outpacing readiness and outlines key considerations and recommendations to help CIOs manage AI agents effectively as adoption accelerates.

Buyer's Perspective: Developing Agentic Ways of Working, 2026

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation is the anchor document in a series of buyer-focused materials that explore best practices for AI-enabled ways of working. It outlines IDC's framework for agentic ways of working, explaining how the rapid growth in automation and AI assistants are driving demand for a model that embeds agents safely and transparently into processes, supported by ethical governance, risk, and compliance and continuous life-cycle management. As organizations mature in their adoption of AI-enabled ways of working, they require AI agents that can take actions within business workflows under clear governance and control structures. The deck takes a pragmatic stepwise approach to the requirements of upskilling, role redesign, and proactive communication to address worker concerns. It also explores how to move from cost-focused ROI to dynamic, outcome-based metrics tied to productivity, innovation, risk reduction, and workforce enablement.

Emerging Security Services and Trends for 2026

Cathy Huang, Craig Robinson, Scott Tiazkun, Yogesh Shivhare, Jaclynn Anderson — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation examines the emerging security service categories shaping enterprise priorities for 2026, including detection reliability engineering, decentralized identity, advanced biometrics and behavioral authentication, post‑quantum readiness, and new distributor‑led go‑to‑market models.

The research highlights the service innovations that enterprises are adopting to increase operational resilience, strengthen identity assurance, prepare for quantum‑era risks, and improve predictability in both service delivery and incident response.

How Company Size Informs CIO Strategies: Differences Across Lower Midmarket, Upper Midmarket, and Large Enterprise from IDC's 2025 CIO Sentiment Survey

Mona Liddell — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Tech Buyer Presentation examines how CIO priorities and challenges compare across company size using data from IDC's 2025 CIO Sentiment Survey (n = 437). While many priorities are shared across lower midmarket (500–999 employees; n = 105), upper midmarket (1,000–4,999; n = 163), and large enterprise (5,000+; n = 169) organizations, the data reveals meaningful differences in execution capacity, operating constraints, risk exposure, and the impact of scale. The findings define practical archetypes by company size and highlight where CIOs face similar expectations but need different approaches across digital transformation, investment priorities, talent and skills, security and AI risk, and technical debt.

IDC Innovators: AI-Enabled IT Incident Management, 2025

Snow Tempest — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Innovators presentation identifies four technology vendors offering innovative applications and platforms that use artificial intelligence (AI) to transform practices in technology incident management.

Enabled with AI, features in these products can help identify patterns that show issues are occurring, identify root causes across different systems, and summarize decisions. These functions can help reduce downtime and potentially prevent problems from occurring. These benefits can help reduce revenue loss due to outages and help technical teams focus on productivity rather than troubleshooting.

"Products and features that use new technologies such as AI, along with innovative architectures and designs, can help organizations improve time to resolve incidents, or prevent them in the first place. By doing so, they can reduce revenue loss and keep human team members focused on creating value," says Snow Tempest, research manager, IT Service Management at IDC.

The Apple Card Is Moving to JPMC: Lessons in Embedded Finance

Aaron Press, Jerry Silva — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

On January 7, 2026, JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) announced it will become the new issuer of Apple Card, taking over a $20 billion portfolio currently managed by Goldman Sachs' Marcus digital bank. The transition, expected to take up to 24 months, involves complex operational changes, including reissuing credentials and integrating with Apple's savings and payment programs. This move reflects a strategic shift: Goldman Sachs is exiting consumer card issuing, while Apple partners with Chase to strengthen its embedded finance strategy.

IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Sustainability/ESG 2026 Predictions — Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) Implications

Melvie Espejo, Dr. William Lee, Stephanie Krishnan — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC FutureScape shows the implication of worldwide predictions relating to sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) in the context of the Asia/Pacific, excluding Japan (APEJ) region. It serves as a framework for organizations strategy and planning around sustainability technologies and ESG-related IT services. The FutureScape lists the top 10 trends for the next five years. Based on IDC's sustainability research, these 10 trends would impact how APEJ organizations can leverage emerging generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI for sustainability solutions to gain competitive advantage, enhance product positioning, and deliver business outcomes linked to sustainable business transformation and sustainability initiatives.

"As organizations expand their adoption of GenAI and agentic AI for sustainability, these technologies will redefine how they execute sustainability strategies, prioritize investments in ESG-focused IT services, and use sustainability solutions." — Asia/Pacific Sustainability Research and Practice Lead Melvie Espejo, IDC

The Ascending Priority of Cybersecurity in Global Supply Chains

Simon Ellis, Stephanie Krishnan — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective examines why cybersecurity has reemerged as a top priority for supply chain leaders and how this trend aligns with the rapid adoption of AI and autonomous decision-making in logistics and manufacturing. Drawing on recent IDC supply chain and CIO surveys, this report explores the evolving threat landscape, highlights the most pressing cyber-risks to physical supply chains, and assesses how IT/operational technology (OT) convergence, partner ecosystems, and operational data foundations shape organizations' readiness for AI-augmented security operations.

"As AI moves from pilots to production, cybersecurity has become a structural prerequisite for scaling automation across logistics and manufacturing. Highly automated supply chains are only as resilient as their weakest partner," says Stephanie Krishnan, associate VP for supply chain. "AI-driven security outcomes depend on operational data quality. Without credible IT/OT visibility, even advanced cyber tools cannot reliably protect the supply chain."