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A Year After Tariffs. How Agile Are We Now?

Eric Thompson — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective provides summarized views of 10 key lessons or developments in the “year of tariffs.” Over the past year, tariffs and geopolitical tensions have reinforced an important reality for supply chain leaders: Volatility is becoming a persistent feature of the global operating environment and no longer an exception. Organizations are responding by diversifying suppliers, investing in network flexibility, strengthening procurement capabilities, and adopting more advanced planning technologies. Ultimately, the strongest supply chains appear to be those that are not simply reacting to disruption, but actively designing operating models capable of adapting to it.

“Considering the fact that we are near a full decade of persistent disruptions, acceptance of this as a pattern, and not an exception, seems prudent. Supply chain leaders are increasingly aware of the need to implement steps toward the resilient supply chain, whether through organizational or technical changes.” — Eric Thompson, research director, Worldwide Supply Chain Planning, IDC

Agents as Apps: Oracle’s Fusion Agentic Applications & Agentic Application’s Builder and Tools

Mickey North Rizza — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

On March 24, 2026 Oracle made several announcements:

Oracle announced a new class of enterprise applications powered by coordinated teams of specialized AI agents that are outcome-driven, proactive and reasoning based, and engineered for enterprise execution. These new agents are built on Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications and called Fusion Agentic Applications.

Oracle also announced its expansion of AI Agent Studio for Fusion Applications with Agentic Applications Builder and new Intelligent Workflow Tools. This latest release includes a new agentic applications builder as well as new capabilities that support workflow orchestration, content intelligence, contextual memory, and ROI measurement.

Building an AI-Ready Data Architecture Series: The Data Control Plane

Marlanna Harrington, Stewart Bond — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation is part of a four-part series, with each installment examining one of the four critical planes of the enterprise intelligence architecture that work together to enable AI-ready data and drive business outcomes. These planes support continuous learning, delivery of insights at scale, and a strong data culture across your organization.

This report will provide a deep dive into the Data Control Plane, detailing how to take control of data through data intelligence, governance policies, and engineering practices. It addresses data cataloging, lineage tracking, quality management, and stewardship frameworks that ensure data products are trustworthy, accessible, and compliant.

Enabling Trusted AI and Agents Through Enterprise Data Fabric: A CEO, CIO, and CFO Joint Initiative Is Imperative

Heather Herbst, Ranjit Rajan, Teodora Snoddy — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective highlights the critical role of enterprise data fabric in enabling trusted AI and agentic workflows, emphasizing that a joint initiative by CEOs, CIOs, and CFOs is essential. By unifying data governance, real-time orchestration, and embedded intelligence, organizations can overcome fragmented systems and data silos, ensuring decision-grade data for AI, regulatory compliance, and business agility. Executive alignment is key to realizing the full value of data fabric investments.

"Without a trusted data fabric, AI becomes a liability, not an asset. Is your enterprise ready to make decisions you can defend?" — Heather Herbst, research director, CFO Buyer Insights, IDC

IDC FutureScape: Three Cloud Trends Shaping the European Cloud Market, 2026

Carla Arend, George Ayad, Luis Fernandes, Rahiel Nasir — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Web Conference Proceeding was conducted on January 29, 2026.

Where should you focus to succeed in the European cloud market in 2026? With ongoing geopolitical uncertainty, tightening regulation, and accelerating AI adoption, European organizations must prioritize investments that balance innovation, governance, and cost control.

As AI moves from experimentation to large-scale deployment, getting cloud strategy right has become a critical business imperative. IDC’s European cloud research team developed its top 10 cloud predictions for 2026 and beyond, highlighting three key themes that will define the market this year.

Carla Arend, Rahiel Nasir, and Luis Fernandes explore the following trends shaping the European cloud market in 2026:

Addressing sovereignty and risk
The rise of specialized AI cloud providers and edge infrastructures
Agent-driven cloud modernization

IDC PeerScape: Lessons Learned from Salesforce Implementation Services

Jason Bremner, Sreenivas Duvvuri Venkata — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC PeerScape highlights the importance of Salesforce implementation services.

"Successful Salesforce transformation is not just about technology; it's about empowering people, fostering agility, and institutionalizing best practices across the enterprise," said Jason Bremner, research vice president, IT Consulting and System Integration Strategies, IDC. "The most effective Salesforce implementations are driven by cross-functional teams, robust governance, industry centricity, and well-considered change management."

IDC PlanScape: Connected Metrics to Optimize Business, Process, and Engineering Value

Robert Multhaup — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

It is the job of the product manager and product teams to understand and build relationships across these three levels. It is not enough to understand the value of each individual product. It is essential to be able to compare the value metrics across all products to understand their relative value contributions. This paper will delve into how to connect metrics within a connected value matrix to optimize product business performance, product process performance, and product engineering performance.

“Individual and isolated metrics do not provide insights into why outcomes are happening. By connecting product business metrics with product process metrics and product engineering metrics, causal relationships can be explained and corrective action can be successfully targeted to improve performance.” — Adjunct Research Advisor Robert Multhaup, IDC IT Executive Programs (IEP)

IDC ProductScape: Worldwide Cloud Deployment–Centric Application Platforms, 2026

Matthew Flug — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC ProductScape offers a comprehensive guide on the key functionalities of cloud application deployment platforms, featuring products from Akamai, AWS, Broadcom, Cloudflare, F5, Google, Microsoft, Mirantis, Nutanix, Oracle, Red Hat, Salesforce, Upsun, and Vercel. The status of each functionality is categorized as fully supported, partially supported, partner provided, road map, or not supported, aiding technology purchasers in quickly identifying which vendors align with their changing requirements.

NRF 2026: Key Technology Takeaways at the Turning Point for Agentic and AI-Fueled, Data-Driven Retailing

Margot Juros — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses how NRF 2026 marked a turning point on the road to agentic/AI-fueled retailing, taking a step forward from the experimentation stage to execution. Dominant themes arose around the critical need for a modernized unified data foundation to support successful AI/agentic AI initiatives, the importance of moving away from fragmented siloed data and systems to a unified, holistic view across operations, and changes retailers need to make to remain competitive as consumers increasingly embrace agentic shopping journeys.

"NRF 2026 highlighted the critical importance of unified, trusted, real-time data foundations essential to leverage data-driven AI/agentic AI to elevate customer experience, drive new levels of operational efficiency, and successfully compete amid today's fast-changing, volatile retail landscape," says Margot Juros, research director, Worldwide Retail AI, Platforms, and Technologies, IDC.

Retailers Move Toward Unified Decisioning at NRF

Ananda Chakravarty — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective discusses how merchandising remains critical as retailers shift from agentic AI hype to practical, real-world application across stores, online, back offices, and distribution. At NRF 2026, the focus moved from point solutions to unified decision-making powered by integrated data, processes, and systems. Retailers are adopting holistic, systems-based approaches by combining AI/ML and modular capabilities to optimize operations and drive end-to-end outcomes.

"Retailers want their inventory data to correspond to pricing and to their financial planning, supply chain, and even online order management. To accomplish this, data and merchandising must become unified, not just in terms of a single source of data but a propagation of decisions across all aspects of the business — that's unified decision-making," says Ananda "Andy" Chakravarty, research vice president, IDC Retail Insights.