Articles | ISG

Index Insider | Why Enterprises Keep Signing Longer Deals

Stanton Jones — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 18:19:14 GMT

This is Stanton Jones with what’s important in the IT and business services industry this week.

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Software Strategy 2030: When Software Stops Being the Product

Dr. Daniel Gerster — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:56:26 GMT

AI Is Shifting Enterprise Software from Applications and Seats to Capabilities, Work and Outcomes

For two decades, enterprise software strategy has largely been an application and procurement story: select strategic platforms, negotiate licenses, manage vendors and control the application portfolio. That model is becoming insufficient.

Full Speed Ahead for AI

Steve Hall — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 17:27:22 GMT

Despite recent words of caution from within and from outside the AI industry, demand for this groundbreaking technology shows no signs of abating. Indeed, it’s accelerating.

Index Insider | 3Q26 ISG Index Recap

Stanton Jones — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 15:42:16 GMT

Hello. This is Stanton Jones with a special recap of the third quarter 2026 ISG Index call. You can download the slides here and watch a replay here.

Index Insider | Market Signals to Watch for in the 3Q26 ISG Index Call

Stanton Jones — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 16:59:33 GMT

Hello. This is Stanton Jones with a special preview of the ISG Index Webcast on Thursday, October 8 at 9:00 AM ET. Reserve your spot here.

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Index Insider | What’s Your AI Archetype?

Stanton Jones — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 19:38:39 GMT

Hello. This is Stanton Jones and Angela Kreiter with what’s important in the IT and business services industry this week.

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What AI-Informed Sourcing Contracts Can Do for Healthcare | ISG

ISG — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 07:00:00 GMT

AI is reshaping revenue cycle management (RCM), but many healthcare contracts still rely on outdated labor-based models that fail to capture the value of automation and transformation. Modern RCM contracting can align incentives around measurable outcomes, enable greater flexibility and accountability, and help health systems unlock significant cost savings, stronger revenue performance and sustainable financial impact.

The AI Productivity Trap: Why Faster Marketing Does Not Guarantee Value | ISG

Kaveri Camire — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 07:00:00 GMT

Nearly every marketing organization can point to productivity gains from AI. Reports are generated faster. Content is produced in greater volume. Campaign cycles are compressed. Yet many executive teams still struggle to see an equivalent improvement in revenue, profitability or enterprise value.

Index Insider | Will Local AI Models Change Who Owns the Risk? | ISG

Stanton Jones — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 07:00:00 GMT

Hello. This is Stanton Jones with what’s important in the IT and business services industry this week.

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The Affordability Control Tower: How Utility CIOs Can Engineer Enterprise Economics | ISG

Bill Huber — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:00:00 GMT

From Rate Cases to Enterprise Decisions: Rethinking Utility Affordability

For decades, affordability in utilities was primarily viewed through the lens of rate cases, customer assistance programs and regulatory oversight. Technology organizations enabled those efforts, but they were rarely expected to directly influence affordability.

That paradigm is changing quickly. Affordability is no longer the downstream consequence of regulatory decisions. Customers face increasing bill pressure and regulators increasingly expect every investment to demonstrate measurable customer value.

That is why affordability is becoming an emergent property of thousands of operational, technological and commercial decisions made across the enterprise every day. Utilities today face unprecedented pressure to modernize aging infrastructure, strengthen cybersecurity, improve grid resilience and reliability, prepare for AI-driven load growth, integrate distributed energy resources and deliver better customer experiences. Every investment now has both an operational consequence and an affordability consequence.

As utilities become more digital, affordability is evolving from a financial metric into an enterprise-design objective. It must be engineered continuously rather than measured retrospectively. That shift fundamentally changes the role of the utility CIO.

From Technology Delivery to Enterprise Decision Quality

Historically, CIOs were measured by technology performance. Today, technology success is increasingly measured by business outcomes rather than system performance alone. As a result, CIOs are also becoming accountable for the economic consequences of technology decisions. Every major technology investment now influences how efficiently the utility acquires assets, operates infrastructure, maintains systems and serves customers. Investments in customer information systems, enterprise asset management, grid operations, field workforce management, analytics, cloud platforms and AI all influence operating costs, workforce productivity, asset utilization, grid resilience and reliability and service quality. Collectively, these decisions determine the utility's cost-to-serve.

As a result, CIOs are becoming stewards of enterprise-wide decision quality, helping the organization understand not only whether technology works, but whether it improves affordability while maintaining reliability and resilience.

That responsibility also exposes an important limitation in how most utilities manage affordability today.

The Missing Link Between Operations and Customer Bills

Most utilities can explain why rates have increased. Far fewer can explain which operational decisions created those increases, or predict which decisions being made today will flow into customer bills three years from now. The underlying challenge is fragmentation, both organizational and technical. Individual business functions optimize within their own boundaries, while the economics emerge across the enterprise.

The fragmentation often looks like this:

Customer data resides in the Customer Information System (CIS) and the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system
Usage data lives in Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and Meter Data Management System (MDMS)
Financial and cost information sits in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems
Asset performance is tracked in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and work management applications
Operational technology platforms such as Geographic Information System (GIS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS), and Outage Management System (OMS) often maintain their own data models.

Each system explains its own performance. None explains enterprise affordability.