By the numbers: The data draws a clear line between integrated and fragmented organizations.

Companies with successful AI outcomes are more than three times as likely to be fully integrated as those with mixed results (28% vs. 8%).
Firms achieving profit margins above 40% are also three times more likely to have fully integrated operations compared to less profitable competitors.
Despite the benefits, only 22% of firms in the professional services sector report being fully integrated.

What they're saying: "You cannot scale a modern services business on fragmented infrastructure," said DJ Paoni, CEO of Certinia. "Connection is the true differentiator for the organizations pulling ahead this year."

Mickey North Rizza, Group Vice President at IDC, added that a clean, unified data environment is critical. "The failure is not the AI — it is the data infrastructure beneath it."

Zoom in: The report also identified significant internal disconnects within many organizations.

A perception gap: Executives consistently rate their own organization's performance more favorably than their delivery teams. For example, leaders' confidence in their forecasting ability is 24 points higher than that of practitioners.
"The messy middle": Partially integrated firms report the lowest confidence in their revenue and resource forecasts (38%), compared to both fully siloed (75%) and fully integrated (78%) companies.

The big picture: The findings arrive as the professional services industry undergoes major shifts in its business model.

75% of organizations expect to increase outcome-based pricing over the next year.
82% of leaders name AI and data specialists as their top hiring priority, with a similar percentage expecting to grow revenue without a proportional increase in billable staff.

See the full 2026 Global Service Dynamics Report report here:

SURVEY: Operational Integration is Top Predictor of AI Success

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