Market trends and business challenges

• Hybrid work models are forcing IT to reimagine the campus environment • Overcoming today’s network infrastructure business challenges

Hybrid work models are forcing IT to reimagine the campus environment

For your organization to support hybrid work models, you need an agile and secure network. The reality of rearchitecting your campus is not an easy task and is quite challenging, especially as IT is already burdened trying to manage remote applications and the resources or skillsets necessary for these new technologies.

Aging infrastructures typically combine wired and wireless systems to support work-in-the-office and fixed workspaces—lacking the flexibility and agility to support the requirements of a hybrid workforce, edge devices, and “connect from anywhere” expectations.

Many organizations (69 percent) agree that digital business demands were accelerated by the pandemic.¹ The ongoing transition from a data center-centric application model to an internet-enabled cloud-centric model forces IT teams to completely rethink the organization's networking strategy.² IT must support users who securely connect from any location and with any device to provide the best possible experience to customers and employees, but IT struggles with trying to make traditional WAN networks meet these new challenges. Seventy-six percent of IT teams said that remote workers are harder to secure, and 51 percent of organizations said they’ve had problems connecting workers to company resources over the past 18 months.²

Security remains a huge concern, with the sophistication of targeted attacks and the vulnerabilities introduced by remote workers and edge devices connecting into the network. Seventy-six percent of organizations see organized cybercrime increasing and 50 percent are investing in network security to manage risk.³

The network must evolve and provide secure, consistent connectivity across hybrid solutions to become the key platform for digital transformation, and IT needs the increased ability to handle unexpected events, reduce risk, and drive a sustainable solution. Having a more agile, digital business will help your organization respond to opportunities in the market and geographically.

Gartner predicts that by 2024, 80 percent of enterprises that align network operations plans to business-led objectives will grow faster than their competitors.⁴

¹ “The Urgency of Digital Business Acceleration,” Gartner: September 2020.
² “2022 Global Networking Trends Report, Special Edition: The State of SASE and The Rise of Networking as a Service (NaaS),” Cisco, May 2022.
³ “Global Threat Intelligence Report,” NTT, August 2021.
⁴ “How to Choose the Correct Network Operations Model for Your Enterprise,” Gartner Research: Ted Corbett, Danielle Young, Neil Rickard, March 2021.

Overcoming today’s network infrastructure
business challenges

An intelligent and secure network fabric is vital in today’s hybrid world, but it is important to understand how this will affect your campus. Organizations looking to modernize their networks and continue to move operations to the cloud are faced with campus network challenges such as security integration, increased network complexity, lack of automation, ensuring proper Wi-Fi coverage, and the need for more AIOps and/or cloud-based managed solutions.⁵ In fact, the top three objectives driving cloud adoption are business agility, resilience, and cost of operations.⁶

Digital transformation and moving to the cloud underscore the need for business agility and the ability to support new work models. Irrespective of how people connect to and interact with an organization, IT is pressured to provide a consistently high-quality experience, encompassing those consuming products or services and workers accessing the network. Furthermore, as your organization navigates the new business environment, you can’t afford to have disrupted revenue streams. You require cost efficiencies and need more predictable IT costs.

Your organization may also struggle with the complexity of deploying new technologies, such as AIOps, software-defined networking, and zero-trust security. If your IT team lacks the internal skills required to deploy and operate these technologies, then they become more complex to adopt and manage.

By collaborating with a trusted managed services partner that has the skills and experience to help, your organization can overcome these challenges faster and satisfy the demands of everyone accessing your network campus.

⁵ “ESG Showcase: Managed Services for Campus and Branch,” Enterprise Strategy Group, May 2022.
⁶ “Hybrid Cloud Report,” NTT, November 2021.