Author: Rose de Fremery
Date published: September 11, 2024
Global enterprises need to seek to keep up with the pace of innovation required to effectively compete and win in the digital age. This often means taking on the complex challenge of managing their operations across a fragmented corporate network. One approach to enabling the speed, control, security and agility enterprises need to achieve Enterprise Intelligence is to adopt enterprise network best practices. Here are a few tips on how enterprises can leverage best practices and strategic partnerships to accomplish their network transformation objectives.
Global enterprises often have networks that are especially complex and difficult to manage. For example, they may have fragmented networks spanning multiple countries and continents with a tangle of disparate regulations and technologies. These factors make it challenging to connect their various business units across many locations and support their employees' collaboration requirements and need for shared applications and data.
Corporate IT teams may also face obstacles solving network performance challenges and in their ability to manage service-level agreements (SLA) across multiple vendors. Even when network services are performing in accordance with SLAs and adhering to standard network best practices, these IT teams may find it difficult to manage so many vendor relationships, contracts and all the compliance processes associated with them. As always there is the general issue of finding the skilled personnel to manage all of this complexity.
Depending on the network services available where a global enterprise operates, the IT team may think it has no choice but to depend on the available legacy infrastructure that does not support its goals or enable growth. As an enterprise adds more locations, these problems only increase, becoming more unwieldy and more severely impacting the business over time. Almost half (46%) of global enterprise leaders said legacy technology and technical debt is holding back their organizational strategy, according to the 2023 Insight Intelligent Technology Report, conducted by IDC on behalf of solutions integrator Insight Enterprises.
Legacy network infrastructure can also inhibit innovation and diminish customer satisfaction. For example, without proper visibility into the network—a baseline requirement for ensuring high-performing enterprise networks these days—the IT team cannot properly troubleshoot application performance issues and maintain a high-quality customer experience. Before long, the company may find itself experiencing customer churn and potentially leading to lagging behind the competition.
Although the challenges facing enterprise networks are not to be underestimated, the good news is there are network best practices available to address them. Here's how two global enterprises leveraged innovative network solutions and best practices to resolve their concerns and achieve their business goals.
Bertelsmann, a global media conglomerate, had a fragmented global network that included over 100 vendors. Not only was it logistically challenging to maintain seamless operations across so many vendors, but the inherent fragmentation inhibited innovation at speed and scale.
The company wanted to connect its business units across the globe, but this goal proved challenging with its existing network. After considering the available options, Bertelsmann decided to reorganize its corporate IT function in partnership with a leading global network services provider that had a proven track record of delivering best-in-class enterprise networks that could also give the IT team crucial support on enterprise network best practices.
To address Bertelsmann's enterprise network challenges and provide greater network agility that would better support future innovation, it implemented an SD WAN-enabled application-aware network. The recommended solution also included managed Private IP and internet services and an optimized wide area network (WAN). In addition, the team deployed secure cloud interconnect (SCI) and virtual network services (VNS).
As a result, Bertelsmann was able to double its North American business capacity using automatic routing via the internet or secure multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) connections. With a unified global platform in place, they were able to join their business units together. The flexible SD WAN solution made it possible to quickly scale operations in various business units as needed, and the cloud network services enabled the corporate IT team to realize considerable efficiencies.
Tate & Lyle, a global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets, was grappling with a legacy network infrastructure that couldn’t support the demands of its global business growth. Moreover, the firm required a transport-agnostic infrastructure to bring new locations online in remote plants across 28 different counties—a problem that indicated a need for an advanced network solution such as SD WAN. The difficulties didn't end there, because Tate & Lyle needed better network visibility to maintain reliable application performance.
To address these problems and create a stronger network foundation that would allow for future innovation, Tate & Lyle engaged an experienced partner that transformed their outdated network to an SD WAN solution that features intelligent routing control. Because this partner could bring its considerable expertise with global enterprise networks to bear on Tate & Lyle's behalf, it was able to install remote circuits even in uniquely challenging locations, such as a plant site in a Brazilian jungle.
With these solutions in place, Tate & Lyle was able to grow its global business without encountering the same network limitations that had previously held the company back. The corporate IT team was able to seamlessly add new endpoints wherever they were located, using a single pane of glass dashboard to facilitate node policy deployment and configuration management per best practices for enterprise network security.
Network performance significantly improved thanks to automatic traffic routing matched with network quality and application requirements. Not only was Tate & Lyle better able to control its costs, but it was also able to achieve more than 10% in cost savings over their previous network solutions.
Corporate IT teams are often stretched thin. Enterprise IT professionals frequently juggle multiple mission-critical projects that are intended to move the business forward. In addition, they face an IT skills shortage that makes it difficult to add the competencies and expertise needed.
In these situations, it can be beneficial to work with an experienced partner who understands the requirements of a global enterprise, has deep experience implementing network transformations for companies in the same industry, and possesses the requisite skill sets concerning network best practices. The right partnership can even be viewed as a strategic asset, empowering the enterprise to cost-effectively scale its global network operations, meet its business targets and continue innovating at the speed of business.
Enterprises using managed service providers for strategic advantage are more likely to be faster to market and more innovative, according to PwC.
Network challenges are among the most complex and difficult problems global enterprise IT teams can face. Fragmented networks, legacy infrastructure and a disparate portfolio of vendors make it hard to advance an enterprise's network transformation goals. The good news is that corporate IT teams have options for addressing these challenges. Adopting network best practices such as managed services and a private network tailored to their unique business needs can help enterprises achieve Enterprise Intelligence, giving them the ability to adapt to their changing needs in near real-time.
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The author of this content is a paid contributor for Verizon.