Managing the Network for Digital Transformation

Digital transformation (DT) is an extinction-level event for enterprises — it’s “go digital or die” — so your network must be DT-capable.

On average, companies that embrace DT can expect to increase annual revenues by 2.9% and reduce costs by 3.6%. That’s game changing, but companies that go all in are likely to forecast “both revenue gains of more than 30% and cost reduction of more than 30% at the same time.”

The network is the framework that supports DT technologies, services, and business initiatives. However, while IT grapples with cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), big data and analytics (BDA), mobility, social media, and security, they do so with limited time, money, and resources. Typically, IT managers spend more than 50% of their time on manual, time-consuming management tasks versus only 21% of their time on innovative, strategic initiatives to help accelerate the business. Digital leaders rank insufficient network resources at the top of the list of obstacles to achieving digital objectives.

Increasingly companies are considering professional services to help them ensure their networks are not left behind. Professional services can help plan for a move to cloud, increase network automation, and transform your network into a key part of your modern, converged infrastructure. The benefits of upgrading your network can be substantial — for example, documented cases of a return on investment of 349% over five years, with an average payback period of 8.6 months from deployment.

A professional services partner can help you tackle any and all aspects of the planning, implementation, management, and support of a DT-ready and secure network solution, ensuring the required levels of performance, reliability, and availability. They can help you maximize operational efficiency while reducing costs and minimizing risk, achieving a faster time to value for your network.

There is a variety of organizations offering a range of professional services. For example, Juniper Networks takes a lifecycle approach to services designed to accelerate, extend, and optimize your network.

The key benefit of partnering with the Professional Services team from a company like Juniper is its experience in helping companies big and small, including telcos and service providers, plan, build, and operate their networks. Creating next-generation and DT-ready networks that can take advantage of applications and new technologies such as cloud, SDN, and NFV is complicated, especially when you add in automation capabilities, which are essential to reducing complexity and operating costs.

“Speed and agility, the ability to turn up or turn down services, to add new or alter services — that’s the meta-driver for network transformation,” according to Juniper’s Steve Tufts, Corporate Vice President, Services. “And the only way you’re going to be able to adapt to market requirements for speed and agility is through automation.”

With IT teams scrambling just to keep the lights on, never mind trying to be innovative or competitive, the necessity of working with a partner with extensive expertise and experience in networking makes sense. A partner can help you assess where you are, where you need to be, and help determine the optimal approach to ensuring that your network is DT-ready.