OPINION
By Kevin Drinkall, EMEA
Wireless & Cloud Market
Development Manager, Zyxel
www.zyxel.com
In a world that’s increasingly dependent on technology
and bandwidth, the challenges facing network managers,
resellers and end users have changed. The competition no
longer lies in providing cutting-edge hardware, which is now
more widely and democratically distributed than ever. But
in giving users the power to work smartly and effectively,
with a network that is agile, flexible, responsive and above
all, reliable – ideally more so than any network used by
competing firms.
Not only must SMBs be sure of their network’s ability to
cope with day-to-day tasks and the demands of customers,
but it must also be able to satisfy the new ‘must haves’ of
an evolving landscape. For example, companies of all sizes
are now paying attention to big data and their need for
increasingly sophisticated analytics to create the highly
personalised journeys and interactions that their customers
now expect.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is another prime example of
innovation making demands on business networks. A recent
survey of 700 executives found that 60% of businesses
were looking to use the IoT to drive new initiatives. The
nature of those initiatives will, of course, vary by company
and sector, but they will inevitably require the expansion,
reconfiguration and scaling of business networks.
SMBs and the cloud
Even in the era of cloud, that sounds like a huge potential
headache for network managers and resellers. Moving an
SMB with a traditional locally deployed network into the era
of advanced analytics and the IoT will be quite a challenge.
Whenever any meaningful scaling-up or innovation is carried
out conventionally, managers have to install and maintain
generic software and spend time doing this; generally forcing
the business to cease, or at least disrupt productivity. They
also have to be on-site to install hardware and/or troubleshoot
the inevitable teething troubles that accompany change. But
that’s just the way of things, isn’t it?
Fortunately, the answer is no. With thought and care, it’s
now possible to deploy a networking solution that’s not just
cloud-based, but proactively uses the power of the cloud to
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How companies can gain a competitive edge on a
level technological playing field...
the greatest advantage of network managers and end users.
It’s an approach that paves the way for ongoing benefits,
innovation and expansion as technology develops.
Beyond the cloud
Business applications hosted in the cloud are now well
established and show tangible benefits for the companies
that use them. It’s straightforward for resellers and
outsourced network managers to make a business case for
cloud, even where clients are uncertain. Indeed, the areas
of greatest client concern and uncertainty, which include
security, showing ROI, monitoring network performance,
compliance and governance, analytics and creating cloud-
based IP, are highly amenable to the use of third-party
experts. Thus, cloud network management generates
opportunity for partners, but as we’ve seen it can also
generate headaches and inconvenience.
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