For a long time, digital transformation has been a priority for many businesses, but the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically accelerated this process. Encouragingly, businesses have been embracing digital transformation projects such as migrating applications to the cloud, SaaS adoption, SD-WAN and edge computing. However, unfortunately, doing so has often led to a decrease in end-through-end visibility resulting in a less direct path between the end-user and the application. These issues have made it more expensive and increasingly difficult to deliver an outstanding user experience.
With the continuation of hybrid working, due to the easing of social distancing regulations, the lack of a central digital infrastructure has increased these challenges. As hybrid working looks to continue, it makes it even more crucial that modern companies have a reliable network. Indeed, the pandemic has highlighted a need within IT for end-through-end application visibility across the board, including cybersecurity, service assurance, and business analytics to account for the increased demand. Video conferencing tools, for example, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, are examples of this with both experiencing rapid growth from the pandemic. Zoom exceeded a 300 million daily average of users and Microsoft Teams saw a 200% month-over-month increase in the US in the height of the pandemic.
Moving forward for businesses
The value of end-through-end visibility
As with cybersecurity, business analytics and service assurance also need end-through-end application visibility. This means that businesses must be aware of user activity – who uses what data, when, and why – to ensure that knowledge management is not impacted despite employees working remotely.
In terms of network service assurance, IT staff should be able to monitor performance in detail and immediately resolve drops in service and any other issues that may arise. This is especially challenging in the current climate where there have been more changes to the network over the past 18 months than ever before.
Ensuring seamless remote network security
Before the pandemic, protecting an organisation generally involved securing a centralised location with standardised hardware and networks. Now, the situation is more complicated as remote works mean that each employee is a separate entity working in their own network environment. Indeed, for many businesses, security became an afterthought in the rush to vacate the office following stay-at-home orders. Cybercriminals took advantage of this decentralisation of security, which has led to substantial growth in cyberattacks since then.
The rise in multivector DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks in the first half of 2020 demonstrate the risks brought about by workers using separate devices and networks, which has only grown in 2021. Now that the dust has settled a bit, it is time for companies to focus on their security again and IT departments need to adapt to the hybrid working environment of the future.
Steer away from a stationery mentality
For many businesses, continuing with hybrid work models might seem overwhelming but the first step is to shift from a stationary mindset – which entails waiting for major changes and then reacting – to consider proactively improving systems and pre-empting potential events. It is unlikely that we will entirely return to typical in-office working, even as the pandemic diminishes. According to a Gartner survey, around four in five businesses plan to accommodate remote working even beyond the pandemic. For this hybrid work environment to function, businesses must enact a long-term strategy so that employees can integrate remote working with in-office working. Leaders must also make sure to regularly communicate with the wider business so that all employees are aware of what is expected of them.
The benefits of digital transformation
Modern edge computing has many benefits, namely bringing real-time data closer to the network’s edge enabling the support of connection points across different locations. But it is not without its challenges, the biggest of which is that it requires complete visibility for a seamless end-user experience. However, the businesses which achieve this will be able to reap the rewards – agile service delivery decreased operational overhead, transformed employee and customer usage, and overall cost saving.
Ultimately, implementing such projects successfully will increase overall productivity, even beyond levels seen before the pandemic as end-through-end application visibility goes perfectly together with organisational efficiency. At the beginning of the pandemic, employers found that collaboration was enabled at home through modern communication tools which eased the transition from office to remote working. However, now that the novelty has worn off, IT issues continue to reveal themselves, such as the aforementioned cybersecurity, analytics and service-assurance concerns. Unless the root problem of network complexity is dealt with, these issues are expected to grow.
Digital transformation projects were already causing visibility issues for business leaders and the continuation of remote working is likely to make this more difficult unless businesses prepare. Those who do so will benefit from opportunities that digital transformation can bring, while also minimising the potential challenges amid the arrival 2022, ultimately delivering an outstanding end-user experience.
