Interconnected enterprises
The trend toward interconnected enterprises is creating new opportunities for VADs, VARs, MSPs and SIs. Here’s why.
By 2017, 84% of respondents will deploy IT infrastructure where interconnection—defined as “direct, secure physical or virtual connections between a company and its partners, customers and employees”—is at the core. This compares to only 38% today.
75% of global businesses are “extremely” or “very familiar” with interconnection.
40% of enterprises say revenue growth is their top IT strategy priority, followed by employee productivity (23%), cost reduction (19%) and fast execution (18%).
Nearly 69% of respondents said the top revenue growth strategy is deploying infrastructures to support new product offerings, followed by closely by creating new channels or systems of engagement between the enterprise and its customers, partners and employees (68%).
Other revenue growth drivers include deploying infrastructures in new geographies (55%), and embedding or distributing intelligence (analytics, data, content) across business processes, regions or office locations (54%).
With revenue growth as a top IT priority, three in five businesses said establishing direct and secure interconnections with their employees, partners and customers is “very important” to their ability to compete.
More than one-third of survey respondents who have already deployed interconnection solutions report greater than $10 million in value created; 58% of this value stems from increased revenue opportunities, while 42% attributed the value to cost savings.
86% of companies plan to interconnect to multiple clouds across many locations in the next five years.
64% report that cyber-security concerns could drive them to consider re=architecting their IT infrastructure in the next 12 months.
For companies that have yet to deploy interconnection, only 50% cited “reduce risks, improve security and minimize exposure” as a reason to explore interconnection, compared with 71% of the interconnected enterprises that ranked security as a key interconnection driver.