How Interconnected Enterprises Spur Business Gains
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How Interconnected Enterprises Spur Business Gains
The trend toward interconnected enterprises is creating new opportunities for VADs, VARs, MSPs and SIs. Here's why. -
More Interconnected Enterprises
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. -
Growing Awareness
75% of global businesses are "extremely" or "very familiar" with interconnection. -
Top IT Strategies
40% of enterprises say revenue growth is their top IT strategy priority, followed by employee productivity (23%), cost reduction (19%) and fast execution (18%). -
Top Growth Strategy
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%). -
Growth Drivers
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%). -
Establishing Connections
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 Money
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. -
Multi-Cloud Interconnectivity Rules
86% of companies plan to interconnect to multiple clouds across many locations in the next five years. -
Security Worries
64% report that cyber-security concerns could drive them to consider re=architecting their IT infrastructure in the next 12 months. -
Impact on Priorities
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.
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Defining MSPs' Goals, Challenges and Tools 
Why Metrics Matter to the Channel The number of interconnected enterprises is expected to double by 2017, according to a survey, conducted by Equinix, an interconnection and data center company. The survey of more than 1,000 IT decision-makers also reveals the biggest business priority for almost half of them is to drive revenue growth, with interconnection at the heart of the strategies cited as key to meeting this goal. Existing IT architectures weren't built for the current level of engagement and distributed coverage—such as ubiquitous user access, and sourcing to external business and IT services to cloud-based providers—resulting in more points of engagement. There is a new wave of converging the physical and virtual worlds, and businesses depend more than ever on how they collaborate with partners and engage with customers and employees, said Tony Bishop, vice president of enterprise at Equinix. The distributed coverage—combined with other requirements, such as the need to add new services rapidly and support this multi-cloud ubiquitous world of service delivery—is becoming a catalyst of new opportunity for VADs, VARs, MSPs and SIs, Bishop said. Here are 10 key reasons companies in the channel need to refocus their services.