Many experts and pundits claim that “digital transformation” has achieved buzz word status. Surely as a term, it’s overhyped. But make no mistake, digital transformation is critical to business modernisation. What’s truly overpopularised is the idea of “business as usual”.
While the shift to the cloud is among the top investments, there’s a largely unrecognised opportunity in modernising network infrastructure: software-defined networking (SDN). Doing so helps organizations lay the foundation for how information flows within and outside a business. And in a digital economy, information is currency. Vodafone’s research substantiates the importance of SDN technology as a critical enabler (and accelerator) of digital transformation.
Businesses today operate in a time of radical transparency. Trust and transparency are now two critical pillars for modern brands hoping to engage always-on, always-informed, self-interested customers, regardless of industry.
The opportunity with the abundance of data that exists in this era of digital Darwinism is to build trust through personalisation, services, experiences and security, all in real-time. But in today’s world, trust is something you lose. Value and relationships are what you gain by investing in customer and employee experiences. There can be no compromises.
It makes business not only transparent, but human. The irony here is that technology infrastructure is what enables and facilitates this humanity and opens the door to transparency and reciprocity.
Going back decades, technology was mostly an enterprise endeavour. Customers and employees had to learn to operate workplace technologies. But with the likes of e-commerce, smartphones, social media and apps, the consumerisation of technology has turned the tables. As a result, global businesses must now emulate the companies and experiences that are changing the game.
If you look at the top initiatives driving digital transformation, the purpose of these technologies becomes clear. The top digital investments are all focused on customer experience (CX) in some way, from infrastructure to every touchpoint shaping the modern customer journey. A journey that is increasingly almost completely digital. With that, information, data and traffic are flooding network systems. Infrastructure is now part of the customer experience too.
Without the investments necessary to ensure real-time flow, customer experiences are either seamless or they’re not. The latter comes at an incredible opportunity cost. Customers don’t care if you’re digitally transforming. They care about themselves. They’re loyal only to those organisations that place them at the centre of everything.
To deliver meaningful customer experiences, you need to understand what they’re doing right now, not what they did weeks or months ago. Data is much more effective when it’s being applied quickly because real-time data is the engine behind real-world personalisation.
As the use of data in this way becomes more pervasive, combining teams of humans and AI-powered machines to scale insights across business groups are paramount. To really understand modern customers and employees takes genuine, human empathy.
In a time when SDN, Robotic Process Automation, AI, machine learning, social media and mobile are changing how people live and work, data and an open mindset have become competitive advantages to attracting and keeping top talent happy and thriving.
This is so much more than an argument for “yet another IT department cost centre”. This research demonstrates that the potential of digital transformation is tied to more than just ‘survivability’. Vodafone presents evidence that software-defined networking is “the cloud” of infrastructure and paves the way for real business performance improvements and, ultimately, growth.
While tackling the peaks in demand is naturally a key benefit of cloud computing and SDN technology, our customers are looking for more than that. Another key benefit of an SD-WAN, is the granular view they get of how applications are performing on the network. Visualising the flow of traffic from end to end helps them pinpoint any problems and give priority to strategic applications.
As more critical business data and vital customer experiences are delivered digitally, the potential for poor connectivity to contribute to loss of trust is much greater. SDN technology is incredibly useful for understanding, pre-empting and responding to threats to data and connectivity, addressing that risk.
This also holds true when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. Employees have a lot of choice in deciding who to work for and they’re keen to work for companies that reflect their values. These values are expressed through business’ culture, the experiences they offer, the products they sell and even the way they operate. For many, these factors are determined by the business’ approach to digital transformation, such as investing in technology to support flexible working or the responsible use of customer data.
Just under half of those surveyed (41%) think data collection is essential to their long-term business strategy and success, compared to 30% who think the same of cloud computing and 26% who cited AI and machine learning. Thirty-nine per cent also told us they are investing in data security specifically to reduce business costs. When data is the lifeblood of your company, you have to protect it.
Failure to do so can increasingly cost you more than just the trust of your customers. With data sovereignty laws and privacy regulations rolling-out on a national and international scale, the penalties for failing to properly manage and secure data have become prohibitively expensive.
The handling and management of data is indelibly linked to levels of consumer trust. After so many high-profile cases of hacking or data breach, the public is aware of the dangers – and they’re interested to see that the companies they use are dealing with their personal information in the right way. If their expectations aren’t met, they’ll take their money elsewhere.
It’s unsurprising therefore that businesses identify data security as one of the most important challenges they face, alongside trust and strong customer relationships:
A solid reputation, which engenders strong customer relationships, is in part built on a good security record. When a business suffers numerous breaches, the public take note. That’s why 89% of surveyed business leaders agree that the use and security of data have become essential components of trust in business today. In fact, almost half (48%) now think data security and privacy is a key consideration for customers, just behind price (49%) but ahead of vendor reputation (43%).
Across the four European countries surveyed, the most important challenges for business success were as follows:
For business leaders in Spain the issues of consumer trust (58% vs 67%) and digital transformation (54% vs 62%) were less of a concern.
Business leaders in South Africa however, were significantly more concerned with the issues of digital transformation (78% vs 62%), cost control (74% vs 63%) and customer relationships (75% vs 65%)
South African respondents were drawn from large multi-national businesses, so it’s interesting to see how digital transformation is a higher priority among this group. It may suggest that trust is a bigger worry for comparatively smaller businesses, whereas transformation itself is the thing keeping large organisations up at night.
Everybody is concerned about the changes taking place in business today. Speed and efficiency will be key – that’s to be expected. But enterprises are also facing new challenges: they’re trying to understand more about their customers, and deliver a more personalised service, than ever before. This is where an SD-WAN can add huge value - it’s a vital platform in the collection and analysis of customer data.
Beyond this, an SD-WAN enables serious security benefits, providing a total view of the network, allowing you to respond to threats quickly. For our customers, a good record on security is a non-negotiable part of earning the trust of their consumer – SDN technology underpins this process.
Digital transformation can be challenging, but all the migration risks that usually hold businesses back can be alleviated by a managed service. For most of our customers, this is by far the best option. We provide a level of support to empower our customers to really get the most out of the network, improving their services, and laying the groundwork for a competitive, innovative future.
One trend is emerging clearly: businesses are starting to think about how the move to cloud has changed how they use connectivity to improve customer service.
In retail for example, we’re seeing customers use SD-WAN to manage Wi-Fi information and analytics in real time. This grants them better understanding of consumer behaviour, helping them offer an especially tailored service accordingly.
This has been driven by fierce competition from pure play ecommerce retailers who have fundamentally changed consumer expectations. This same exact pressure can be seen in the tourism and hospitality industry. The need to react faster to changes in a competitive market makes an SD-WAN the obvious choice as the next connectivity solution for these businesses.
Many customers are thinking ahead to the introduction of 5G networks or mobile edge computing and the crucial role an SD-WAN could play in managing this new connectivity.
For any business wanting to prepare for the next 3-5 years, an SD-WAN is a crucial investment – one that will deliver exponential value as we move further into the digital age.
This is mostly because SDN technology is valuable on multiple fronts, and different customers expect different things out of their SD-WAN.
Some customers consider investing in an SD-WAN with a specific problem to solve, like a retailer who has been struggling with slow processing of payments from local branches and needs to prioritise their network traffic for this.
Many other customers view their SD-WAN as an enabler of their digital transformation journey, whether they are looking to be more cost effective, scalable, or agile. Digital transformation can be complicated and daunting and for many, an SD-WAN is a crucial technology for making the most out of their investments, especially when it comes to cloud adoption. Finally, for a few businesses, even if they cannot see an obvious need for an SD-WAN yet, they recognise the trend is moving in this direction. They want to make sure they’re ready for it next time their contract is up for renewal.
It is clear that an SD-WAN can help businesses remove the complexity from the digital transformation process and optimise their business-critical applications, leaving them to focus on what matters – their customers.
An SD-WAN is the most efficient and effective option – and it does far more besides. As customers move to new digital technologies, an SD-WAN maximises the value of these investments, from cloud, to IoT, to real-time analytics. By reinforcing the adoption of these new technologies across the business, an SD-WAN helps our customers improve productivity and profitability quicker.
Perhaps most importantly, an SD-WAN is perfect for supporting our customers as they transition to the cloud. We help them work with their preferred cloud providers, simplifying processes and managing the subsequent transformation of their technology. One of the key advantages of an SD-WAN is that it lets customers switch their IT networks with ease.
Ultimately, one of the most interesting things we’re seeing is the way SDN technology helps our customers centrally manage their data and prioritise bandwidth for key applications. They can run analytics to learn more about consumer behaviour, unearthing insights that help them target their customers more directly and effectively.
This is especially important in the retail sector, which is typically focused on driving foot-traffic. Applications that offer relevant local promotions and vouchers to customers, for example, can create a fully digital retail experience. SDN technology enables the efficient management of the smart retail experience combining cost-effective internet connectivity such as broadband with additional WiFi services.Where previously it was a costly or time-consuming challenge to make changes to a network, the ability to switch things up comes much easier with an SD-WAN. This is just one of the ways this new type of network is simplifying and eliminating the challenges of the past.
