As we continue to reflect on the year that was 2020, the word “unprecedented” rings out, loud and clear – from the raging bushfires on a scale hitherto unknown, to the social, political, and economical ravages of the pandemic. If lessons from the bushfires and COVID-19 have taught us anything in the business world, it’s the need for preparedness for the unprecedented and the flexibility to adapt.
Flexible, adaptable connectivity
With advancements in technology supporting enterprise mobility, the business world has been steadily moving away from tethering employees to their desks in physical offices and COVID-19 certainly accelerated the shift. Fast and reliable connectivity delivered through 5G and SD-WAN topography as well as applications such as UCaaS allow businesses to support their people to work productively from anywhere. They provide access to enterprise applications in a secure and reliable way – at scale.
As the bushfire crisis and global pandemic unfolded last year, businesses that had already invested in upgrading their business communications infrastructure with these technologies were ready to turn on a dime. Being prepared for the unprecedented with reliable and scalable architecture and applications empowered them with the flexibility to adapt. Bolstered by adaptive connectivity, they pivoted, keeping their businesses ticking over and their people productive and gainfully employed.
Key components of adaptive connectivity
Being prepared for the unprecedented and having the flexibility to be agile with adaptive connectivity includes the following components:
UCaaS
A single solution supporting everything from instant chat and messaging, to SMS, presence, and voice, web and video conferencing. Residing in the cloud, UCaaS is more available and easier to manage than premises-based systems. UCaaS also eliminates the need to buy IT infrastructure or hire IT resources. Cloud service providers take care of all that for a fee either charged monthly or annually. Another advantage is there’s no need to resource an in-house IT team for internal maintenance. Instead, your communication environment is managed by a team elsewhere.
SD-WAN provides support for bandwidth-heavy applications
For businesses migrating business applications to the cloud, network connectivity is mission critical. To solve WAN bandwidth limitations, while enhancing security, reliability, and resiliency, switching to an SD-WAN is a smart move. An SD-WAN (or Software-Defined Wide Area Network) is a shift in the way a Wide Area Network is deployed and managed.
This software approach to managing Wide Area Networks eases deployment, enables central manageability, and improves connectivity to branch offices and the cloud. For all businesses wanting to take advantage of modern bandwidth-heavy applications like UCaaS to deliver better customer experiences and gain competitive differentiation, an SD-WAN is now essential.
5G for enterprise
With the promise of rich and immersive digital experiences, thanks to superior speed, data capacity and device density, 5G for the enterprise spells enhanced mobility, flexibility, reliability, and security.
As this level of performance becomes central to business strategy, 5G will be used to solve business problems from automating operations and running critical processes remotely to providing a higher security level.
Managed services
Managed services also play a big part in adaptive connectivity, supporting businesses with a robust technology foundation that is prepared for constant change. With flexible month-to-month connectivity options, businesses can adapt their technology at speed, dialling the services up or down, depending on their needs and business climate.
Flexible and adaptive connectivity
If your business is finding it difficult to adapt to new ways of working, talk to imei about how a reliable and scalable architecture using modern technologies provides the critical connectivity infrastructure to underpin long-term success.
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Original post 19 October 2020
