What’s the one business capability that will never go out of style?

The ability to be profitable? Or, maybe, the innovation required to sense and create a new product or service that consumers truly desire? On the face of it, these are sensible answers.

But history, and many business leaders, would disagree. For close to a decade, they would point out, digital companies—from start-ups to decacorns—have focused, almost singularly, on the top line, market share or gross merchandise value—not so much on profitability. As for having an inventive streak, hundreds of fast-followers will contend that their competitive edge is derived from the great execution of an existing idea—not coming up with it.

There is one competence, however, that has stood the test of time: Business agility. The dexterity to pivot and change strategies based on market conditions, the resourcefulness and resilience needed to cope and thrive despite economic and environmental volatility. If the COVID-19 crisis has taught organisations anything, it is this: The ability to adapt will never go out of style.

In the digital age, an organisation’s agility stems, in large part, on how flexible its networks are. The ability to enable employees to work from home almost overnight, or address a sudden uptick in online orders, or close and open new branches in different locations to service new micro-markets: All of these need the ability to shunt and shape network traffic easily, securely and swiftly. This is why the future of SD WANs is certain and why it will continue to garner increasing market share.

But what other drivers are pushing businesses into adopting SD WANs? What changes in the business, technology, and innovation landscapes are leading to a deeper embrace of SD WAN?

Here are three important ones.

Hybrid Workplace Strategies Drive Investment in SD WANs

For business leaders, it can be a confusing time to make decisions around working arrangements. Should they continue with remote strategies? Or call staffers back to the office?

A middle path seems to be the answer for the foreseeable future.

According to analyst firm, Futuriom’s SD-WAN/SASE Managed Services Survey 2022, 57% of organisations said they have immediate plans for hybrid scenarios (on-premises and remote connectivity), and 25% said they have similar plans for the next 6-12 months. In total, 82% of respondents said they have plans for hybrid scenarios of connectivity over the next 12 months.

When asked whether the advent of digitalisation and hybrid work environments increased their company’s need for SD WAN services, 83% responded in the affirmative, indicating the continued growth of SD WAN.

But it isn’t just the sheer number of companies continuing to pursue hybrid work strategies, that is raising the need for SD WANs. It is also a question of hybrid-work intensity, and the range of hybrid-work variations that is demanding a level of network agility that SD WAN can supply.

Hybrid-work intensity refers to the increasing number employees, per organisation, using an increasing number of digital tools, at undefined hours during the day—all of which results in an increase in network traffic, and network traffic uncertainty. For example, the At Work: The 2022 Workplace Trends Report (registration required), shows that in the last two years, workplace traffic has jumped by more than 3X, and that 40% of companies invested more in conferencing technology. This increase in unpredictable network traffic requires the capabilities of SD WAN.

All of this on-the-fly changes to work environments requires a much more elastic, secure, resilient, and agile network, which explains the increasing demand for SD WAN.

The Convergence of Networking and Security

As organisations migrate and modernise more of their technology estate on the cloud, there’s been a growing movement to marry networking and security to generate new levels of efficiency and resilience.

Which is why over the last two years, ever since Gartner first described it in August 2019, SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) has grown in popularity.

“Software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) technology have emerged as two of the fastest-growing markets in enterprise networking and cybersecurity. The two technology platforms are now converging to manage a wide variety of networking and security services,” says Futuriom’s report.

When analysts at Futuriom asked businesses if they believed the use of SASE would grow as part of their organisation’s strategy to implement a more agile, pervasive cybersecurity strategy, a full 85% responded with “Yes.”

So how does this trend affect SD WANs?

SASE is a vision, which combines multiple capabilities including CASB (cloud access security broker), secure Web gateway, firewall-as-a-service, and ZTNA (zero trust network access). But critically, SASE is underpinned by SD WANs.

“Essentially, SASE is a new package of technologies including SD WAN, SWG, CASB, ZTNA and FWaaS as core abilities, with the ability to identity sensitive data or malware and the ability to decrypt content at line speed, with continuous monitoring of sessions for risk and trust levels,” says Andrew Lerner, Vice President, Gartner Research.

As more organisations adopt SASE frameworks, as they are, it is likely that we will see greater adoption of SD WANs.

The Rise of IoT, 5G, AI, and Edge Computing

We live in an age of data. As a greater number of companies—across industries and revenue sizes—uncover new ways to extract the most value from their data, there’s been a corresponding uptick in the use of real-time applications and data applications. Among the most prominent examples of these are IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) use cases such as predictive maintenance, and quality and facility management; smart healthcare applications; remote monitoring and alert solutions in capital intensive industries such as Oil and Gas; and autonomous vehicles, among others.

These applications bring together the benefits of 5G, AI, IoT and edge computing. They are often latency-sensitive and have little tolerance for network downtime. Data streaming from sensors are transported to micro-data centres, at the edge, using a mix of connectivity options including private 5G. These micro-data centres then pre-process data and dispatch some of it to the cloud for analysis, where AI and machine learning algorithms draw out insight for businesses.

Although edge computing environments manage a sizeable portion of data coming off sensors, there’s still a significant amount of information that must be sent to the cloud for storage and analysis. This additional traffic can create pressure on networks, especially for applications that are sensitive to latency. Here, too, SD WAN can achieve network outcomes that are not possible with more traditional MPLS-based WAN models.

As SD WANs continue to dominate the future, driven by the trends we’ve discussed, it is critical for businesses, especially global companies, to partner with an SD WAN provider.

As we have pointed out earlier (link), most organisations are choosing a managed service provider route to implement SD WAN. What is, possibly, less known is that a majority also prefer providers with a telecommunication heritage.

In the State of the WAN Report, analysts asked businesses that were thinking of undergoing a WAN transformation (including SD-WAN/SASE), which type of provider they preferred to partner with. The majority (37%) said they would choose a managed service from a Telco or a generalist managed service provider (MSP)—rather than from an integrator with deep sector expertise.

Telcos have an edge over other types of SD WAN providers because they own, can offer options, and have experience with multiple types of underlay—in addition to having expertise in overlay and orchestration capabilities.

TM Global —the global and wholesale business arm of TM Technology Services Sdn Bhd (TM) —offers precisely these abilities and more. It provides network agility to businesses with a one-stop, secure SD-WAN managed solution consisting of next-generation WAN control, bundled with global and local connectivity, leveraging its own extensive IPVPN global network, internet access, and its global partners’ presence to create a seamless, high performing platform. It offers a range of connectivity types including broadband Internet, dedicated Internet access (DIA), mobile LTE, IPVPN, satellite, and global private meshed backbone. Additionally, it has a BYOC (Bring Your Own Connectivity) option.

TM Global offers Global SD WAN packages in three flavours: SD-Lite, SD-Pro, and SD-Flex, covering over 190 countries. Its solutions include professional services, SASE, Cloud-on-Ramp capabilities, an enhanced security suite; SD-WAN dashboards and analytics, a 24x7 contact centre and local field support, among others.

Future-proof your organisation and build the agility your business needs to thrive in volatile markets with TM’s Global SD WAN. Connect with us to know about our offerings.