Network Consolidation – an imperative for the growth of the IT/ITeS sector in India
By Sharat Sinha
The Indian IT sector is today, a much-needed growth catalysts of the Indian economy, contributing significantly to the country’s GDP. The sector accounted for 7.5% of India’s GDP in FY23, and is expected to touch 10% by 2025. According to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), the Indian IT industry’s revenue touched US$ 227 billion in FY22, a 15.5% YoY growth.
Given India’s growing digital adoption, which is also one of the fastest in the world, and the consistent introduction of innovative digital applications across sectors, the country is now gearing up for yet another revolution. The sector is also increasingly becoming strategic advisors for businesses across industry verticals. Yet, a massive 45% of all IT firms in India continue to use outdated systems.
IT firms need to understand that in today’s fast-evolving space, building a dynamic and innovative backbone that solves for the ever-evolving technology landscape, growing competition threats and changing client demands has become a need of the hour.
Harnessing the power of network consolidation
Amongst many other factors, network is a key force than can help drive growth in the sector especially given how seamless network transmission is paramount as it fortifies operational efficiencies, communication, and overall business success in today’s fast-evolving sector.
IT/ITeS firms of today need to manage complex, multi-location networks due to hybrid work and cloud trends, driving the need for scalable, secure connectivity solutions. Emerging technologies like AI, IoT, and 5G have further amplified the need for robust, scalable, and secure networks.
Maintaining multiple networks and keeping them secure can be an immense task, which can be challenging as well as expensive. This can be easily solved by consolidating all networks into a unified, centralized system. Network consolidation involves merging various network services, infrastructure, and management systems into a single, cohesive platform that simplifies operations, streamlines processes, reduces management complexity, minimizes redundancies, enhances operational as well as network efficiency and provides better SLAs (service-level agreements). It helps cut costs given the fewer equipment and network topology to manage, maintain and upgrade.
Network consolidation can also help drive easy adoption of cloud and move applications to cloud to improve the performance of the application on a cloud architecture for enhanced efficiencies in its performances. This can also help leaders to determine how applications perform and understand end-user experience accurately. It also solves for the evolving security needs of hybrid work environments, wherein connectivity and security is tightly integrated. A centralized network management can also drive 3X enhancement in network security.
We recently released a whitepaper in collaboration with Think Teal, which brought out how 44% of organisations who have integrated their networks have found it easier to scale their operations, allowing for faster deployment of new services and technologies.
Unlocking network efficiencies
IT/ITeS companies can overcome network challenges if strategic approaches are embedded into business activities with the use of advanced technologies and best practices.
A key shift within network consolidation is the increasing adoption of SD-WAN over the traditional MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) networks, which is more agile and cost-efficient and allows for seamless optimization of network traffic over a blend of connectivity options-including broadband and LTE. SD-WAN provides centralized management through a single dashboard, giving greater control of network performance to IT teams, even as it reduces reliance on expensive MPLS lines.
Network virtualization is yet another network solution that allows for a flexible and scalable infrastructure that can support dynamic business requirements. Other network architecture enhancement measures include employee training & upskilling and strategic partnership with a telecom partner who is highly responsive and capable of ensuring 100% uptime, enabling business continuity and operational efficiencies.
Strategic Approaches
Some of the other solutions that the IT/ITeS sector can harness include:
- Building state-of-the-art defences with an end-to-end cybersecurity strategy;
- Cloud convergence to achieve operational agility through a range of strategic and technical solutions
- Transform customer communication with advanced communication solutions that unify channels like voice, video, chat, and email, into cohesive systems that enhance the quality and efficiency of customer engagements
- Leverage advanced data center services that assures the availability, integrity, and security of the data enabling data processing in real-time for real-time decisions
In short, businesses must invest in cutting-edge infrastructure to handle the increasing demands for bandwidth and low latency. IT/ITeS firms aiming to thrive in a competitive market need to urgently embrace network consolidation and harness the power of advanced solutions to unlock the full potential of their networks to achieve their business goals given its capabilities to enhance efficiency, boosts application performance, strengthen security, and provide necessary scalability for future growth.
(The author is Sharat Sinha, CEO – Airtel Business, and the views expressed in this article are his own)
