Why prioritising user experience is vital in network connectivity

In today’s hybrid and evolving work landscape, business leaders must prioritise the user experience of their distributed workforces. In this blog, Song Toh, VP Global Network Services, Tata Communications, explores the ways enterprises can prioritise user experience, while maintaining the technical and operational integrity of their network architecture that enable business growth.

When the pandemic began, many enterprises quickly moved their business operations to the cloud to better manage remote working.

As a result, enterprises had to scale up their remote user connectivity infrastructure so all employees could connect to their business applications while working from home.

However, the updated infrastructure was often layered on top of legacy network architecture, resulting often in inconsistent connectivity performance and thereby impacting employees’ user experience. In fact, end-user complaints about application performance due to excessive slowdowns, network congestion, and performance degradations increased by 60%, Forbes reports, during the lockdowns.

But today, we know the new landscape of hybrid and remote work is here to stay. With the majority (63%) of high-growth companies already adopting a “productivity anywhere” workforce model, according to Accenture, it’s clear this presents a challenge for organisations that haven’t prioritised user experience in the past. So, businesses need to update their network and invest in infrastructural changes that prioritises user experience without compromising on security – regardless of where employees are based. And overcoming this challenge is especially important given that slow or disrupted IT also has a massive impact on a company’s bottom line – with the average UK business experiencing up to 3.5 critical IT incidents a month, which amounts to a loss of £200,000.

Implement the best managed service

Digital transformation is not a one-stop solution as we have all witnessed from the evolving work environment. It is therefore imperative that enterprises struggling with resources – such as time or expertise internally – continuously modernise their infrastructure work with support from experienced providers.

Service providers, such as Tata Communications, are constantly evaluating and adopting new age technologies.

“Whether it’s deploying Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) or Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), they can help organisations effectively manage their network security – keeping employees safe while also ensuring a great user experience.”

In addition, insights from service providers can help support the automatic diagnosis of faults in any network service, flag risks, block suspicious access patterns and rank issues according to severity to ensure organisations have the right technology, such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, in place to enable rapid resolutions that don’t impede on an employee’s user experience.

Continually modernising your network

New ways of working means legacy architecture now face many challenges. And enforcing rigid access rules bound by the physical or virtual walls of an organisation is no longer efficient for distributed users and data. To ensure that a network is secure – and employees can be productive while enjoying a seamless experience – IT leaders must consider investing in technological innovations that will keep their business competitive, while also enabling them to evolve to meet any future developments or demands.

“Tech such as the ZTNA, and SASE offers the direction and guidance for organisations to enhance their end user experience.”

By combining robust security functions with a truly modern network, employees can stay connected and receive rapid access to applications. SASE also continuously monitors activities and devices to secure data wherever it’s accessed, all without compromising user experience.

According to Gartner, at least 60% of enterprises will have explicit strategies and timelines for SASE adoption by 2025. So, there’s no better time than now for enterprises to launch their secure network transformation.

Understanding that distance matters

In our work-from-anywhere era, IT leaders need to wake up to the reality of the internet that distance does matter and think beyond virtual desktops and VPNs, which often provide long-winded, circuitous routes to the company’s business applications, leading to poor or delayed connectivity.

“Instead, progressive IT leaders must choose approaches and solutions that allow an employee working from anywhere in the world to have the same clear, rich, secure and strong connection to their employer’s network that an employee in the HQ city enjoys.”

Doing this ensures an uninterrupted and reliable connectivity and a great user experience. It’s this focus on UX-friendly connectivity that will fuel the next few years of productivity across the globe in a changing work landscape.

A deterministic routing on the internet is the solution to this challenge. IZO Internet WAN with IZO Network Edge provides better user experience to employees in distributed organisations.  Tata Communications solution with NetFoundry as a secure private access device can be offered to IT leaders, to provide a stellar employee remote access experience.

For organisations considering partnership with an expert to manage their distributed and scaled up infrastructure, choosing a service provider that will enable the best user experience for a global internet connectivity is paramount.

Get in touch with us to learn more about our solutions that enable you to provide the best user experience and seamlessly expand your business across the globe.