Enterprise Networks

Survey Findings

Cisco surveyed 1300 IT professionals across 13 countries to understand IT's role as a business enabler. The survey assesses how well network investments align with business demands, and looks into IT's ability to adopt technologies that can increase IT business impact.

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Primary Findings

Business growth is creating demand for new applications. Nearly three out of four IT participants (71 percent) reported that IT is deploying more applications today than one year ago. This indicates a mutual business understanding of the critical and growing role of the network for application delivery.

IT and the network are increasingly recognized as key business enablers. Seventy-eight percent of respondents stated that the network is more critical for delivering applications than it was at this time last year.

IT-business alignment is improving, but IT is not always involved when decisions are made. Eighty-nine percent of IT leaders collaborate with line-of-business leaders at least on a monthly basis, however 76% claim applications are rolled out without engaging IT.

Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of IT professionals are confident in their ability to respond to the needs of the business. However, 27 percent still equated the visibility of their IT department into their company's business initiatives to a foggy day in London.

New Business Opportunities Challenge Network Readiness

Emerging trends such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Internet of Things (IoT) are poised to challenge the network. Without proper collaboration and planning between IT and business leaders, the ability to take advantage of growth opportunities will be greatly reduced.

When asked about the leading causes responsible for slowing down a new application rollout over the past year, budget was cited as the number one reason (34 percent). Another 26 percent claimed data center infrastructure readiness, cloud readiness, and network limitations such as bandwidth.

Seventy-one percent of respondents plan to deploy SDN solutions in the next 12 months. The main reasons are cost savings (33 percent) and fast scalability of infrastructure (33 percent). When asked about the value of the IoT to their business, nearly half of respondents (48 percent) believe it will open up new business opportunities.

As businesses increase application rollouts and create new connected user experiences to better serve customers, IT organizations are challenged to expand network services and align network strategies to meet business requirements. The Cisco Global IT Impact Survey highlights primary challenges facing IT professionals and their impact on the growth of their businesses.

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