2/3rd enterprises feel networks not ready to support biz

New York, Sep 5 (IANS) Nearly two-thirds of enterprises feel their networks are not fully ready to support their business even as they have embraced advanced digital technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT)/edge computing (77 per cent), big data/analytics (83 per cent) and digital customer experience (78 per cent), a new report by Accenture said on Thursday.

Based on a global survey of 300 senior IT and business executives from large enterprises, the Accenture report, in collaboration with Cisco Systems, titled "Network Readiness Survey, Is your business ready for a connected future?" stated that less than 40 per cent of respondents are "very satisfied" with their overall capability (36 per cent) and bandwidth (38 per cent).

"Business demands have outpaced the ability of IT to deliver services. Our research shows that organisations have more work to do to ensure that network limitation do not prevent them from meeting their current and future business goals.

"IT and business leaders need to collaborate more when making decisions about the network," Prasad Sankaran, Senior Managing Director and Global Lead of Intelligent Cloud and Infrastructure, Accenture, said in a statement.

Half or less respondents reported being "very satisfied" with their network performance (43 per cent), security (50 per cent) and reliability (50 per cent).

Less than half (43 per cent) indicated their networks are completely ready to support Cloud and digital technologies.

The report points to the "misalignment between IT and business needs" as the main obstacle to keeping networks in line with business demands, identified as a top barrier by 48 per cent of respondents.

The second and third most commonly cited barriers were "inherent complexities between business requirements and operational needs" (45 per cent) and "demands for bandwidth, performance, etc. outpacing the ability to deliver" (45 per cent).