AVANT Analytics, the market research division of AVANT Communications, recently released its 2021 State of Disruption findings. The 28-page report looks at the enterprise technology landscape in 2021 and beyond, and found that companies intend to invest in SD-WAN and MPLS. It also found that the surge of UCaaS and CCaaS adoption we witnessed over the past year – could last well into 2021
I sat down with Ken Presti, VP of Research & Analytics, AVANT, in a recent interview to discuss their findings. The State of Disruption report surveyed 500 US-based enterprise technology decision-makers who identify as VP-level in IT, security, and finance. The report highlights the status quo of enterprise digital transformation efforts.
It also sheds light on the increased role of the ‘trusted advisor’ and the rate at which disruptive technologies replace their predecessors. Presti said that SD-WAN sometimes gets less appreciation than it deserves, but it should be more celebrated, as it has many practical use cases. Presti continued, saying:
“The technology is an ENABLER of capabilities typically delivered from higher up the stack. It is often sold that way, too, and buyers will have their eyes on something like UCaaS and CCaaS, but will buy SD-WAN, sometimes as an afterthought”
Presti attributes this to the fact that SD-WAN gives networks the capacity to support the functions more directly seen as critical to a business.
Diving into the findings
According to the report, nearly half of the respondents said they plan to expand their use of SD-WAN. Roughly one-third of the companies plan to extend their reliance on SD-WAN and said they characterize the expansion as a significant increase.
Presti said this is particularly true among companies in the $50 million to $500 million revenue range and noted that SD-WAN continues to grow, adding: “We see no evidence of that changing anytime soon.” Here are some of the survey’s other key findings.
Almost 60% of respondents said they expect to increase or significantly increase their use of MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switches). The routing technique is often used in telecom networks and helps direct data from one node to the next. This is all done based on short path labels and not long network addresses, which provides a clever workaround to avoid complex lookups in a routing table. It even speeds up traffic flows as a result.
Correlation Between UCaaS Upticks and COVID-19
The survey also found that customer interest in UCaaS surged to 86% at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare experienced the highest amount of usage and growth for CCaaS at 40 percent. The survey unearthed that nearly two-thirds of the respondents report working with Trusted Advisors in support of their IT decision-making process.
Finally, AVANT’s 2021 State of Disruption Report found that roughly 70% of respondents fear that a successful security breach could cause them to lose their jobs. Presti said in a statement:
“2020 exposed the leaders versus the laggards when it came to digital transformation in an enterprise setting. As IT decision makers evaluate their success in 2020 and aim to improve in 2021, those falling behind should lean on the Trusted Advisor movement to enable powerful IT decisions”
He concluded by telling me that several key technologies like SD-WAN, MPLS, UCaaS, and CCaaS will take center stage during 2021 – paving the way for ‘vast disruption in the IT space.’ He advised that organizations invest in the adoption of these technologies to reach their fullest potential.
