Specialist Network Services and the Digital Transformation Revolution

October 11, 2022

Your network is at the heart of your business, making data available to your stakeholders and customers. This fact has become ever-more apparent since the rapid uptake of hybrid working, effectively forming the backbone of digital society itself.

The network is completely essential. Which is why your business must take steps to protect, optimise and extend infrastructure to support enterprise workloads and provide a platform on which to build your digital transformation strategy.

We have identified four key steps to optimising and extending your network – and how you can use specialist network services to assist.

1.Understand what you have
Before you can plan for the future, you must first understand what you have. It has long been good practice to regularly audit and document your physical network assets. More than simply mapping out how they connect, this assessment should include details like support contract coverage, end of life assets and the upgrade/expansion potential of each asset.

Auditing network infrastructure allows you to understand your upgrade options – and whether existing infrastructure is truly capable of supporting your future growth plans. You can then prioritise upgrades for post-warranty assets – or replace them entirely with newer technologies.

A Network Asset Audit provides metrics that outline measurable impacts and benefits across your entire network. We will help you understand not only what you have, but how it fits into your future plans – particularly in relation to service and maintenance contracts. Our audit shows which assets are protected by service contracts, which are not, and where you could make savings by consolidating agreements.

2. Confirm your network is optimised
Often your digital transformation efforts begin by simply ensuring your existing infrastructure is fully optimised. This is especially true as network use changes over time – think about increased uptake of remote working and how that has affected network traffic and performance. Again, you will need to assess what you have, where you are on your strategic roadmap, and where you want to be. These insights will allow you to optimise what you have – and to avoid costly, unnecessary upgrades.

A Network Health Check from Q Associates provides an evidence-based report that pinpoints opportunities for improvement. Your infrastructure is assessed against industry best practice so you can begin planning improvements. Importantly, the report covers all your infrastructure – from edge to cloud and every touchpoint in between.

By identifying opportunities for improvement, you can deliver performance gains, increase return on investment and lower the total cost of ownership of existing assets without compromising your digital transformation plans.

3. Lay groundwork for the future
Once your existing infrastructure has been optimised you can turn your attention to the demands of the future. Using your network audit you can begin developing a roadmap for the future that pinpoints what needs to change (or be replaced) in order to meet those strategic goals. Occasionally this will involve major “big bang” upgrades. But like the rest of your digital transformation efforts, preparing your network for future demand is likely to be an incremental effort. Over time you will upgrade and replace elements of your infrastructure, adopting new technologies that better suit your needs as they become available.

Partnering with Q Associates for Network Refresh & Upgrade services will help you to identify the technologies required to support your strategy and to pinpoint gaps in your capabilities and resources. Q Associates can then help you source the people and skills you need to get new technology installed, integrated and optimised.

4. Bolster your resources
Some networking skills are in particularly high demand, making it extremely difficult to recruit the people you need to drive change. In other cases, you may only need skills for a specific element of a project – hiring a full-time employee or sourcing a contractor is an overhead you don’t need. It is also entirely possible that you don’t know which skills and experience your team is lacking. Again, external advice may help to fill in the blanks.

Q Associates provides a full range of Specialist Network Services that you can pick-and-choose as required. Our team of highly skilled and experienced engineers and consultants can assist at any stage of your network infrastructure lifecycle. We can help with network architecture design, health check your infrastructure and configure software defined networking for maximum cost/performance benefit. Our services are tailored to the exact needs of your business to ensure you always get what you need.

Maintain your infrastructure

Your digital transformation journey is a process of continuous improvement. Over time your processes and requirements will change, and your network will need to adapt accordingly.

It is extremely important that these changes do not introduce new risks or compromise your level of compliance in any way. You will also need to ensure you have adequate resources available to help support your network and its users.

Q Associates also offers Specialist Network Services that are designed to help keep your network safe and secure. We can assess network security with expert penetration (PEN) testing – or provide support services tailored to the specific needs and strategic aims of your business. We can even assist with project management or implementation and migration so you achieve your digital transformation goals.

Make your network work

Q Associates offers a complete suite of professional network services to ensure your business can obtain expertise, advise and resources for any project, including:

Network Health Check Services
Network Refresh & Upgrades
Network Asset Audit
Specialist Network Services

From developing a strategic network plan, to optimising and supporting your existing assets, Q Associates is able to assist. Tailored to the specific needs and goals of your organisation we will help you contain costs and deliver a reliable, resilient, secure network on which you can rely.

To find out more about our Specialist Network Services, click the image below to download the datasheet or get in touch today.