The Increasing Importance of Business Resilience and Network Agility

It goes without saying that 2020 has been a year like no other. When the pandemic first hit, we weren’t sure what would happen, for ourselves or our customers. What we did know was that we were going to do everything we could to help our customers not only stay in business but adapt their businesses in new and innovative ways. The business resilience our customers have shown this year is truly inspiring.

In the early stages of the crisis, our customers were looking to make the most of the technology they already had in place. In some cases, this was enough. Others quickly realized that as they made adjustments to better support their employees and customers, their network technology needs had changed, as well.

Many businesses quickly implemented new collaboration tools and security protocols to support a new remote workforce, manage operations remotely by creating virtual workspaces, offload applications to the cloud or stand up new digital commerce platforms to serve customers. Through it all, Comcast Business is proud to have been able to serve our customers and, more importantly, help them pivot and adapt to the litany of changing business, customer and employee needs.

Over the past year, we’ve been honored to receive recognition from several industry analysts and awards that confirm that we’re keeping pace with the market’s needs. We see this collective validation as a barometer for how enterprise digital transformation and IT needs are evolving, as much as it is a testament to Comcast Business’ innovation strategy. Our product teams are always focused on anticipating our customer’s needs and providing them with the digital agility to help future-proof their businesses. Going forward, Comcast Business is ready to support digital-first business models with the expansion of the network edge, cloud migration, and security.

A Robust Foundation: Bandwidth and Network Control

For companies seeking to ensure network resilience or taking steps to shift from legacy to software-defined networking, the ability to adeptly manage multiple network connections and existing architectures is crucial. For new SD-WAN customers, this allows the ability to support various architectures and technologies without requiring a full replacement of hardware and systems. Once implemented, the application-aware traffic routing and network segmentation of SD-WAN allows IT teams to have much more control when adjusting to new business needs, managing bandwidth and prioritizing mission-critical operations.

Frost & Sullivan believes that the pressure on network managers to optimize networks as businesses adapt to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will increase the attractiveness of broadband and wireless services with SD-WAN. Frost & Sullivan’s recent recognition of our ActiveCore platform with the Customer Value Leadership Award emphasized the value of being able to access several self-service tools for network administrators to gain insight into network performance and manage policies through a portal–all of which improves operational efficiency. This single-pane-of-glass view for IT teams across WAN components (transport and network functions) offers a high level of network visibility and control needed to quickly respond to changing business needs.

Earlier this year, Comcast Business was also presented with the Data Value award from Atlantic-ACM, given to the large service provider that receives the highest combined ratings for the perceived quality and price competitiveness of their data service offerings. This recognition is especially meaningful because the recipients are determined by detailed user reviews from over 1,200 unique customers who provided more than 3,400 carrier-specific evaluations of service level and product quality for their current providers. Customer input like this confirms that we are supporting them in the right ways.

Best-in-Class Technology: Flexibility and Choice

This year has taught us the value of flexibility. The ability to be flexible will serve business leaders well as we navigate the coming months and years of what will likely be a hybrid model of remote and in-office working. This shift, along with the uptick of digital commerce, has spurred a cloud-based application-centric approach for many organizations.

In a recent PwC survey, almost 75% of finance leaders said they were planning for a more