The processes of digital transformation they have started for several years now, but in 2020, due to the Covid pandemic, they have been impressively accelerated in order to be able to guarantee business continuity despite all the difficulties imposed by social distancing and chain interruptions supply.
However, these processes are not yet complete, quite the contrary: secondly Morten Illum, VP EMEA of HPE Aruba, 2022 will also be a year of profound transformations. Which? According to the head of HPE Aruba, digitization will go even faster, with companies pushing the accelerator towards simplicity and automation, completing the path already started. In particular, enterprises will focus on optimizing the network infrastructure by adopting the concept of NaaS, Network as a Service.
Network as a Service from HPE Aruba
According to HPE Aruba, we can talk about Network as a service when “more than 50% of network implementation management, related operations and lifecycle management are outsourced, on a subscription basis, for both hardware and software and services“.
It’s a concept 100% familiar to technology leaders, as suggested by a report commissioned by HPE Aruba, and one that’s on the discussion table for 86% of sample companies operating in EMEA. For almost one in three companies (30%), this is a frequently discussed topic. Driving interest are the benefits of this approach, which can provide greater organizational flexibility, have a positive impact on costs and drive innovation. In fact, for 76% of the sample, the adoption of NaaS allows them to reduce costs and (60%) to shift expenses from CapEx to Opex. Three out of four executives (75%) look with interest to NaaS because it guarantees more flexibility and scalability, and for 64% of respondents it could also disrupt the management of internal activities.
Just under half of the sample (48%) find it helpful in reducing reliance on all IT staff, while for 57% the reduced workload for IT teams will allow them to focus on strategic initiatives and, in general, on innovation.
While many are excited about the NaaS approach, there are some barriers to its adoption and the main one is the lack of familiarity with this concept. While everyone claims to know the term, it should not be forgotten that only 2 out of 5 respondents fully understand its meaning. Security is also a question mark for some, so much so that 33% of the sample cite cybersecurity as the main barrier to NaaS adoption.
Looking closer, to date, only 11% of respondents say they consider NaaS as a solution to implement immediately. For 44%, however, it is a technology that is taking its first steps, which has not yet found its place on the market.
Digital transformation in the world of sport
According to HPE Aruba, adopting NaaS can bring many benefits, including better use of existing resources, greater flexibility and, therefore, faster innovation. However, decision makers must first fully understand the meaning of Network as a Service and the impact it can bring to businesses and in this regard HPE Enterprise has brought the experience of three companies operating in the one of the sectors where technology is the main driver: sports.
Sanjeev Katwa, head of technology at Tottenham Huspur Football Club, explained how essential having a flexible infrastructure has been over the past two years. On the one hand, flexibility has allowed your company to quickly adopt smart working when needed, on the other hand, it has helped to rapidly transform stadiums and redefine the relationship with supporters, which for a certain time were no longer able to follow live events. Thanks to technology, ticketless and contactless solutions were quickly implemented in stadiums, allowing safe restarts as soon as the conditions were right, but the online experience was also redefined, with a new e-commerce platform and major investments in marketing. , in order to create personalized experiences and to gather new information, useful to better understand the wishes of the fans.
Same opinion also for Michael G. Cole, CTO of the European Tour Group, which deals with another sport where technology is king behind the scenes: golf. Golf courses are by all accounts small towns, and there are plenty of them, scattered around the world. In recent years, the circuits have transformed into veritable small smart cities, powered by applications both to help spectators follow every aspect of the competitions and to manage the scores in real time.
Rather, reducing complexity was one of the main objectives of Adrian Corcoran, Birmingham 2022 IOC, the Commonwealth Games, an international multi-sport event. Corcoran explained how digital transformation has made it possible to significantly accelerate technology planning cycles, which were previously 6/7 years and were already greatly shortened before Covid. As the Commonwealth Games include many different sports, with varying levels of audience interest, the effective use of data is key to maintaining spectator engagement. Acquiring them is relatively simple, however, making sense of the huge amount of information collected is complicated, and HPE Aruba’s NaaS services have made a valuable contribution in this regard, allowing it to be interpreted correctly.