Building an As-a-Service Hybrid Work Strategy for Secure & Seamless Collaboration

The evolving nature of the customer and employee journey along with as-a-service consumption models will cause many organizations to buy, implement, and adopt technology differently in 2023. 

NWN Carousel’s 2nd Annual Tech Trends Series explores the impact of emerging technologies on groundbreaking hybrid work innovations and business strategies. Our Offering Leaders share what’s happening now, describe what’s new, and project what’s next.

This week we focus on trends in Security, Advanced Technology Solutions, and Devices.

“Asset management is something that we’re hearing more and more from our customers: ‘How can I have visibility of where my assets are to ensure I’ve got control?’”

Greg Konig, VP Devices, NWN Carousel

Where did all my devices go? The beauty of asset management.

A key pain point we are hearing from customers is: “Where did all  my assets go?” 

Asset management is the process of keeping track of your organization’s devices, including laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, and other equipment. After the pandemic, with many employees working from home, and now returning to the office, it may be challenging to manage.

Throughout most of last year, supply chain issues were a problem. Although most of those backlog problems have been resolved, we’re still seeing shortages on popular models.

Device Management Services play a crucial role in ensuring the security and reliability of a network by regularly updating software and security patches on devices. Neglecting to apply these updates can result in vulnerabilities being exploited by malicious actors, leading to security breaches, data loss, and other security incidents.

By using Device Management Services, organizations can automate the process of deploying updates, making it easier and less time-consuming to ensure all devices are up-to-date with the latest security patches. Additionally, device management services can provide real-time visibility into the patch status of devices, allowing organizations to quickly identify and address any vulnerabilities. With NWN Carousel’s Experience Management Platform, our customers are provided with up-to-date info to maintain high-performing devices, along with timely support to enable a productive environment for their workforces.

Upshot: Expanding your ability to provide updated device services via the cloud is going to help organizations support hybrid workers. It will also help to address security risks that are inherent with a distributed workforce.

Zero Trust security to support seamless & secure hybrid work 

Today, 58% of organizations encourage a hybrid work model, and rely on cloud-based applications and infrastructure to drive productivity. While new ways of working and cloud-based systems provide more flexibility for employers and employees alike, they also pose new security challenges.

A zero trust security model can help teams gain more visibility into users, devices, containers, networks, and applications by verifying their security states across all access requests. By applying the principle of least privilege, teams can reduce the attack surface and make it harder for bad actors to take advantage of potential weak links. This model still allows employees to use the tools and applications they need, without exposing the organization to unnecessary risk.

“It’s difficult to scale the cybersecurity workforce to meet the needs of a massive gap in talent. The security role itself needs to evolve. Cybersecurity teams used to own enterprise perimeter security. In the modern threat landscape with bad actors doubling down on identity compromise, every user in the organization must be diligent,”

Chris Poe, VP Security, NWN Carousel

With not enough talent in the right roles, a constantly evolving landscape, and complexity of security solutions, our customer rely on our Secure Hybrid Work Assessment to jumpstart their posture.

In short, security can no longer be tied to a network perimeter. The old way of thinking was that anything inside the corporate network could be trusted. With bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, hybrid work, cloud adoption, and increased collaboration, trust is no longer implicit. As a result, zero trust security models are on the rise. A zero trust model considers all resources as external, and continuously verifies trust before granting only the required access.

Upshot: The expectation from workers coming back to the office is that they want a seamless, secure experience. The concept of Zero Trust ties into some of the biggest cybersecurity trends for the modern enterprise, including:

• Identity is the new perimeter 
• The cybersecurity talent shortage is real, transforming the role of security
• Human error remains the single biggest threat 
• AI will scale enterprise security capabilities

Register for our next eXcellerate webinar on Simple Strategies to Secure your Hybrid Workforce!

Prioritize Networking Tools to Interpret Usage and Provide Security 

2023 will continue to focus on ways to build higher-efficiency networks while limiting operating costs and personnel. Shifting from on-prem to cloud services for networking and data center initiatives continues to be the trend. Enterprises are leaning towards using a single-vendor strategy for networking inside the cloud like Cloud Communications Service Provider, NWN Carousel.

Delivering network-as-service, or in the case of NWN Carousel ATS-as-a-service, is a way for organizations to deliver network services on a subscription basis. Service providers have offered bandwidth as a service for years. But as budgets constrict, organizations have a difficult time predicting the highs and lows of the network. Our customers don’t wish to own the Wi-Fi access points or switches. They just want a seamless eXperience from home to office.

Network teams also need to get unified control and visibility over cloud networks to ensure robust and secure services. This includes a view of all networking products and services, data centers, cloud and software-defined WAN (SD-WAN). 

The power to have visibility into the network infrastructure environment is key to understanding if there’s a security incident. This gives you the ability to quickly contain a known breach. This is achieved by NWN Carousel’s Experience Management Platform through meaningful insights, proactive alerting, self-service capabilities, and access to our 24/7 customer success center.

“NWN Carousel’s Experience Management Platform (EMP) brings the customer and employee experience to the forefront by uniting the people, processes, and technology required to operate and optimize your cloud, and on-prem, environments. Through meaningful insights, proactive alerting, self-service capabilities, and access to our 24/7 customer success center, EMP enables organizations to realize transformational business outcomes,”

Krystina Silva, VP EMP, NWN Carousel.

Analyzing what physical office footprint is needed continues to be a focus. On the data center side, it’s the same. IT leaders are evaluating what should be kept on-premises vs. what can shift to the cloud.

Security will also remain top of mind in terms of “How do you make sure you have visibility of the network traffic?” “Who’s accessing your network?” “Is your network secure?” These are all relevant questions in a distributed environment.

Upshot:

In 2023, it’s not just about deploying a network or security solution, but in investing in a solution. It’s about making sure you’re getting your return on investment. Make sure you are optimizing feature functionality and also able to provide day-two support. Because of the IT skill shortage, we see a lot of customers who are now moving towards partnering with a Cloud Communications Service Provider like NWN Carousel to help them benchmark resources, integrate ATS and Security solutions, drive adoption and gain Return on Investment.