Network resiliency climbs in importance for businesses

Network resilience should be a top priority for every company, as downtime today means lost revenue and reputation damage.

Most IT and business leaders (91%) view network resilience as a strategic priority for their organization’s C-suite or board, according to findings from a new report from tech services provider C1. Nearly half (47%) of those leaders believe a network outage would have a major negative impact on their business. This is in line with my research that found 93% of respondents believe the network is more important to business operations today than it was just two years ago.

The C1 Edge 2025 Network Modernization Benchmark Report surveyed 175 U.S. IT and business leaders who are responsible for selecting and purchasing networking and infrastructure solutions. The survey was conducted in May and June of this year, in partnership with Hanover Research. It uncovered that 46% of leaders consider network resilience a major priority, while 45% view it as a moderate priority. Only a small percentage think network resilience is a minor priority.

Network performance drives spending priorities

Over the next 12 months, organizations plan to invest the most in Wi-Fi 6E and 7 (81%), SD-WAN (79%), and 5G (76%). Spending isn’t limited to connectivity upgrades, though. Many also plan to move forward with edge computing (70%), Internet of Things (IoT) integration (59%), and automation tools (58%). Some organizations plan to spend on advanced management technologies like multi-cloud networking (51%) and AI for network management (50%).

Efficiency and performance are top drivers when investing in networks. Reducing operational costs is the top motivator for 47% of IT and business leaders. Improving performance and speed is a motivator for 43%, followed by boosting reliability and uptime (38%). Customer experience is also important, according to 30% of the respondents. By contrast, far fewer cited supporting remote work (9%) or shifting to the cloud (5%) as motivators, since many organizations already have these capabilities in place.

When it comes to network design, performance (68%), security (60%), and reliability (57%) matter most to IT and business leaders. Other drivers like user experience, scalability, disaster recovery, and compliance were mentioned, but by fewer respondents. To keep everything running smoothly, organizations spend time on practical tasks like optimizing configurations (56%), doing routine maintenance (53%), and using real-time monitoring tools (52%).

Managed services now the norm

Most organizations no longer manage networks on their own: 72% supplement in-house teams with third-party providers, according to C1’s report. It finds businesses are shifting to managed services, which is consistent with other industry research. A report from KPMG found that 73% of organizations have implemented managed services in some areas of their business.

The main factors for organizations when choosing vendors are availability of managed services and industry experience. But there are other considerations as well, such as contract flexibility, advisory support, and reputation. (C1 offers a broad range of managed services that span the scope of enterprise infrastructure.)

Security and privacy in conflict with modernization

Despite strong investment plans, organizations continue to face obstacles. According to survey respondents, the most common barriers to investing in networks are data security and privacy concerns (45%), rapidly changing technology landscape (39%), and challenges tied to regulatory requirements and legacy complexity (both 37%). Incompatibility with existing infrastructure and a lack of organizational priority were also named as barriers to network investments.

Once modernization projects are put into practice, organizations face various challenges. Forty-five percent of IT and business leaders said it’s difficult to balance modernization with day-to-day operations. The same percentage of the respondents pointed to challenges with security and compliance requirements, and maintaining compatibility with existing systems. Downtime or service disruptions (42%) and the increased complexity of network architectures (37%) rounded out the list. A smaller number reported high implementation costs and limited in-house expertise.

The main benefit of building resilience into networks is protecting critical data, according to 47% of the respondents. Minimizing downtime (42%) and boosting network performance (40%) are just as important. Some also noted benefits beyond the technical side, including stronger customer trust and knowing the business can keep running even if an outage happens.

Final thoughts

Historically, most business leaders didn’t put a lot of thought into the network. It was viewed as the “plumbing” of the company, with many considering it a commodity. That’s changed today as all digital technologies, such as cloud, mobility, IoT and AI, are network centric, and, without the network, businesses can’t operate.

For many organizations, network modernization is long overdue and needs to be a top priority as it will enable new ways of serving customers, create new experiences and allow employees to be more productive. One key for companies is to not think of the network as separate domains, such as a campus network, WAN or Wi-Fi, but rather consider the end-to-end network when modernizing. The network is only as strong as its weakest link.