The evolution of technology lifecycle management practices

Research by NTT Ltd. regarding technology lifecycle patterns over the last five years, published recently as part of its 2020 Global Network Insights Report, caught my eye. I believe that this topic warrants some discussion among networking and business leaders, especially during today’s uncertain times.

The study included more than 1,000 global businesses and 800,000 network devices in various sectors, over a five-year period. 

According to the research:

• Refresh cycles are slowing, and the last two years highlight a global trend towards sweating assets.
• In 2019, almost half (47.9%) of businesses’ network infrastructure assets were ageing or obsolete, compared to only 13.1% in 2017.

 What’s behind this trend?

Industry analysts and market watchers tell us that cloud investments are growing more rapidly than organizations’ on-premise infrastructure spend, causing refresh and upgrade patterns to slow down.

Organizations are adopting a hybrid approach to IT, so we see no signs to contradict these findings. The increase in on-premise, ageing and obsolete devices was indeed partially due to a redirection of spend towards software-as-a-service (SaaS) and other cloud services, which resulted in a decrease in investment in on-premise infrastructure.

Looking ahead: a balancing act

We predict, however, that organizations will need to find a balance in their approach to hybrid IT. A permanent change to workforce dynamics brought about by COVID-19, budget compression and IT cost optimization together with organizational ambitions to grow and thrive, will result in businesses taking a deep look at how technology enables these diverging needs to be met. In the majority of cases, it will be achieved via applications and business services running in on-premises locations and cloud platforms, in the most suitable way for each unique organization.

This rebalancing of application portfolios, workforce connectivity and operating models will require that organizations take a renewed look at network architectures. These are the foundations for modern business and critical success factors in finding the balance that’s so important right now.

Download the NTT Ltd. 2020 Global Network Insights Report here for more on this topic and other insights regarding the current status of network architectures, approaches and adoption.