Turning Technology Into Results | Key to the Black Box #6
For the past several segments, we’ve talked a lot about the technology behind SDWAN. Let’s take a few steps back, and tie it all together.
SDWAN can provide businesses with:
– Reduced risk through improved resiliency and security.
– Optimized expenses by fully utilizing secondary circuits to grant additional bandwidth on diverse pathways.
– Improved user productivity due to application prioritization, greater bandwidth, and fewer outages.
SDWAN directly shapes some of the most fundamental metrics that every business appreciates, so it’s easy to see why so many providers and manufacturers have thrown their hat in the ring to compete with this technology. It’s also easy to see why every business should be considering whether SDWAN is a good fit for their organization, and, if so, from whom it should be purchased. As we covered in the last article, there are a lot of SDWAN solutions, and they vary from each other in a myriad of ways, making comparisons difficult. So how does one navigate such a convoluted evaluation?
If you’ve attempted any degree of SDWAN evaluation, then you probably already know how difficult it can be to get a clear story directly from the providers. The sales-oriented perspective their insights are filtered through will frequently put their recommendations at odds with your business’ objectives. We put together this buyer-oriented series to help you achieve a more effective evaluation. An effective evaluation will take less time to reach a satisfying purchase decision, set you up for the easiest installation and integration, and ensure your user and admin experiences match your needs and expectations.
With that said, if you’ve followed the sequence of articles thus far, you’ve got a good grasp on what SDWAN can do, and how to tie that back to your KPIs. By narrowing down which aspects of SDWAN benefit you the most, you can define the requirements of the specification you should be shopping for. However, before you take that spec out to shop, it’s important to keep in mind what will be coming down the line once you decide on your solution, particularly in terms of implementation and ongoing support, and to have those requirements as part of your shopping spec, as well.
Make sure you get clarity on what the installation and migration process looks like, especially when it comes to defining configurations that pertain to interfacing with or replacing your firewall, connecting to cloud services, and allowing users to connect in remotely via VPN. If you want to have a test period before making a commitment, request a Proof of Concept, but understand that few providers offer a full roll-out prior to a purchase commitment. Most importantly, whether for the implementation or the life of the technology, what resources need to be provisioned for expertise, execution, and support, and how will they be funded? Once you’ve identified all these components of your specification, including what resources you need to properly install and support your decision, you can begin the pricing and negotiation phase of the evaluation.
This starts by choosing some method to distribute and shop the specification. You might choose to do this on your own, and work directly with provider salespeople. Not only does this consume exponentially larger amounts of your time than other methods and require you to be an expert in both technology and negotiations, but every provider locks down a certain percentage, often around 15%, of your purchase commitment to be paid to the salesperson as a commission. Since you have full control of who your agent will be, we recommend that you select an agent who will direct those commission funds toward the expert people and processes you need to successfully install, integrate, and support your technology decision.
However you choose to distribute your spec, allow each of the potential providers an opportunity to respond. Narrow these responses down to the best two, and have conversations with each of these providers to gain commitments on design, pricing, contracts, implementation, and ongoing support. Based on these results, you can determine which you prefer, and give them one last push for a lower price in exchange for your signature. While buyers typically don’t share quotes from other providers, it is perfectly fine, even advantageous, for you to tell the providers that you are shopping and what your desired price point is.
