Adopting a Successful Global SD-WAN Strategy

We have years of experience guiding companies in transitioning from legacy MPLS to SD-WAN. For this type of transformation, a partner with experience is what you need, someone that is well-versed in the process and can make the transition quickly, securely, and seamless.

For companies that are ready to make the move, here’s how we would recommend approaching that engagement to ensure you experience success.

3 Steps to Adopting a Successful Global SD-WAN Strategy:

1. Strategize and Define

One of the first critical steps is defining what your team is looking to achieve from the transition. What business goals do you have? Are they related to the end-user experience, cost, efficiency, flexibility? While this step may seem trivial, it’s important to define your business objectives so we can define the optimal design and help find the best provider to accomplish these goals.

One of the key differentiators of working with our team is our extensive knowledge and familiarity with the industry’s top service providers. We can give you a transparent assessment of each, outline the true pros and cons so you can have peace of mind in choosing the right mix of potential suppliers. We help you build out a comprehensive strategy, holding the service provider accountable, so together we can accomplish your strategic business objectives.

2. Capture a Baseline

Next, we establish a baseline of your current performance. The baseline will serve as a basis to measure financials and network performance improvements, as well as to facilitate the network design process. Some of the actions include:

• Assess all current contracts, commitments, and carrier mix
• Itemize existing circuits at each location
• Calculate current total throughput
• Assess current Latency for critical apps
• Classify the site types

The Macronet team uses baseline data to help communicate the project plan and project status to business leaders.

3. Manage the Bid Process

Sourcing is a key component of the Macronet Methodology. We have many years of experience managing complex network bids and know how to maintain an even playing field while defining the best possible solutions from the selected respondents. To ensure the bid process is seamless for our customers, we include the following:

• Suitable Supplier Identification. Our goal is to lower costs and reduce complexity for our customers, while ensuring that the final solution is operationally supportable and backed by industry leading SLAs. Based on each client’s stated goals and network baseline, we are able to quickly define a list of suitable suppliers in the marketplace. The Macronet team has the industry relationships to reference check suppliers with enterprise users and other industry consultants to find unfiltered feedback.
• Manage the bid process. The Macronet team has the tools and expertise to manage a fair, comprehensive, and professional bid process for our clients. For some clients we have partnered with in-house sourcing teams, or we can fully manage the process from RFP to implementation.
• Plan for Governance. It is important to keep an eye on the future and to plan for the lifecycle of the account in the sourcing process. For large accounts, certain account team requirements can be codified in the contract phase that will help ensure a successful account lifecycle.

 

Macronet’s success is proven by the growing list of successful customer engagements we keep. We know the best teams in the business, can escalate issues quickly, and get you the answers you need to move forward.

It’s all about relationships, and we hold some of the best in the industry which enable us to continue to make our customers happy while holding vendors accountable. Let us bring you the next level of knowledge you need to successfully adopt a global SD-WAN strategy.