The latest research from Aruba reveals an increasing interest in Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) among technology leaders across Australia as they re-evaluate their current infrastructure and network configuration.
NaaS was defined in the study as when a company outsources more than 50% of its network deployment, operations, and lifecycle management on a subscription basis to a third party.
The report found that 94% of Australian companies currently discuss NaaS in some capacity, which is a frequent discussion topic in 58% of companies.
Aruba says 90% of hi-tech companies say NaaS is a hot topic currently followed by government (77%), manufacturing (70%), industrial (60%), and financial services (60%) – hospitality was lowest at 40%.
More than three-quarters (76%) of respondents hope NaaS to help reduce operational costs, and 64% believe it could enable a shift from CapEx to OpEx. Financial efficiency emerged as one of the main expected benefits when respondents were asked about the reasons behind their interest. The other main drivers were greater network and team time flexibility and improved security.
Three-quarters (68%) of companies agree that the flexibility to scale their network based on business needs is essential to their interest, and 63% see it as a potential game changer in managing operations.
82% of companies claimed that moving to the NaaS model would deliver significant cost savings. Meanwhile, less than half (45%) are looking to NaaS to help them reduce IT staffing instead, believing it will free up team time for innovation and strategic initiatives (65%).
the barriers
Aruba says the appetite for NaaS is clear, but the road to implementation seems less clear as the research identifies several key barriers.
At first glance, the report found that internal processes could be the problem. For example, one of the top concerns identified by technology leaders was the desire to keep network management in-house (71%), manage the move to the NaaS model (58%), and internal procurement compliance (57%).
However, Aruba says a deeper dive into the data reveals a more fundamental barrier: a lack of common understanding of NaaS. While 100% of technology leaders say they are familiar with NaaS as a term, nearly three in 10 (28%) don’t know what it means.
While most companies talking about NaaS fully understand what NaaS means (72%), there is also an educational gap in the perception of the viability of NaaS. Only 23% of technology leaders see NaaS as an established and viable solution. The rest see it as a concept searching for a market (49%) or still in its infancy (28%).
Coleman Parkes conducted the survey and surveyed 240 senior decision-makers in Australia responsible for their organization’s IT and cloud strategy. The sample included organizations with more than 500 employees, ranging to more than 5,000. Coleman Parkes used an online methodology, and fieldwork was conducted between October 2021 and February 2022.
