What a modern network looks like

A modern network empowers multiple layers of a company’s digital core, including cloud infrastructure, data, and AI, applications, and platforms, while integrating emerging technologies to enable future-ready capabilities. This network drives flexibility, resilience, and innovation, and ultimately facilitates Total Enterprise Reinvention.

Enterprises’ expectations from a modern network

While the path to network modernization varies for each organization—shaped by their unique goals and requirements—Accenture’s own network transformation offers an example of how an enterprise can address its need for an agile, future-focused network.

Rethinking Accenture’s enterprise connectivity to achieve an agile, secure, and cost-efficient network

Accenture’s enterprise network is crucial for connecting its workforce of over 738,000 employees across 120 countries to business applications and collaboration tools. It must link 200 cities with Accenture locations and operations, support more than 575,000 unique network users and over 50,000 managed network devices, and handle 15 million daily employee authentications. To meet these demands, Accenture has consistently invested in expanding and enhancing its enterprise network, resulting in a complex global private network with significant operational overhead.

Recognizing that its global enterprise network could become a growth-limiting factor, Accenture’s Global IT organization initiated a program to create a more agile, future-focused, and sustainable network while reducing costs and refocusing the personnel managing the existing network. The transformation program envisions phasing out the traditional network in favor of a cloud WAN, leveraging global infrastructure-as-a-service to support all cloud-based operations.

The goal is to develop an integrated WAN and/or 5G architecture that seamlessly operates across all enterprise and cloud locations (public, private, and hybrid). This flexibility allows Accenture to choose the most suitable cloud services to meet its specific needs.

The network transformation is expected to reduce Accenture’s asset-heavy core and fixed costs, enabling a highly optimized consumption model where the company only pays for what it needs, with supply adjusting to demand in real time. This is projected to generate annual cost savings of $15 to $20 million.

Accenture’s new security approach decouples security from infrastructure, emphasizing identity and zero trust, with continuous validation between systems and access points. This transformation has enhanced Accenture’s business agility, providing a highly consumable enterprise network with real-time capacity adjustments. The corporate network, developed over multiple years, serves as a powerful case study and a guiding example for clients transitioning to a cloud-first approach.

Continue reading to explore the benefits of a modern network and download our detailed report for practical insights.

Related report: Build for the cloud: Five steps to modern enterprise networks | Accenture

The Table of Contents of “Modern Networks: How to fast track competitive advantage” Report:

• New technologies and a digitalized world require a modern network
• Rapid digitalization calls for a sea change in the network
• An overhaul of enterprise networks is overdue
• What a modern network looks like
• How can companies build a modern network?

Number of Pages:

• 42 pages

Pricing: 

• Free

Methodology

We employed a multi-method research approach. Specifically, the research program included a primary survey, econometric analysis, expert interviews, and case study research.

10 Countries
15 Industries
1000 Executives

Survey: We conducted an online study of 1,000 global enterprise senior technology and business executives across 15 industries
and 10 countries in November 2022, to understand their perspectives on managing existing networks as well as modernizing and
investing in advanced networks. The study covered four primary topics:

• Current enterprise network strategy, pain points, and the need for modernization
• Perceived value and benefits to unlock from enterprise network modernization
• Enterprise challenges on the network modernization journey
• Enterprise preferences for network providers and solutions

The 15 industries covered in the survey included Industrial, Automotive, High Tech, Consumer Goods, Chemicals, Healthcare payers & Providers, Banking, Insurance, Metals & Mining, Oil & Gas, Retail, Transportation, Utilities, and Government/Public Services.

The ten countries included in the survey were Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.