Tips for African CIOs to rapidly modernise their network to enable a digital future

CIOs in Africa are navigating the complex digital landscape and driving transformation within their organisations. By using innovative technologies and collaborating with stakeholders, they are paving the way for a digital future.

However, it is not without its dilemmas. The role of CIOs is vital in the digital age, as they lead their organisations’ digital transformation journeys. Network modernisation as an enabler is key to deliver these game-changing technologies; and African CIOs are seeking guidance from global players as the network has become a utility and not strategic purchase.

After being coined by Gartner in 2019, the secure access service edge approach has been embraced by many enterprises and investors. But are the bold claims of cost-effective security, agility, and flexibility living up to the hype? As SASE comes in all shapes and sizes, African enterprises need to evaluate if it's the right fit for them or offer a silver bullet to leapfrog and overcome network related challenges.

Network challenges for African Enteprises

Here are some of the challenges we see face African CIOs.

• Especially in Africa as enterprises seek growth in new markets across the continent,?the corporate network is set to evolve, driven by the move towards a more distributed workforce and the acceleration in the adoption of cloud services and enterprise applications.
• The availability of the right talent to drive digital transformation is one of the biggest challenges in Africa. Focusing on enterprise apps takes away budget for skills to manage and modernise networks.
• Many African organisations still rely on legacy systems that are difficult to integrate with new digital technologies. This includes network tech like MPLS and legacy voice that doesn't enable improved client and employee experience.
• The cost and quality of internet connectivity in Africa vary across different regions. The pervasiveness of quality intent aside, costs are significant. In 2021, Africans had to pay, on average, 6.5% of their monthly income to get 2GB of mobile data. This is worse for enterprises as higher quality Internet to edge and branch level would drive most applications.
• Some of the CIOs in region face tech debt from prior expedient, multi-vendor simplified management solutions usually direct from tech providers, rather than choosing solutions that are comprehensive and sustainable. This means lack of continuous modernisation, disparate management systems and residual costs.
• As enterprises find that as the cost associated with energy, transport, telecom, security, inter-border trade, taxes, land, bribes, marketing, dilute net productivity and profitability, commodity network modernisation is harder to justify. According to McKinsey Africa, 60% of African CIOs cite a lack of financial resources as a major barrier to [holistic] digital transformation.
• The vastness and low geo-spread of Africa especially from most public cloud and concentrated locations?requires network design that eliminates the requirement for sophisticated backhauling of traffic to central security gateways. Network support per country is also expensive, as per the skills issue highlighted.
• Cybersecurity threats: Cybersecurity threats are a major concern for African organisations. According to Deloitte Africa, 89% of African organisations experienced a cyber incident in the past year. Implementing robust cybersecurity measures down to branch level, such as firewalls, encryption, and multi-factor authentication, to mitigate cybersecurity threats is a priority.
• Mobility, security, and connectedness are key focuses for CIOs in Africa, with cloud being the glue that holds everything together. This trend is set to continue as organisations strive to maintain productivity and connectivity in a distributed work environment.

Though there are other challenges, let's now offer suggestions on solving African CIO network modernisation technically, operationally and commercially.?

SASE can leapfrog African enterprises from legacy networking

African enterprises can benefit greatly from a distributed cyber security and networking model like SASE. Recent studies show that 40% of African companies have already implemented or are planning to deploy SASE solutions. This is hardly surprising given the comprehensive access layer security and improved user experience that SASE provides.

SASE will help African enterprise digital transformation with a converged approach, ensuring security for new connections and consistent network performance. It unifies networking and security services, offering fast, reliable access from anywhere.

SASE is designed for a more distributed and mobile workforce, whereas legacy networks like MPLS are typically used for private networks that a single organisation operates. SASE provides greater flexibility and scalability compared to MPLS, which can be limited by its on-premises infrastructure.?SASE improves the user experience by eliminating the need for backhauling traffic to central security gateways. This leads to a smoother and more responsive user experience, especially for remote workers.

SASE simplifies security policy enforcement and network administration, enabling IT teams to focus on more strategic efforts. It also eliminates the need for costly on-premise security hardware, reducing operational costs for businesses.

Finally, SASE eliminates the need for costly, on-premise security hardware. The cloud-based paradigm results in decreased operational costs for businesses.?

Marrying modernisation with autonomous operations

?Next-generation networking that is AI-driven and fully automated can address key business challenges, improving network uptime and business productivity. This is crucial for businesses in Africa where network downtime can have significant impacts on operations.

With autonomous operations, network management becomes simpler and more efficient. This allows IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than day-to-day network operations, especially with the greater diversity and geography of cross-continental sites.

Platform-driven networks are highly scalable, allowing organisations to easily adjust their network capacity based on demand. This is particularly beneficial for African businesses that are experiencing rapid growth.

Helping African CIOs commercially to modernise their networks?

NaaS is an emerging model for African enterprises to consume network infrastructure in transition or transformatively through flexible operating expense (Opex) subscriptions, inclusive of hardware, software, management tools, licenses, and lifecycle services. This contrasts with the traditional network model that requires capital expenses (Capex) for physical networks with switches, routers, and licensing.

Like cloud service models,?users can scale up and down as demand changes, rapidly deploy services, and eliminate hardware costs. This flexibility allows organisations to build better business agility, accelerate innovations, and improve performance with a cost-effective and scalable subscription-based model.

Advanced network-as-a-service technologies enable lower cost access to innovations. This can be particularly beneficial for African organisations that are often challenged by the high costs of implementing new technologies.

Conclusion

In summary, managed SASE can help African CIOs to enhance their enterprises' overall security posture, improve user experience, simplify management, reduce costs, and support digital transformation efforts. However, setting up an effective SASE architecture requires meticulous planning.

Autonomous, platform-driven networking can help African CIOs enhance their organisation’s overall network performance, support digital transformation efforts, simplify network management, and reduce costs. However, implementing such a network requires careful planning and consideration of the enterprises' specific needs.

Lastly,?NaaS provides a flexible, scalable, and cost-effective solution for managing network infrastructure, making it an attractive option for many African multinational organisations.