Higher demand for cloud- and software-mediated network solutions drove stronger revenue among leading enterprise NIS suppliers

HAMPTON, N.H. (Jan. 11, 2018) — According to Technology Business Research, Inc.’s (TBR) 3Q17 Network Infrastructure Services Benchmark, migration to cloud- and software-mediated network infrastructure accelerated, spurring low-single-digit growth among benchmarked network infrastructure services (NIS) suppliers, including growth in all benchmarked services subsegments.

“The enterprise network is evolving as large enterprises, in particular, build cloud architectures to connect and control distributed branch locations more efficiently,” said TBR Analyst Patrick Filkins. “To align with this shift, NIS suppliers are driving engagements around professional services. Services-led suppliers, such as IBM and Accenture, are well positioned as vendor-agnostic NIS providers able to integrate and manage multi-vendor, multi-tenant architectures.”

Additionally, demand for professional services is spurring product-led suppliers, such as Cisco and Juniper Networks, to hire new talent for cloud- and SDN-related network rollouts and systems integration. This targeted investment in new headcount among product-centric suppliers will remain limited, though, as these companies will continue to rely on maintenance services to generate the bulk of NIS-related revenue.

TBR’s Network Infrastructure Services Benchmark provides quarterly analysis of network suppliers’ performance in the deployment, maintenance, professional services and managed services markets. Suppliers covered include Accenture, Avaya, Cisco, Dell EMC, Fujitsu, HPE, Huawei, IBM, Juniper Networks and Microsoft.