Written by Bob Hockman
Bob Hockman is vice president of product management at Empirix, a provider of service quality assurance for IP communications.
Networks have evolved into a strategic asset. Along with voice, video and data packets, enterprise networks carry customer relationships, revenue opportunities, operational efficiency and expense control. Companies are investing heavily in preemptive testing and quality assurance monitoring solutions to prevent customer dissatisfaction and revenue leakage while still containing costs.
These QA solutions capture a tremendous amount of customer, network and operational data. IT and business line managers are constantly creating reports with hundreds of pages of network stats, and although this provides a certain amount of comprehension when it comes to daily operations, companies can do better. Advanced network analytics offers insight into evolving customer behaviors, network utilization and process adoption rates. In-depth drilling will reveal hidden issues that can be corrected before they impact consumers and become costly problems. Big Data analytics for enterprise networks enable people throughout an organization to make smarter decisions and increase profitability from both sides of the equation.
On the revenue side, providing a great customer experience goes a long way toward generating repeat business and reducing churn. Customer experience is becoming harder to see - and therefore measure - as multi-channel customer service solutions and the proliferation of mobile devices change how people interact with companies. True visibility into these customer contact behaviors is extremely important because it is understanding the mix of chat, phone, Web and mobile contact that helps companies optimize their networks to ensure a high-quality experience every time. Tracking that information over time enables CIOs and CFOs to better prioritize investments, and at the same time, gives marketing and sales departments the intelligence they need to develop business models to capitalize on evolving customer needs. Enriching these business models with buying preferences or social media activity allows companies to identify additional revenue opportunities and further refine their strategies.
All the data on customer usage trends is just floating around the network. Analytics takes that data and turns it into usable information that effectively unlocks its meaning.
Network analytics also enables tighter control over expenses. On an almost daily basis, enterprise technologies are evolving as companies open new offices, acquire companies and launch new initiatives. As the complexity of these technologies increase, the network as a whole is no longer optimized. Analyzing end-to-end traffic patterns tends to reveal inefficiencies and extraneous costs; calls that are routed off the network and back again incur unnecessary phone charges and servers that remain provisioned for declining applications continue to burn energy. Recognizing inefficiencies and taking steps to prevent extraneous costs translates to savings that add up quickly.
Once changes are implemented to enhance network performance, companies can look to Unified Communications and other solutions to optimize business processes and eliminate inefficiencies in the workplace. Understanding how employees are utilizing the network provides insight into how they communicate with each other and whether or not new UC tools are making a difference. Consider a company that adopts Microsoft Lync or a similar solution to help employees find the right expert the first time. On the surface, everything seems great since there are no system failures. However, it’s only by slicing and dicing the data that a company can see that users in their Swedish office are spinning their wheels trying to get in touch with their counterparts worldwide, an inefficiency UC was designed to eliminate. This could indicate that the solution was not properly deployed or perhaps those employees they require additional education.
Network analytics will also reveal where the largest operational inefficiencies lie, enabling companies to roll out UC solutions that will have the greatest impact and generate higher ROI.
Naturally, advanced network analytics, with the ability to drill into micro events, significantly shortens the time it takes to troubleshoot even the most complex technical issue anywhere in network. Many companies are using this type of analytics to proactively examine network and application performance from many perspectives. By searching for anomalies in their systems, they can identify hidden problems that linger under the surface and correct them before they affect users and become extremely expensive to fix. This significantly reduces overall support costs while boosting customer satisfaction and employee productivity.
There are so many ways that network-based intelligence can help a company increase profitability that the business case practically writes itself. The challenge is transforming the vast amount of data into actionable information to allow companies to make smarter decisions. No one wants to hire a team of database experts and wait three days for results. To be successful, companies need a solution designed to quickly correlate and manipulate large volumes of data and present it in a way that is meaningful for the individual user’s needs. With analytics, smarter decision making—from the control room to the board room—will give companies a long term advantage in any market.
