Network Automation in Times of Economic Uncertainty

Record inflation and slow economic growth have prompted companies to get creative in cutting costs without downsizing their teams. Despite an abundance of tools available to increase network security and efficiency, enterprises are slow to implement automated network management solutions. Due to the many different solutions that exist in the market, with various levels of sophistication, the full benefits and capabilities of network automation are underutilized, despite presenting opportunities for significant cost savings and operational efficiency.

Network Automation and Hiring

When it comes to hiring, network automation frees companies from needing to find candidates who have knowledge of specific scripting languages like Python, allowing them to hire more generalists or less senior candidates because they don’t need to do scripting to be fast and efficient. Automation also allows for faster onboarding times for new team members, helping them dive into more critical tasks early on without having to worry about learning tasks that can be easily automated.

Retaining Network Professionals on the Team

Automation takes a lot of weight off network teams’ shoulders, automating numerous tasks and processes that are traditionally done manually. This allows IT teams to focus on more complex, growth-focused initiatives, instead of administrative work like updating configurations with manual and laborious scripts. This in turn helps with retention since skilled IT professionals don’t want to spend their time on repetitive but critical tasks. They’d rather use their talents to focus on solving more complex and strategic network initiatives.

Justifying IT Budgets During Times of Economic Uncertainty

Security leaders find it difficult to defend their budgets without the right metrics and milestones to measure the efficacy of their team and the tools currently being used. Security vendors must make it easier for their customers to quantify the value delivered by their products.

In August 2022 we released a new version of BackBox that includes new capabilities that improve user experience, accelerate time-to-value, and deliver insights on usage and automation performance. The upgrade provides analytics on inventory and automation performance, helping our customers quantify the business impact of network automation and informing their automation strategies based on data. Our customers and MSP/MSSP partners can better validate and justify their work while identifying common and recurring issues, and strategies for overcoming them.

It is key that our customers understand the value of our solution, especially during times of economic uncertainty. When leveraged appropriately, network automation solutions help save on IT costs in the sense that they support network administrators and security professionals with the heavy lifting of complex and repetitive network tasks, as well as reduce the costs associated with constant employee turnover.

To learn more about BackBox’s intelligent network security automation, visit: https://backbox.com/free-evaluation/