Location, Location, Location: It Matters for Corporate Expansion
Sander Barens
Chief Product Officer
With growth and expansion into new regions, countries and continents, businesses and corporations have two choices. They can manage internet connectivity on their own, or they can avoid the various complexities of global connectivity by relying on an experienced network services provider.
The three-word phrase that has long been associated with success in real estate — location, location, location — is equally important for businesses or multinational corporations (MNC) when they expand their operations and markets into new regions, countries and continents.
The ongoing shift toward remote work, and the increased digitization of the workplace and marketplace, demand 24/7 connectivity with the least possible downtime and fewest possible outages or glitches. Connectivity choices are many, but so are the factors that influence whether businesses should go it alone or rely on an experienced network services provider to handle the complexity and details.
Whether businesses are expanding via organic growth or entering new markets for a competitive advantage, they must embrace due diligence to choose locations where fast, reliable internet connectivity is a dependable asset, not a liability.
Expereo helps to simplify ‘incomprehensible complexity’
APNIC statistics2 identifies somewhere between 875,000 and 925,000 public internet routes as of January 2022. Among those local, regional and international internet providers, each has its own infrastructure and partnerships for how they plug into the global internet network.
Businesses that opt to go at it alone often face a vast number of choices and unpredictable fluidity. They frequently discover that they have little control over routes, performance or oversight (or all three) unless they rely on a network services provider that understands the detailed complexity and ever-changing nature of business-global connectivity.
An experienced network services provider can help address and solve key challenges, including:
- Understanding the quality of the ISPs and if they are reliable in the region and which ISPs look good on paper but have a poor reputation or history for dependable connectivity and performance.
- Insight into how the ISP networks are connected to the national, regional and global internet networks and which ISP choices fit your cloud applications and WAN topology best.
- Connectivity outages that can disrupt critical business operations, with resolution of the outage out of a go-it-alone business’ hands and 100% reliant on the ISP.
- Ongoing changes in an ISP providers’ key partnerships, especially if a replacement partner is defined by lower-cost, lower-quality or slower traffic and if the ISP’s partnership’s decisions are made without the business’ knowledge.
Consider key location-specific factors for growth & expansion[SB1]
Businesses that are expanding or seek to function seamlessly as global enterprises need to connect all their locations/regions with the end-to-end performance they need to thrive and survive. So, how should businesses and companies go about choosing a new location for expansion and growth?
- Explore internet provider policies that have an immense impact on a business’ success in a new market, particularly around data throttling, fair access, application/site throttling, overage charges, traffic shaping and cost-effectiveness.
- Perform due diligence around an ISP’s history of honoring the provisions of service-level agreements (e.g., installation, change management, availability) and oversubscription ratios (a measure of endpoint capacity vs. total uplink speeds — data that ISPs might not willingly disclose unless asked specifically).
- Seek recommendations about which ISP partners provide “critical mass” for connectivity defined on a low-to-high continuum as sparse (fewer than 100 partners), moderate (more than 100), or desired full-ecosystem coverage (thousands or more partners) in any number of markets.[SB2] Although it is important to note that the more ISP partners, the more complex your connectivity will be across solutions, including accounts payable, support processes, insights, and others.
- Ask specific questions about an ISP’s dedicated support for end-to-end connectivity and visibility, and its ability to monitor and manage traffic flows seamlessly and with the least amount of downtime and disruption.
- Ask about contingency plans for connectivity during outages or other glitches.
- During expansion, when considering ISP partners in a new region, consider languages spoken by support teams and the hours of operation of those teams. It is important to note these to ensure they align with your business.
Decades into its existence, the global internet is still an ever-changing, ever-evolving entity. Businesses that rely on connectivity to grow and expand their locations, workforce and markets can benefit from choosing their expansion locations wisely or from working with a network services provider that delivers expert help at every step of connectivity: design, planning, migration, monitoring, updating, maintenance and 24/7 performance & support.
Due diligence around a “go-it-alone” strategy will support expansion and growth with as few surprises or outages as possible. Partnering with a knowledgeable network service provider can deliver a single-service experience that offers end-to-end visibility, presentation and management. Country by country, region by region, and market by market, ISP partners, network service providers and expanding businesses can examine and choose best-in-class options.
This much is clear for large businesses exploring whether to handle connectivity internally or to seek a network services provider: Connectivity is critical for business success, growth and expansion. Executives are wise to consider the most important factors and options that define dependable connectivity in every market or region where they have a presence and plan to expand.
Citation
1 Now is the time to make the move to the internet: The compelling case for the business executive. 2022. Omdia-expereo white paper. Retrieved from: https://blog.expereo.com/when-migrating-to-the-internet-for-business-connectivity