From sprawl to simplicity: How vendor consolidation reduces network complexity

According to CIO.com, 95% of companies are focused on vendor consolidation for their networks. It’s not surprising. For years, IT leaders have added network vendors to solve specific problems,  accelerate transformation, scale in different regions, or have inherited them via mergers and acquisitions. Over time, this results in a sprawling landscape of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), technology providers, platform providers, networks and more. All of it driving up costs, slowing down decision-making and creating blind spots in both performance and security.

Being selective about who you do work with could sharpen network performance, strengthen security, and free your teams to focus on real transformation to drive business growth.

The challenges of managing vendors

From network management and procurement headaches, to performance and risk management issues, managing multiple vendors comes with a lot of challenges. Not to mention if you’re dealing with vendors across multiple countries, languages, currencies and time zones.

Here’s why so many CIOs are rethinking their approach:

1. Integration and interoperability challenges: Each additional vendor brings its own systems, APIs, and operational quirks. Getting them to work seamlessly together can eat up weeks of engineering time, delay deployments, and complicate troubleshooting.
2. Time spent on vendor management and coordination: Managing vendors means more meetings, more reporting, more contracts, and more invoices to process. Every hour spent coordinating multiple network vendors is an hour not spent on strategic initiatives.
3. Complex risk management: The more suppliers you have, the larger your attack surface. You need to ensure that each one needs to meet your security, compliance, and operational standards. And each one can introduce vulnerabilities.
4. Financial management headaches: With dozens of suppliers, keeping track of invoices and allocating budgets across business units becomes a constant challenge. Without central oversight, it’s hard to get clarity on your true network expenditure too. 
5. Growth and agility roadblocks: When you want to scale or roll out new services, multiple vendors can slow you down. They may have different upgrade cycles, SLAs, and capabilities, forcing you to work to the pace of your slowest partner.
6. False sense of security: It’s tempting to believe that more vendors mean more resilience. For example, if one fails, others can take over. In reality, that’s a bit of a myth. Vendors may share dependencies you’re unaware of, like running on the same cloud platform or using the same fiber lines. If that service goes down, your “diverse” vendors would all go down.
7. International complications: If your network is truly global, that adds another layer of complexity. Different countries mean different regulations, compliance requirements, and security standards to navigate. Language barriers can slow communication, and working across multiple time zones can delay problem resolution. 

Benefits of vendor consolidation for networks

Think of vendor consolidation as a network transformation project in disguise. One that strengthens your infrastructure while making your business more adaptable.

The benefits of vendor consolidation include:

• Less complexity: Fewer vendors mean fewer contracts, licenses, and support channels to manage. 
• Increased efficiency: A unified environment allows for more automation, standardized processes, and streamlined change management.
• Enhanced agility: With less operational complexity to manage, your teams can focus on strategic projects, innovation, and rapid adoption of new technologies.
• Improved security: Closing security gaps between vendors and centralizing controls reduces risk and simplifies compliance.
• Improved service delivery: Fewer points of failure and tighter integration lead to more reliable operations and faster issue resolution.
• Strategic alignment: Building a deeper relationship with fewer partners means they understand your priorities.
• Cost optimizations: With fewer vendors, technologies, and moving parts around the world to manage, your network infrastructure becomes more agile. You can have better clarity of your services at each location and monitor real usage. Allowing you to optimize connectivity expenditure by site. 

How MSPs can help you consolidate your network vendors

Vendor consolidation done right is a strategic transformation initiative that impacts cost, performance, and agility across your organization. However, it can be a time-intensive process.

For example, you’ll need to audit your current vendors, identify overlaps, evaluate performance against SLAs, review your tech stack’s integrations, and execute your decisions across multiple geographies, services, and business units…

That’s where a Managed Service Provider (MSP) can make all the difference.

A strong MSP can act as a single point of contact for all your network needs. So instead of juggling multiple contracts, currencies, time zones, and support processes, you manage one partner who handles the rest. IDC’s research shows that MSPs are becoming a more popular choice. Consequently, 42% of enterprises are choosing to use external partners for their networking needs.

How Expereo can remove the complexity of network management

Expereo is an experienced managed Network-as-a-Service provider who brings an efficient and consultative approach to your networking needs. 

We can help you tackle vendor sprawl with: 

• Performance visibility: Working with multiple vendors can mean you have multiple tools and platforms, creating a fragmented view of your network estate. With Expereo, you gain access to expereoOne for a single pane of glass view of your entire network right down to site level. 

This provides unified visibility, performance monitoring, invoice management, service ordering and deactivation, as well as customer support from a single login. It integrates seamlessly with your existing tech stack via an API, allowing you to also consolidate your tools and platforms.

• Network strategy support: We look at your overall business goals, number of sites, workforce needs, and much more to suggest the right networking strategy for you. Providing tailored underlay and overlay connectivity solutions for the unique needs of your business.
• Integration expertise: We make sure your systems, applications, and services work seamlessly together.
• Centralized management: Our expereoOne platform means one login for all your billing, performance, analysis, customer support, and digital ordering needs. Ultimately, that means one portal, one bill, one SLA for services that may span dozens of countries.
• Global reach without complexity: We can connect your sites across 190+ countries as we have established relationships with regional carriers, providers and technology partners.  
• 24/7 customer service: We provide on-the-ground, local language, in-region support in a follow-the-sun model. 
• Specialized knowledge: Expertise in navigating local regulations, compliance standards, and operational requirements.

For CIOs and enterprise technology leaders, procurement, ops and IT, the choice is clear: vendor sprawl slows you down; consolidation clears the way for growth. But the question isn’t whether to consolidate, it’s who to consolidate with.

By combining the discipline of vendor consolidation with the capabilities of the right MSP, you can streamline operations, strengthen resilience, and reduce costs. All while maintaining the flexibility to scale and pivot as business needs change.

Ready for a consolidated, seamless network from a single vendor?

In a world where digital transformation moves at the speed of business, the old habit of adding more vendors to solve new challenges is becoming a liability. 

Get in touch with Expereo today to discuss your networking needs.