Global CXO Study 2020:
The Future of the Secure Office Anywhere
Independent research study of over 1,000+ global C-Suite leaders. Their plans for a Branch of One® office anywhere and the enterprise network security challenges.
The Branch of One® addresses 5 key business challenges:
Section 1
The Future of Work
Digitalization played a critical role during lockdown to keep businesses running and employees safe. We identified four key areas during the pandemic that will shape the future of work:
Elimination of Barriers
The pandemic forced organizations to implement a remote working policy overnight. In the process, it removed cultural, technology and bureaucracy-driven barriers held by organizations previously. The challenge will be to maintain the forward momentum as fatigue sets in after the initial wave of excitement.
Rapid Problem Solving
Providing employees with devices and remote access was only the first step. During lockdown, the established chains of communication and command were displaced in favor of decentralized decision-making and rapid implementation of solutions. We can expect a more agile approach towards operations placing trust in managers and employees to speed up and improve problem resolution.
IT on the Edge
As employees moved from a central location to their homes, organizations had to make data, applications, and resources available on their endpoints to guarantee business continuity. This sudden move brought to light the inadequacy of existing remote connectivity solutions.
Securing Data
Digitalization implies data will be available to employees on multiple locations and devices. It is, therefore, imperative for organizations to protect data by extending security and policies to all endpoints.
Many of the new network security solutions being proposed to deal with the new working model are not sufficient and do not leverage the ubiquitous coverage and usability of cellular connections and smart devices effectively. This will have to change to cater for the new demands of the business and people within the organization.
Going forward, CIOs must take into account the learnings from previous months to develop a robust strategy to support the different security use cases that are part of the evolving and hybrid model of work.
Section 2
The Office Anywhere
Office Anywhere is about the decentralization of people and resources away from the physical office and towards a remote office that goes wherever the employee is. Organizations are moving towards a hybrid model of work that supports a fully mobile employee with secure access to corporate resources, applications, and data seamlessly.
The longevity and return on investment of the office anywhere is increasingly based upon hard facts and tangible benefits. The global exercise in remote working that is taking place in 2020 has demonstrated that organizations can continue to operate and be successful from remote locations. In terms of performance, business leaders and IT teams now have a good idea of what works and what impedes productivity.
One such barrier is the widespread use of VPNs for remote access to corporate resources. While they can be effective in certain use cases, VPNs do not support a primarily remote workforce that is connected to the network 100% of the time. The alternative to a VPN, namely installing a Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) device for employees at home is not feasible either as it confines the employee to the home-office.
Key to the success of Office Anywhere is the ability for employees to access corporate information and services securely anytime, wherever they work. With Asavie’s solutions, every employee is a Branch of One® of the corporate, private network with seamless access to corporate applications in the private DCs/cloud, all without the need for VPNs or CPEs.
Section 3
Enterprise Networking
Digital Transformation is changing where organizations run their data workloads and store their business resources and applications. Workloads are now widely distributed between enterprise private datacenters, private cloud on-premise, in the public cloud and as SaaS applications on the internet.
The diversification of where data is held and where it is accessed from, is leading organizations to rethink their networking and security to be more focused on the identity of the end user. Traditional networks and security are designed to protect locations and branches. However, as most data is now outside the digital business, enterprises are looking to Zero Trust Networks (ZTNA), Secure Access Service Edges (SASE) and SD-WAN to manage the evolving business network needs.
With the Asavie Branch of One®, organizations get a SASE solution with private mobile networks and identity based network security. This empowers employees with secure, frictionless access to applications from anywhere.
Section 4
Enterprise Mobility
The convergence of several trends has accelerated the adoption of mobility solutions in recent years:
Mobile Device Availability
According to a recent study, in the US alone, mobile phone ownership has grown from 62% of all adults in 2004 to 96% in 2019. Deloitte estimates 90% mobile phone penetration across developed countries, and the GSMA reports 8 billion mobile connections worldwide with a 6.2% YoY growth.
Cost of Mobile Data
While in some developed countries the cost per GB is still considered expensive ($2.20 in the US as of September, 2020), the trend is definitely showing a downward trajectory, making it more accessible to all business sizes.
Cellular Technology
2019 brought about the 5G breakthrough, showing us the full potential of faster connection speeds and lower latency. While 5G is still in its infancy, enterprises are already starting the conversation about the use cases the new technology can address.
While these factors create a positive environment for innovation and increased productivity, they have also created new attack vectors for malicious actors to strike against organizations. The working environment is moving towards a new hybrid model where the employee can perform their tasks anywhere with a mobile device and cellular connectivity. With that, CIOs must guide all innovation in enterprise mobility to be secure by design with full control and visibility of data.
Section 5
Compliance
Data privacy regulation has been a mainstream conversational topic ever since the introduction of GDPR in Europe. However, sectors such as healthcare and financial services have operated in a heavily regulated enviroment governing the access, storage, and dissemination of personal or business data.
When it comes to compliance, there are two relevant terms that CISOs must be aware of:
Data Privacy
Obligations ensure you are processing data only as appropriate and having regard for the rights of the data owner.
Data Security
Obligations make sure you process this data with the right level of technical and administrative rigor.
With the accelerated development of mobile solutions across multiple platforms, the issue of data governance on mobile devices has become more prominent. Take remote health, for example, where patient data is shared across multiple systems and organizations. In some instances, there will be third parties involved like private laboratories or care providers. Each one of them is responsible for ensuring patient data is protected in accordance with the relevant regulation such as HIPAA in the US.
At Asavie, we understand the importance of data privacy and security. That is why our Branch of One® solution incorporates a range of compliance adherence features that include private network segments for PCI compliance and security policies that support specific requirements for HIPAA or GDPR compliance.
Global CXO Study 2020:
The Future of the Secure Office Anywhere
1,000 C-level execs, across 3 continents were surveyed to analyze the impact
of COVID-19 on their organizations’ dynamically changing security concerns.
