BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - March 5, 2008) - "The Roadmap to the Next Generation Branch
Office Networks," a new benchmark report by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks
Company (
NYSE:
HHS), found that, as compared to industry Laggards,
Best-in-Class organizations are eight times more likely to improve their
ability to resolve issues with network performance before end-users are
impacted. Aberdeen's research also reveals that organizations are on
average spending $2.4 million annually on enterprise applications and are
allocating 10.4% of their total IT budgets to improving performance of
their branch office networks.
"Organizations should follow the roadmap created by Best-in-Class
organizations, which includes developing robust capabilities for visibility
into network and application performance, coupled with solutions for
optimizing and accelerating network traffic and remote management of branch
office networks. However, the roadmap does not start or end with developing
these capabilities or deploying technology tools. It is important for
organizations to continuously educate themselves about the benefits
associated with these capabilities as well as the advantages of
implementing them as a part of an enterprise-wide initiative. This ensures
that projects for branch office network optimization will receive the
attention they deserve on corporate agendas," said Bojan Simic, Research
Analyst at Aberdeen.
Seventy-nine percent of Best-in-Class organizations reported that
performance of business critical applications at the branch is on the same
level or better as compared to central network locations. Aberdeen's
research also found that Best-in-Class organizations are twice as likely to
experience cost savings from reduced enterprise infrastructure as compared
to Laggards.
The report shows that that the top challenges of branch office networking
for Industry Average and Laggard organizations can be summarized as: lack
of appropriate technology tools, lack of education, and the lack of
executive awareness about the significance of optimizing branch office
networks. The report provides insights into Best-in-Class strategies and
capabilities and recommends nine steps that end-user organizations should
take to achieve Best-in-Class performance.
This report examines how organizations are deploying technology solutions
for network visibility, WAN optimization, application acceleration and
remote management of branch office networks to improve employee
productivity, optimize networking costs, insure business continuity, and
protect corporate data.
A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part to the
following underwriters: iTrinegy, Tredent Data Systems, and Uplogix. To
obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4637.
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market
intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more
than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely
positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating
demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment
analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets,
corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in
context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of
Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement -
Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role
Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit
Aberdeen
http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more
about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to
http://www.harte-hanks.com.
© 2008 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110-3112
Telephone: (617) 723-7890
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
Contact Information: Media Contact:
Bojan Simic
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(617) 854-5281
bojan.simic@aberdeen.com