Businesses of all sizes are adjusting to the major digital transitions that have reshaped IT plans and operations over the past two years, spanning the hybrid cloud to connect private and public clouds, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) for the adoption of IoT, and hybrid work to connect everyone and everything securely.
Hybrid work success is not simply the ability to support a remote workforce. It is the ability to adapt to change as it happens. It is all powered by reliable, mission-critical connectivity.
The network that powers hybrid work
The network is the essential driver of productivity in a hybrid world, helping businesses, schools, and governments work better. As more people require the flexibility to work on their terms, organizations must rapidly scale their digital operations to enable the connections needed for the work-from-anywhere approach.
For hybrid work to work, a fundamental change is required in how organizations use and rely on technology. Connecting more people and more devices across more places requires ubiquitous wireless connections, increased network strength and resiliency, and reliable zero-trust security to deliver the best experience every time, with no interruptions.
According to Cisco’s Future of Technology research, 93% of Hong Kong respondents (93%) agreed that the ability to access the applications they use with no issues is important.
The capabilities of the network empower the capabilities of the workforce. The more performance, agility and flexibility built into networks, the more performance, agility, and flexibility can be achieved by the workforce. About 90% of Hong Kong respondents said their primary way of making a living depends on reliable Internet access.
“Hybrid work doesn’t work without the network,” said Todd Nightingale, executive vice president and general manager, enterprise networking and cloud, Cisco. “The capabilities of the network empower the capabilities of the workforce. These launches, powered by Silicon One, make hybrid work possible with unprecedented power, reliability, and most importantly, the agility needed to continue to adapt and change with our teams.”
Wireless innovations
Many people are looking for new wireless networking and access innovations to meet performance needs for today’s and tomorrow’s hybrid work use cases and gain more flexibility in mission-critical and low-latency use cases delivered from the cloud. 65% of Hong Kong respondents said they would upgrade to a Wi-Fi 6E infrastructure within their home or business when it becomes available to them. Hong Kong respondents with plans to invest in Private 5G are doing so for faster speed (53%), more reliability (44%), and to support higher quality video streaming (42%).
According to Wilson Ching, general manager, Cisco Hong Kong & Macau, customers showed readiness to use Wi-Fi 6E as they look for better Wi-Fi and capacity. The challenge for them, however, is that at least in Hong Kong the Wi-Fi 6E spectrum is not available. Nonetheless, Cisco Wi-Fi 6E access points will work on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies. When the government makes 6GHz available to the market, users of can then turn to 6GHz.
