Multilocation Businesses: How to Connect Multiple Offices Intelligently

Apr 8, 2022

As technology advances to bring us closer, we find it easier to work apart. In addition to multilocation businesses that have had two or three office locations for some time, the world is seeing an onslaught of satellite offices pop up to support smaller groups of employees.

This trend is driven by our cultural embrace of remote work and technological advancements that have made connecting multiple offices easier and less costly, including:

Dramatic Increase in Remote Work: According to the Global Work-from-Home Experience Survey conducted in 2020 by Global Workforce Analytics, 97 percent of North American office workers worked from home more than one day a week during the pandemic (88 percent globally). Before COVID-19, 67 percent had not worked remotely on a regular basis (69 percent globally).
Rapid Rate of Cloud Investment: According to predictions from Gartner, global revenue on cloud services is expected to reach more than $482 billion in 2022, up from $408 billion in 2021.
Rise in Cloud Computing: Cloud computing services save businesses money by providing them access to IT technology outside of an on-premises environment, and organizations that fully use cloud computing save an average of 15 percent in IT spending according to Computer Economics.

And although the process of connecting multiple sites has become more accessible, it’s clearly something you want to get right the first time to save time, money and headaches. There are two overarching steps to help you connect multiple offices intelligently:

Find a Single-Source Data Network Provider

Sourcing, building and managing a data network across multiple locations using numerous carriers, can be challenging for many reasons, but it doesn’t have to be. The smartest – and easiest – way to intelligently connect a multisite business is through a single-source data network provider. This simplifies the process and provides a single point of contact and responsibility across all areas, including:

Multilocation Network Buildout: Carriers usually serve specific, limited geographies, which can make the process of piecing together a business network quite frustrating. Working with a single-source provider smooths out the procurement process and provides you with a cohesive, purpose-built network.
Multilocation Network Billing: A multilocation data network solution provider that consolidates your billing is vital for centralizing your connectivity cost management— and even better if your provider utilizes a flat-rate structure across all locations.
Multilocation Network Support: When a single vendor provides your data network, that vendor has visibility into all the underlying carrier networks, enabling superior and streamlined support.

Connect Multiple Branch Offices on a Single Network with SD-WAN

According to research firm Gartner, enterprise adoption of SD-WAN is one of the largest growth areas in the network services market. Why is that? SD-WAN can boost connectivity, provide network redundancy and security, and centralize your network management. Here’s what you need to know:

What is SD-WAN? SD-WAN, which stands for software-defined wide-area network, adds a layer of intelligence that provides real-time control and visibility over network and application performance. Multisite businesses can stay connected virtually through SaaS and IaaS applications instead of backhauling all traffic to a brick-and-mortar headquarters, which inherently monopolizes bandwidth and slows productivity.
Is SD-WAN expensive? One of the significant advantages of SD-WAN is cost-savings. When you deploy an SD-WAN, you save money in connectivity costs right off the bat. Additionally, the potential for leveraging low-cost “secondary” circuits for failover (or augmentation) reduces network overhead.
Is SD-WAN challenging to deploy? SD-WAN enables businesses to deploy their WANs 100 times faster than traditional WAN deployment. Additionally, SD-WANs are easily scalable and can grow or shrink as needed.

The Takeaway: More Multilocation Network Options with Less Overhead and Fewer Headaches

Gone are the days of compromise. No more choosing between right-sized solutions for each location (and accompanying maintenance, management and billing headache) and or trying for a uniform, one-size-fits-all approach plagued by availability and cost challenges. Leveraging a single-source data network provider and next-generation SD-WAN solutions improves quality of service (QoS), delivers a ubiquitous user experience across all of your locations, reduces costs, lowers administrative burdens, and frees your management and IT teams up to focus on business objectives and outcomes.