The best and most successful customers we have worked with know what they want. Simple.

They then decide the vendor(s) best suited to their needs, not the other way around.

Sometimes it is hard for customers to distinguish necessity versus nice to have, we love these types of projects and getting busy on a white-board helping customers really question what they need. IT is often an enabler and not a cost centre, we always say involve the business on your scoping, that way your non-negotiables are set and aligned to you, your strategy and your business.

Here are some examples of feature and functions our customers tell us are most important:

• Ease of use: managed vs unmanaged, how many single panes of glass to get to my target state (or as one put it “multiple panes in the ***)

• Templates: use them to your exacting needs, some project have small, medium and large sites as an example. AI and automation works wonders to deploy quickly and efficiently. Reduces human errors.

• Mobile workers: this is now a mainstay, the best technology secures, protects, and connects. It follows the user wherever they are.

• Consistency for on-prem, cloud and workforce: a single unified platform that can be centrally managed wins every time.

• Built in vs bolted on: vendors are really good at predicting the market and what a customers needs.

WAN evolution has not stopped, SD-WAN, Secure SD-WAN, SASE, SSE - now augmented with AI.

The best platforms we have worked with and for are those that have a built in framework, bolted on acquisitions is great for the share price, but can be really bad for customer usability.