Feature Article

1. Don’t panic. Now is not the time to overreact. It’s also not the time to freeze up. Your business must move forward, and your network must move forward in support of it. That said, you can be more prudent and strategic as you...
   
   
2. Take advantage of the opportunity. The most successful businesspeople and enterprises always turn a setback into an opportunity. As many organisations will struggle in this tenuous environment – some will fall altogether – the time is ripe to boost your company’s competitive positioning and profitability. Your network can be a significant enabler for these efforts – delivering new services, capabilities and efficiencies that create competitive advantages and boost revenue.
   
   Make sure you implement solutions that positively impact business agility and scalability (ProCurve’s standards-based solutions and modular offerings, for example). Doing so will ensure your organisation can take advantage of market opportunities and scale in accordance with demand.
   
   
3. Focus on network security. Business continuity is essential in uncertain economic times. The margin for error is increasingly narrow, and network downtime can have a devastating impact on your organisation. Make sure your business maintains pace and your enterprise assets are protected by bolstering network security. A good place to start is ProCurve’s Network Security Centre
   
   Daniel Albisser, Head of IT and Organisation at Swiss financial services firm Privatbank IHAG Zürich AG, recently said: “The HP ProCurve Adaptive Network solution addresses our security concerns perfectly. It caters for current and future business growth, mitigates risk to the business and reduces costs. We no longer need to pay annual maintenance fees and the ProCurve Lifetime Warranty♦ ensures Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) will be reduced.”
   
   
4. Seek employee productivity gains. With shrunken budgets and, in many cases, fewer employees, business efficiency is crucial. Use your network to empower your workforce. By automating certain tasks and delivering IT tools that boost efficiency and productivity, your company can effectively do more with less.
   
   According to industry analyst Nick Lippis in the November 4, 2008 Lippis Report: “As corporations reduce staff, remaining employees are required to increase their workload. For those business and IT leaders who view IT, networking and communications in particular as strategic, they will leverage IT to ensure that employees can increase productivity. Business leaders can choose to guide their firms into a period of huge productivity growth on the order of 5 to 10 percent during this downturn as RIF [Reduction in Force] is complemented with business processes automated through IT.”
   
   
5. Leverage your network for new business services. The biggest way your network can help grow business during the economic downturn is by delivering new capabilities and services. Networks are no longer merely utilitarian conduits. They have become business drivers and enablers. If you can tap your network to further engage your existing customers or attract new clientele, your company has a better chance of sailing smoothly through the economic storm.
   
   
6. Get more than one infrastructure bid. The days of indiscriminate spending are over. That’s why it’s important to look at several vendors whenever you seek new networking solutions. As Network World reports, industry analyst Mark Fabbi of Gartner advocates a balanced approach to relationships with vendors. Fabbi “concludes that enterprises would be best served by competitively bidding projects instead of adopting the ‘trusted advisor’ approach with a single vendor.”
   
   You also may want to reevaluate the ongoing costs of your existing infrastructure systems. While change is often associated with spending, keeping your current systems might be more costly than making a switch. This is especially true if your networking vendor has you locked into proprietary technologies and expensive service contracts, or if your vendor is not poised to survive this economic downturn. More on these points below.
   
   
7. Beware of hidden costs. Look carefully at total cost of ownership (TCO) when purchasing and maintaining networking solutions. Support, upgrade and replacement expenses can be debilitating for companies who think their budget is safe after their networking gear is installed.
   
   According to Urs Frehner of Würth ITensis AG, a Swiss IT services firm: “About two years ago we became seriously concerned about the price/performance ratio of our Cisco switches because of increasing maintenance and service costs. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) was escalating significantly due to large annual maintenance fees. This not only affected the costs associated with running our LAN, it had profound implications for the Group when we provided it with IT service solutions.”
   
   HP ProCurve customers are well aware of our value proposition as it relates to ongoing costs – including the HP ProCurve Lifetime Warranty for most products, with free software upgrades and free phone support. Simply put, we don’t believe in hidden costs.
   
   
8. Lead efforts to make your IT efficient and effective. Nothing can tether – or unleash – your business more than your network. It is a key enabler of technologies for virtualization, automation, consolidation, energy and space efficiencies, unified communications and much more. In addition, a robust Wireless LAN based on 802.11n standards can extend your network’s reach and impact while reducing costs.
   
   Sometimes the problem isn’t the equipment. This is also a great time to break down traditional walls between IT teams. If your organisation is moving to standardized processes such as ITIL or BCP, become fluent in those processes and how the network can make them more effective.
   
   
9. Seek safe, long-term partners. Not every networking vendor will make it through this economic downturn, and you don’t want to be left with unsupported networking gear. As an integral part of HP and as a leader in the networking industry, you can rest assured that HP ProCurve will be here to support you in both the immediate and long-term future.
   
   
10. Don’t give your vendor complete control. Taking advantage of new opportunities requires business agility and networking flexibility. Proprietary platforms that don’t interoperate with industry standard solutions limit your options and give too much control to the networking vendor.
    
    Julien Ardisson, CIO and CTO of Strato Rechenzentrum AG, a German Web hosting company, said: “ProCurve’s open standards-based architecture and modular design enabled us to integrate our existing third party vendor equipment easily. Not only did this enable us to save on cost by using some of our existing equipment, but it also gives us flexibility to remain at the forefront of technology.”
    
    

In difficult economic times, HP ProCurve’s core tenets of reliability, open standards, ease-of-use and lifetime warranty give customers maximum value and choice at a low total cost of ownership. Hans de Harde, ICT Architect at PGGM Netherlands, summed it up nicely when he said: “Thanks to ProCurve we have been able to balance incomes and expenditures and cut back total cost of operation by 30 percent. Our network bandwidth has also increased tenfold, which gives our users access to a much more powerful network. Due to the redundant implementation, the ProCurve network is considerably more stable than our previous Cisco environment.”

The goal of any economic downturn is to first survive, then to thrive. To do that, you must look for new ways to grow your business, lower costs and mitigate risks. By leveraging your network, you can be a calming beacon as your organisation navigates rough waters.