Network Resilience: Choosing the Right Solution to Protect Your Reputation

Brand reputation is everything and in today’s highly interconnected world, it’s more delicate than many realize. Like an avalanche started by a single stone, a network outage and the ensuing downtime can have far-reaching ripple effects, damaging the network provider’s reputation and preventing those marketers who depend on that network from generating revenue and interfacing with clients.

Consider that in 2022, more than 80% of businesses worldwide relied on Google Ads for PPC campaigns, or that currently, three million businesses actively advertise on Facebook. Amazon Business, its B2B e-commerce channel, has over 1 million customer accounts, not to mention 300 million active customer accounts. Moreover, CRM platforms HubSpot and Salesforce have 167,000 and 150,000 customers, respectively. These tools and platforms are essential to marketing campaigns and routine customer interactions — any length of time without access to them could be disastrous.

In light of recent research indicating that the frequency of network failures, including the costs, duration, and severity of downtime, continues to worsen across organizations, it is paramount that enterprises prioritize network resilience to protect their brand reputation and the revenue streams of those marketers that rely on their services.

Unpacking the Consequences of Outages for Marketers

Network outages affect companies and marketers differently depending on the type of business model in question. In a B2B setting, downtime could mean that marketers don’t have access to everyday online tools, inhibiting their ability to promote services and engage with clients. Depending on the extent and severity of an outage, marketers could be unable to send email campaigns, answer client account questions, access tracking and reporting tools, or facilitate demos or web conferences.

While marketers will undoubtedly experience an impact on their operations during an outage, the network provider is at risk of taking a significant hit to their reliability. Trust is central to brand reputation—no marketer will trust an organization whose network services regularly experience outages and downtime.

The reality is that marketers expect online tools (and the networks that support them) to be consistent; it is a non-negotiable. When someone opens their Gmail, CRM, Facebook ads manager, etc., they aren’t crossing their fingers, hoping it will work. They expect it to function as usual. However, should a marketer’s network provider routinely suffer network outages and congestion, they will likely terminate their contract and search for an equivalent brand with a more reliable network.

From a B2C perspective, network downtime can also cause reputational damage, but, more often, the primary issue is lost revenue. For example, an outage could prevent customers from surfing or purchasing on a business’ e-commerce site. Or, in the case of streaming services like Netflix, network downtime or sluggishness could compromise the quality of the user’s viewing experience. All of these issues can lead to customer dissatisfaction and turnover, which, inevitably, means less revenue in the long run.

Network Resilience and Out of Band Management

Whether in a B2C or B2B setting, marketers must maintain services and communication during network outages. Even if the most a company can do is send an email, simply informing customers that they have identified the issue and are working to remediate it is preferable to radio silence.

One method businesses can leverage to strengthen network resilience is Out of Band management. Out of Band gives enterprises resilience, empowering their marketing teams to continue using online tools effectively, like email, self-help, ROI tracking, etc. And, for those companies that sell network utilization, i.e., Netflix, Out of Band management allows their customers to use online services despite the network outage, ensuring their brand reputation remains unsullied.

With Out of Band management, a company’s network engineers can separate and containerize the functions of the management plane from the data and control plane, enabling them to access critical applications on the primary network and remediate issues even during an outage. Likewise, Out of Band management permits network engineers to connect and manage remote equipment, saving resources and avoiding the time-consuming process of sending technicians on-site to remediate an issue.

Finding the Right Vendor/Solution To Establish True Network Resilience

Before organizations compare vendors and evaluate various network resiliency options, like Out of Band management, they must recognize the difference between true network resiliency and redundancy. Unfortunately, because it is typically cheaper to purchase redundancy at the core of a data center, many businesses opt for this option over the more expensive and involved process of establishing a resilient network.

True network resiliency is not redundancy but the ability to provide and maintain a suitable level of service in the face of challenges and quickly bring the network back to normal capacity, even if the cause has yet to get fully ameliorated. This level of resiliency cannot get attained by merely protecting one piece of equipment. When searching for network solutions, companies should prioritize those that can plug into all equipment at an edge site or data center.

Similarly, the network vendor or solution you select will depend on the use case or industry in question. Retail, for example, is routinely a top spender on advertising and is likewise dependent on e-commerce platforms to market products to customers. However, as retailers continue to host more of their applications and assets at the edge, the chances of network outages increase, endangering brand reputation and revenue. Therefore, retailers should narrow their vendor search to those with experience building network resiliency at the edge.

Keeping Marketing Initiatives Alive During Network Challenges

Although companies must minimize the likelihood of network outages, no technology can prevent them from happening outright. Rather than attempting to stop outages completely, businesses can enhance their network resilience so that marketing initiatives can continue with reduced disruptions. Ultimately, those marketers who can achieve such resiliency will likely win in today’s highly competitive and rapidly globalizing world.