ZK Research Helps Mitigate IT and Business Decision Fatigue

The more decisions you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain.

According to The Week*, as a person makes decisions throughout the day, the brain depletes its limited amount of mental stamina, and starts employing one of two shortcuts: Make a rash decision or avoid the act of deciding altogether. Either of these shortcuts will have a negative impact on decisions related to your network, and in turn, your organization.

Whether you are a Network Administrator, Network Manager, or CIO, you are constantly making key business decisions that affect your entire organization. The health of your network, security breaches, and employee connectivity all rest on your shoulders (no pressure) so it’s natural that you may experience decision fatigue. Given the variety of products, solutions and vendors, it can be a difficult to keep up. How do you know for sure that your network- related decisions are in line with business goals?

In a recent whitepaper, analyst Zeus Kerravala identifies a shortlist of criteria to consider when selecting a new technology vendor when it’s time for an upgrade. After conducting several in-depth evaluations of network providers and interviews with IT professionals across industries, ZK Research concludes that your next refresh should take the following into consideration before committing to a technology partner:

Look for an intent-based networking solution.
An intelligent, adaptable network takes business intent and automatically transforms it into network configurations for hundreds of devices, reducing manual operation to the minimum while giving time back to IT.

Evaluate network security solutions.
The cyberthreat landscape has evolved, with more devices, users, and data surging the network at an unprecedented rate. Firewalls no longer provide sufficient defense; it’s time to seek a solution with end-to-end protection from the edge to the cloud, and the ability to detect threats even in encrypted traffic.

Simplify and automate your network.
Get network solutions that can help you make decisions faster. Mitigate more security threats. Provide business agility and scale by automating one policy across the entire access network to simplify management, streamline user experience, and troubleshoot faster.

Mitigate decision fatigue by following ZK Research’s tips for evaluating vendors for your next network refresh.

And feel confident with your strategic decisions when you bring in Cisco Services to understand where you want to take your business and build a roadmap with predictive steps to get you there.

Want the full checklist?

Download the whitepaper for a deep dive into the findings

*Source: What is ‘decision fatigue’… and do you have it? http://theweek.com/articles/482394/what-decision-fatigue-have