Poor connectivity issues plaguing Wide Area Networks (WAN) among businesses in the UK could result in a significant drop in productivity, a new report is suggesting.
A survey from Iomart.com uncovered that businesses with 10 – 49 office locations have more network problems than others. Most of the time it’s mid-level employees who are struggling, including security engineers. With just 3.1 per cent of CEOs reporting connectivity issues, they’re least frustrated of all.
Among those who are facing connectivity issues, they’re mostly frustrated with slow application response time, hindered business performance, increased costs and poor adaptability. More than half of the respondents also reported problems connecting with other offices.
Frustrations with WAN
The report concludes that with frustrations with WAN rising, employees could turn to unsecured networks as a solution – especially those employees working from home. This is extremely risky for businesses, as it opens them up to a wide array of threats.
Yet, almost half of businesses (45 per cent) aren’t looking to introduce secured internet connectivity to their business network, further increasing the risk, says Bill Strain, director at iomart.
“Although businesses may be reluctant to invest in network security due to cost concerns, the security implications of an unstable network could prove catastrophic in the event of a breach,” he said.
“Remote workers are more vulnerable to breaches such as ransomware, viruses or hacking, as critical office security measures are less likely to be in place. Investing in secure connectivity will help minimise the potential threats from bad actors and improve long-term business productivity and performance.”
Iomart’s full report can be found on this link.
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