82pc businesses in India see security as the biggest risk factor in Digital Cohesion

SPAIN: A study into business and consumer attitudes towards the readiness for an era of Digital Cohesion as an inevitable, positive societal development-an era in which multiple applications self-assemble to deliver new, predictive services that continuously adapt to users' behavior, enabling better decision-making and enriching personal and business lives.

Revealing the results of the 16-country survey at Mobile World Congress, Rami Rahim, chief executive officer, Juniper Networks said, “Advances in networking are driving the push towards Digital Cohesion. At Juniper Networks, we envision self-driving networks that will help enable adaptive ‘mega services’ – transforming enterprise and consumer experiences and connecting them to people, services and information.”

And with mobile devices serving as data collection points to drive mega-services, telecommunication service providers will need to re-examine the way they architect their networks in order to support this era.

Consumers anticipate it will bring certain advantages to their lives, business respondents say Digital Cohesion will deliver advantages including increased productivity, improved budget efficiency, new workforce management models and business service innovation.

The survey also highlights that consumer and business respondents have concerns about security and compliance around mega-services and a thoughtful, proactive approach to security provisioning within these mega-services is paramount.

Here are some key highlights:

Living Smarter & Greener

Sixty percent (Seventy three percent India) of consumer respondents expect their surroundings to become ‘smarter’ over the next five years, as services and apps become more integrated and automated.

Fifty-eight percent (Seventy one percent India) cite ‘time saving’ as a key benefit of smarter services in their daily lives; 43 percent (55 percent India) believe smart services will deliver more useful information leading to better decision making; 27 percent (34 percent India) believe it will reduce the cost of living.

In a world where Digital Cohesion leads to mega-services, 61 percent (58 percent India) of consumers surveyed expect to see improved energy consumption as a result of these services, while 51 percent (52 percent India) expect to see better support/response from emergency services.

Seventy-five percent (Seventy seven percent India) of consumer respondents say they rely on mobile connections to live safer, smarter and more efficient lives.

Trust Matters

Fifty-three percent (Sixty three percent India) of consumer respondents specify security as the most important factor when selecting a new smart device.

Seventy-seven percent (Eighty two percent India) of consumer respondents specify trust as “important” for an integrated, connected service-related device. Seventy-six percent (Ninety percent India) also say brand is an important factor when choosing a ‘smart’ service provider.

By comparison, only 20 percent (43 percent India) of consumer respondents consider design as a very important factor in smart services.

Driving Business Advantage

Ninety percent (Fifty percent India) of business respondents expect business services innovation to result from Digital Cohesion; 91 percent (92 percent India) also expect it to enable flexible new workforce management capabilities.

When considering the biggest commercial benefits resulting from Digital Cohesion, 60 percent (79% percent India) of business respondents cite increased automation and control capabilities and 58 percent (68% percent India) cite increased productivity.

Fifty-one percent (Seventy one percent India) of business respondents also expect Digital Cohesion to deliver improved customer experience within their organizations.

Trust is Critical

Sixty-six percent (Eighty two percent India) of business respondents see security/compliance as the biggest risk factor in Digital Cohesion, yet only 25 percent (51% percent India) say they are “completely ready” to trust the security in the underlying networks and devices.

When thinking about dealing with the consequences of more smart devices being introduced into an organization’s network infrastructure, 85 percent (91 percent India) of business respondents expect to manage the influx pragmatically rather than restricting devices as a way to counteract security concerns.