Why a Distributed Workforce Needs Distributed Security

For anyone in the tech industry, when we hear “transformation” our mind automatically places “digital” before it. However, in recent years, the traditional workplace has also been undergoing a significant transformation of its own. Technology has enabled our transition to remote and mobile work, but in doing so has introduced a new set of challenges in how we securely connect our employees to the applications they require.

Decentralizing security to keep up with hybrid work’s evolution

The peak pandemic years that pushed this movement to its hilt are behind us, yet the remote work era is hardly over. Despite return-to-office mandates from the federal level to prominent diversified multinational brands like Amazon, employees continue to be highly distributed. According to a recent survey from Pew Research Center, 75% of adults employed in a job that allows remote work take advantage of that and work remotely at least some of the time.

Hybrid work is growing in other ways, too. Business travel is increasing, with current numbers surpassing pre-pandemic highs. More executives are on the go; TravelPerk reports that 34% of C-suite leaders think making the extra effort to travel for in-person meetings accounted for a third of their respective company’s sales growth in 2023, while Globetrender notes that more than 80% of Gen Z workers view business travel as a key to enhancing opportunities for promotion and attractiveness to prospective employers.

This means more employees at every level are likely to be working from airports, hotels, and homes. While workers have become increasingly distributed, so have the applications they need to access. Public cloud platforms like AWS and Azure, and SaaS apps like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and Workday are commonplace elements of the enterprise ecosystem. Wherever they are, these employees still need reliable and secure access to enterprise services and applications to perform their jobs. For salespeople and execs, these demands can be even more critical.

These trends have led us to evaluate how we build and secure our enterprise networks. Traditional architectures, which assumed employees were in the office and applications were in the data center, are no longer fit for purpose. Secure network connectivity must be wherever the employee is, and it must perform regardless of where the application is hosted.

Going the extra mile: consistent exceptional experiences

Many organizations that have recognized this gap are now considering secure access service edge (SASE) as a means for addressing their concerns. SASE converges wide-area networking (WAN) secure connectivity and cloud-delivered security services so that workers can securely access services and applications from any location—and enjoy optimal performance.

But how do we make sure the workforce enjoys a reliable experience regardless of where they’re connecting from and which applications they’re accessing? If your network and security architecture is now distributed, how do you ensure you can still manage the user experience when you don’t necessarily manage the infrastructure? Digital experience is the heart of a successful SASE deployment, which is why visibility and resiliency must be key considerations in your SASE strategy.

Cisco is at the forefront of SASE because we address these considerations with a comprehensive portfolio. Driving resiliency and providing end-to-end visibility, Cisco ThousandEyes enables enterprises to see from the user to the secure edge to every application—including unowned networks. Delivering hop-by-hop visibility linked to application experience, Cisco ThousandEyes means IT can treat every network like it’s their own, and most importantly, resolve incidents quickly. Cisco ThousandEyes helps ensure that the SASE architectures that fortify the organization’s security posture continue to provide workers everywhere with exceptional application experiences.

Combining these capabilities with the power of Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco Secure Access, Cisco SASE fabric creates a single experience that securely connects users, things, and applications—anywhere.

Every business out there experiencing workplace transformation knows that it’s a journey to provide flexibility—leverage technology to make interactions more accessible, increase productivity, and improve focus and job satisfaction while maintaining network security. For some, this means striving to make the office a magnet, not a mandate. For many others, it’s simply trying to keep up with all the different modes in which your teams work. Wherever the journey takes your organization, remember that it’s your ability to deliver a seamless, secure, trusted experience users can rely on that will foster collaboration, attract talent, and empower you to embrace change.

To learn more about securely connecting your distributed

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