OREANDA-NEWS. November 12, 2015. EMEA businesses are aggressively making the shift towards interconnection, according to a recent Enterprise of the Future survey by Equinix of 1,000 global IT decision-makers. In the EMEA countries surveyed ̶ U.K., France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland and Dubai, 36% of businesses reported that they have or are currently deploying interconnection, with that number predicted to more than double to 79% by 2017.

Interconnection is the ability to connect employees, partners and customers to what they need, in the right context, using the devices, channels and services they prefer. Interconnection integrates partners, customers and employees across geographies through direct physical and virtual connections, to accelerate business performance and create new opportunities.

The report showed that 70% of the EMEA companies are “extremely or very familiar” with interconnection, which is defined as direct, secure, physical or virtual connections that integrate partners, customers and employees across geographies to accelerate business performance and create new opportunities. Rapidly growing Dubai has the most interconnected enterprises among the EMEA countries, with nearly 60% of companies having deployed or currently deploying interconnection. The U.K., with its more mature economy, is the second-most interconnected country, with nearly 40% interconnected enterprises. The remaining EMEA countries reported approximately a third of their companies are interconnected.

The survey indicates a clear majority of EMEA businesses see revenue growth as their top priority, and 94% of EMEA companies consider interconnection “important to their company’s ability to compete.” The survey also showed significant economic impact on those companies that have deployed interconnection, with nearly a third of EMEA enterprises reporting more than \\$10 million in value generated through interconnection. Out of those EMEA businesses profiting from interconnection, 60% have realized increased revenue opportunities and 40% are experiencing cost savings.

EMEA companies also reported the following tangible benefits of increased interconnection:

  • Increases application performance (73%)
  • Reduces risks, improves security and minimizes exposure (72%)
  • Delivers a more positive user experience (69%)
  • Reduces workloads’ unit cost (65%)

In addition, EMEA companies identified the top three barriers that could potentially impact their ability to achieve their IT agendas:

  • Systems uptime (66%)
  • Cloud or mobile product maturity/availability (56%)
  • Cloud or mobile access vulnerabilities (55%)

All of these concerns can be addressed via a solid, well-planned interconnection strategy that enables greater availability, access to multiple cloud providers, and direct and secure connections to cloud services. In fact, more than 83% of companies in EMEA are planning to deploy multi-cloud strategies over multiple locations within the next five years. Business continuity and collaboration were cited as the two top strategic goals driving cloud interconnection.

Globally, 64% companies in our Enterprise of the Future survey reported “cyber-security” as the top industry/technology trend that may prompt them to consider re-architecting their IT infrastructures over the next 12 months. EMEA businesses share these security concerns and in fact, Switzerland (74%) and Dubai (90%) actually exceeded the global results when it came to viewing cyber-security as the major issue companies are facing today. Once again, interconnection offers a compelling solution.

Direct interconnection bypasses the Internet and provides secure connectivity out to the edge of the corporate network. Local and proximate interconnection where the majority of users, applications and data reside, can ensure companies are following data residency and compliance regulations.

To learn more about how global enterprises are using interconnection to address these and other issues, download the complete Enterprise of the Future Report.