Why network complexity is holding back resilience investment

The resilience problem is no longer lack of awareness

Network resilience already has executive attention. In a Zen Internet survey of 500 senior UK technology decision-makers, 94% said resilience was important to organisational success. More than half, 51%, considered it business-critical because outages would significantly affect revenue, operations or customers.

The research focused on mid-market and larger organisations with revenue of about £10 million or more and at least 50 employees. Respondents were director-level and above, with influence over technology investment and operating-model decisions.

Recognition does not automatically lead to modernisation. The survey identifies barriers to longer-term technology decisions and investment.

Complexity is turning infrastructure into an execution constraint

Technology complexity is a widespread barrier. In a recent survey, 78% said it was holding back transformation, with multiple vendors, platforms and contracts cited as major obstacles.

Supplier fragmentation has two reported levels of impact:

Jon Nowell, managing director of Zen Business, says organisations spend valuable time managing multiple suppliers, disconnected systems and separate security solutions. Zen Internet sells managed networking services and benefits commercially when organisations choose services designed to reduce that complexity. Separately, respondents themselves identify technology complexity and multiple suppliers as barriers to change.

The second constraint sits outside the technology estate

Another barrier is support beyond IT. In the survey, 49% of respondents identified a lack of support from leaders outside IT as their biggest obstacle to making longer-term technology decisions.

This matters because the same respondents attach commercial importance to resilience. Their answers connect outages that can significantly affect revenue, operations or customers with an executive constraint that can obstruct longer-term technology decisions.

Investment intentions require careful interpretation

In the same survey, 36% expect network modernisation and connectivity to rank among their biggest technology investments over the next three years.

This measures investment ranking. Resilience importance measures a different question, so comparing the two does not directly quantify an investment gap.

For CIOs and CTOs, the findings instead define the conditions around a network investment decision: high importance for resilience, technology complexity, supplier-related barriers and difficulty gaining support from leaders outside IT.

Simplification is one architectural response

Zen links these pressures to software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), which centrally manages connectivity across locations, and secure access service edge (SASE), which combines networking and security functions through a broader service model.

Nowell argues that combining SD-WAN with SASE can simplify connectivity, strengthen protection, improve resilience and support digital transformation. He also says a fully managed Zen SD-WAN service with integrated security and a path to SASE can reduce operating complexity. Zen sells managed SD-WAN/SASE services and benefits commercially if customers adopt that approach.

Executives evaluating simplification can test a proposed change against the barriers respondents identified: multiple suppliers, platforms and contracts; delays or blocked change associated with multiple suppliers; and support from leaders outside IT.

Key highlights

• Resilience already has executive attention: 94% of surveyed UK technology leaders consider network resilience important, and 51% call it business-critical because outages can affect revenue, operations or customers.
• Complexity is slowing execution: 78% say technology complexity holds back transformation, while multiple vendors, platforms and contracts can delay or block change. Leaders should assess whether supplier fragmentation is adding avoidable operational friction.
• Support beyond IT is a constraint: 49% identify limited support from leaders outside IT as their biggest barrier to longer-term technology decisions. CIOs and CTOs should connect resilience plans clearly to revenue, operational and customer impact.
• Investment intentions tell only part of the story: 36% expect network modernisation and connectivity to rank among their largest technology investments over three years. Leaders should evaluate this alongside complexity and executive support rather than treating it as a direct measure of resilience investment.
• Simplification offers one architectural response: SD-WAN and SASE can consolidate aspects of connectivity, security and management, although Zen has a commercial interest in this approach. Executives should test any proposed architecture against measurable reductions in supplier complexity and barriers to change.