Why Enterprise Networks Struggle Today; How Redesign & Cisco Close the Gaps

1) Modern network complexity is outpacing operational models

Today’s environments span data centers, multiple public clouds, branch sites, home offices, and thousands of SaaS apps. That breadth creates inconsistent user experiences and operational strain because traditional change, troubleshooting, and governance models were not designed for this level of dynamism.

• Multicloud routing and policy inconsistency: When policies are defined differently across on‑prem and cloud networks, traffic can take unpredictable paths and violate intended controls, leading to uneven performance and security coverage.
• Identity sprawl across services: Multiple identity providers and legacy directories make it harder to enforce least privilege and track who has access to what, increasing risk and administrative overhead.
• East‑west traffic growth with limited segmentation: As applications decompose into services, lateral movement increases. Without consistent segmentation, a single compromise can spread faster and further.
• Remote work variability: Home networks and variable ISPs introduce jitter and packet loss, complicating performance assurance and making root cause analysis more time‑consuming.
• Shadow IT from unsanctioned SaaS: Teams adopt tools to move quickly, but unsanctioned apps bypass standard controls, creating blind spots for data, identity, and network traffic.

The bottom line: complexity slows troubleshooting, makes changes riskier, and increases the likelihood of outages. Redesign helps standardize architectures and operational practices by leveraging Cisco’s validated designs, automation, and observability to align policies across data center, cloud, and edge so the network behaves predictably at scale.

2) Threats and compliance demands keep rising

Attackers exploit complexity. At the same time, regulatory frameworks continue to expand—especially in healthcare, retail, education, and state and local government—requiring tighter controls and continuous evidence of compliance.

• Ransomware, phishing, and supply‑chain attacks: Misconfigurations or inconsistent controls can dramatically increase blast radius, turning small errors into major incidents.
• Zero Trust ambitions that stall: Without unified identity, segmentation, and high‑fidelity telemetry, organizations struggle to move from intent to enforcement.
• Audit readiness gaps: Incomplete logging, asset inventories, and policy enforcement make it harder to prove control efficacy and respond to findings.
• Inconsistent security across sites and clouds: When controls aren’t uniformly deployed, adversaries find and exploit the seams between environments.

Security teams feel the squeeze: more risk to manage with the same or fewer resources. Redesign takes a practical, outcome-driven approach that harmonizes identity and policy, strengthens segmentation, and improves evidence collection, all built on Cisco’s security and networking platforms. Together, these capabilities help you advance Zero Trust and meet audits with confidence

3) Tool sprawl drives cost and operational drag

Years of point solutions add overlapping licenses, divergent data, and complex runbooks. The result is slower incident response and higher total cost of ownership without better outcomes.

• Multiple monitoring consoles with conflicting data: Teams lose time reconciling dashboards instead of resolving issues, delaying restoration and increasing MTTR.
• Underused features you already own: Capabilities that could simplify operations or improve security often sit idle because enablement and adoption lag procurement.
• Complex, brittle runbooks: Manual handoffs across tools create errors and slow down investigations and change windows.
• Higher TCO from fragmentation: Redundant platforms and contracts inflate spend and complicate renewals, while skills must stretch across too many vendors.

Consolidation with a Cisco‑powered architecture, guided by Redesign, streamlines operations and spend. We map use cases to platform capabilities, retire redundant tools, and implement automation so your teams get time back and your investments deliver measurable returns.

The downstream impact

These dynamics do not stay contained within IT. They ripple across the organization, affecting experience, risk, and speed.

• Performance: Unpredictable application experiences frustrate employees and customers, increasing support tickets and dragging productivity.
• Security: Inconsistent policies leave exploitable seams between environments, raising the likelihood and impact of incidents.
• Agility: Elevated change risk slows innovation and transformation, delaying projects that drive competitive advantage.

Addressing these issues holistically improves reliability and resiliency while creating a stronger foundation for modernization initiatives across the business.

Where to start: a Redesign Network & Security Assessment

Redesign begins every engagement with a consultative assessment to surface risks, quantify opportunities, and prioritize investments. It’s the fastest way to clarify your current state and establish a practical path forward, aligned to business outcomes and compliance obligations.

What the assessment uncovers

• Architecture clarity: We map your current state across data center, WAN/edge, remote access, and cloud to show dependencies, control points, and failure domains.
• Security posture: We evaluate identity and access, segmentation, encryption, and control coverage to highlight gaps and high‑value remediation steps.
• Observability gaps: We assess traffic visibility, telemetry consistency, and alert quality so you can detect, triage, and fix issues faster.
• Performance hot spots: We identify latency, congestion, and policy conflicts affecting critical apps and recommend targeted improvements.
• Tool consolidation opportunities: We pinpoint where Cisco‑powered architectures can replace overlapping point tools to cut cost and complexity.

By the end, you will understand what is working, what is not, and which changes will deliver the greatest impact with the least disruption.

Why Redesign + Cisco

Redesign is a global IT solutions provider delivering value with velocity across networking, security, data center, and managed services. Founded by former Dell EMC leaders and enterprise IT executives, we bring together deep Cisco expertise and the personalized care of a boutique partner. Our team now supports more than 1,300 customers across diverse industries.

• Cisco specialization: We apply validated architectures for secure, high‑performance connectivity across campus, branch, cloud, and data center.
• Lifecycle delivery: We assess, design, implement, and manage every solution in‑house to ensure accountability and consistency end‑to‑end.
• Measurable outcomes: We focus on simpler operations, stronger security, and scalable growth—backed by clear success criteria and operational handoffs.

With the agility of a boutique and the scale of a national integrator, Redesign sets a new standard for technology partnerships: agile, trusted, and relentlessly focused on outcomes.

Signs your network needs a redesign now

If one or more of these symptoms sound familiar, your network may be working against your goals rather than enabling them.

• MTTR is creeping up despite more tools: More dashboards are not translating into faster fixes, signaling data quality or process issues.
• Inconsistent app performance across locations: Users experience variability that points to policy misalignment, congested paths, or visibility gaps.
• Repeat audit findings: Year‑over‑year gaps indicate control inconsistency and missing evidence rather than isolated oversights.
• Remote access and SaaS performance swings: Day‑to‑day variability suggests optimization and telemetry deficiencies.
• Redundant platforms under separate contracts: Overlap drives cost and complexity that a consolidated architecture can eliminate.

Addressing these signals early prevents operational debt from compounding and restores confidence in the network as a strategic asset.

Make complexity work for you

The gap between what your network must deliver and what your team can operate won’t close on its own. A focused assessment provides the clarity and momentum to modernize with confidence—reducing risk while improving experience for every user, everywhere.

Next step

Download the "Give Your Network a Redesign" guidebook to see how to overcome today’s IT challenges. To discuss an assessment, contact The Redesign Group at redesign-group.com.