Advanced Network Services: Building a Flexible Foundation with Rapid Network Reconfiguration and Seamless Workload Mobility

Enterprises are facing various hurdles in managing advanced network environments, including security risks, talent shortage, legacy integration challenges, high capital and operational costs, and limited network visibility. They also seek end-to-end offerings from a single provider to manage the network life cycle, establish clearly defined SLAs and measurable KPIs such as uptime and latency for performance accountability, ensure seamless transitions with minimal business disruptions, and prioritize AI/ML-driven automation for efficiency. On the other hand, service providers are integrating generative AI (Gen AI) and agentic AI across their advanced network services portfolio to primarily improve monitoring and support services.

Both demand-side and supply-side trends are covered in our Advanced Network Services 2025 Market Insights™ and Advanced Network Services 2025 RadarView™, respectively. These reports present a comprehensive study of advanced network service providers and closely examine market leaders, innovators, disruptors, and challengers.

Avasant evaluated 40 providers across three dimensions: practice maturity, partner ecosystem, and investments and innovation. Of those 40 providers, we recognized 21 who brought the most value to the market over the past 12 months.

The RadarView recognizes service providers in four categories:

• • Leaders: Accenture, Cognizant, HCLTech, Orange Business, TCS, and Wipro
  • Innovators: Capgemini, Tata Communications, Tech Mahindra, Telefónica, and Verizon
  • Disruptors: AT&T, DXC Technology, Kyndryl, NTT DATA, and UST
  • Challengers: BT, Infosys, Microland, Telstra, and Vodafone

Figure 1 from the full report illustrates these categories:

“Network investments are no longer evaluated purely on traditional infrastructure specifications,” said Mark Gaffney, senior director at Avasant. “As UX becomes a competitive differentiator, CIOs are shifting focus to more comprehensive ecosystem models, driving zero trust, observability, and AI-based management across diverse advanced networks.”

The reports provide a number of findings, including the following:

• • Security risks, talent shortage, legacy integration challenges, high capital and operational costs, and limited network visibility pose significant hurdles for advanced network management. These challenges arise from distributed architectures, which expand attack surfaces, and a lack of skilled professionals in SDN and 5G technologies.
  • The telecom, media and entertainment, and manufacturing sectors are driving the surge in demand for advanced network services, driven by the need for low-latency connectivity, industrial IoT integration, and smart factory implementation. Enterprises across these sectors seek resilient connectivity that supports their mission-critical workloads.
  • Project-based pricing remains the preferred model in over 35% of advanced network engagements. Enterprises seek predictable and transparent cost structures in complex network transformations, prompting a shift toward fixed-price engagements that minimize financial risk.
  • Service providers leverage Gen AI to deliver proactive monitoring and support services for advanced network engagements. They offer Gen AI-powered vulnerability management, self-healing, policy-driven incident remediation, capacity planning, and assisted troubleshooting capabilities.

“Advanced networks enable rapid network reconfiguration, low-latency connectivity, and seamless workload mobility,” said Dhanusha Ramakrishnan, lead analyst at Avasant. “They provide a flexible foundation that accelerates time to market and improves overall ROI, elements which are crucial for organizations competing in fast-evolving markets.”

The Advanced Network Services 2025 RadarView™ also features detailed profiles of 21 service providers, along with their solutions, offerings, and experience in assisting enterprises in their advanced network transformation journeys.

This Research Byte is a brief overview of Avasant’s Advanced Network Services 2025 Market Insights™ and Advanced Network Services 2025 RadarView™ (click for pricing).