In today’s challenging climate, we have gained a new appreciation for how the world’s supply chains typically operate. With the advent of COVID-19, everything from the production of household goods to medical supplies has been severely disrupted.
However, there is an existing digital collaboration infrastructure that is working in new ways around the world to help address these challenges. For example, to help address shortages in much needed personal and medical products, global manufacturers outside of med-tech are collaborating with the medical community to retool their production lines to join the fight against COVID-19. We are seeing everything from auto suppliers producing hygienic masks and potentially building ventilators to Kentucky distillers and Paris perfumers turning their alcohol-based products into hand sanitizers.[i] The world’s manufacturers are finding new ways to collaborate and rebuild the global supply chain to quickly deliver these life-saving staples.
These are fresh examples of the problem-solving power of ecosystems, which we see service providers and enterprises putting into action every day as they use software-defined networking (SDN) peering backbones and interactive digital and business ecosystems to create new value. Check out the articles below, which explore the digital collaboration strategies that are enabling our global customers to more quickly ideate and innovate. These business best practices have taken on a new urgency and relevancy as we contemplate how to transform our vital supply chains to serve a world that’s changing fast.
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How Direct Peering is Transforming Collaboration
Service providers around the world are leveraging direct, network peering platforms to exchange data traffic in collaborative digital ecosystems and extend their services across partner networks. Underlying technologies, such as SDN and cloud computing, and an evolving digital edge methodology, have replaced the traditional barriers of public internet-based collaboration with proximal, private interconnection between peering partners and enterprise customers. This enables more agile, scalable and resilient network infrastructures for companies to collaborate and innovate quickly.
How to Connect to Digital Ecosystems for Greater Collaboration and Innovation
Even before COVID-19 upped the stakes, global supply chains had begun their massive transformation from enablers of industry integration and ownership to fuel for cross-industry, multi-geography partner interactions. Businesses are leveraging emerging digital ecosystems to create entirely new and dynamic business models that directly and securely interconnect diverse business partners across industries and geographies. Interconnecting cross-industry/geo ecosystems in this way has the promise to unite government, medical and business leaders to collaborate in ways they never imagined were possible.
Learn more about how your organization can join an interconnected ecosystem via direct and secure, software-defined interconnection.
[i] Wall Street Journal, “Companies Retool Operations to Assist in Coronavirus Fight,” March 2020.
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