Expanding a business across multiple locations is an exciting milestone, signifying growth and increased market reach. However, it also presents unique challenges, particularly for IT managers scaling networked systems to multiple locations. You can implement multiple strategies for scaling your business across multiple locations without upending your tech stack while addressing the challenges IT managers face.

Challenges Faced by IT Managers

IT managers face many challenges when scaling networked systems to multiple locations. One of the primary challenges is ensuring consistency and performance across all sites. 

In a distributed, networked organization that relies on the public internet, the network itself does not perform identically at every site. Consequently, employees and customers may not enjoy the same experience in every office, warehouse, or site on the network.

Same Applications, Different Performance

For example, connections to cloud-based applications can be perfectly responsive at the company headquarters but sluggish in a branch office or vice versa. This disparity in performance can be attributed to several factors outside the IT team’s control:

Availability: Standardizing a uniform internet connection across the country is challenging. Each geographic location may have a limited number and/or different internet service providers (ISPs) with specific selections of circuit types.

Traffic Patterns: Even with the same ISP, circuit type, and service package, performance may vary from one location to another due to real-time jitter, latency, and packet loss.

Outages: Hardware and software issues, broken or downed circuits, cyberattacks, or power failures can disrupt network connections locally or globally, affecting application performance.

Strategies for Overcoming Challenges:

• Assess your current tech stack by conducting a comprehensive assessment to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
• Standardize core systems and processes across all locations to maintain consistency and efficiency.
• Leverage cloud-based platforms for essential functions such as data storage, communication, and collaboration.
• Implement unified communication tools to facilitate real-time communication and collaboration across all locations.
• Invest in robust networking solutions to support multi-location businesses’ connectivity and bandwidth requirements.
• Prioritize data security and compliance by implementing robust cybersecurity measures and ensuring compliance with relevant regulatory requirements to protect sensitive data.
• Enable remote management tools to monitor and manage your tech stack remotely, ensuring optimal performance across all locations.
• Offer comprehensive training programs and ongoing technical support to empower employees to leverage technology effectively.

Incorporating Bigleaf Networks’ optimization platform into your multi-location setup ensures consistent connectivity without requiring extensive adjustments to your existing tech stack. Positioned outside the firewall, Bigleaf seamlessly integrates into your network infrastructure, eliminating the hassle of reconfiguring security protocols or other elements at individual sites.

By deploying plug-and-play routers at each location and leveraging a purpose-built IP network, Bigleaf intelligently directs network traffic along the most efficient path over the public internet. This ensures the smooth transmission of data to and from cloud-based applications, even circumventing blockages and outages to enhance reliability and performance. 

With Bigleaf, employees and customers across all locations benefit from reliable connectivity, ensuring a consistent user experience. Furthermore, Bigleaf’s compatibility with any ISP, connection type, technology stack, and firewall allows IT teams to maintain their preferred tech stack at each site, including critical services like SaaS and VoIP. The platform’s robust network architecture ensures stability and resilience, optimizing system performance across the board. 

Additionally, the Bigleaf Web Dashboard provides valuable insights into circuit performance at every location, empowering IT teams to proactively address any risks and maintain optimal network performance moving forward.

Scaling your business across multiple locations without upending your tech stack requires careful planning, strategic investments, and a commitment to consistency and efficiency. By addressing IT managers’ challenges and implementing the strategies outlined above, you can successfully navigate the complexities of multi-location expansion. With the right approach and the proper technology infrastructure, you can position your business for sustainable growth and long-term success across multiple locations.