Magic Quadrant for Managed Network Services

Managed Network Services Vendor Product Comparisons 2023

Key features and pros and cons of top Managed Network Services products:

ATSG - Leader

Pros:

Customer experience: ATSG's MNS clients report overall vendor satisfaction as among the highest in this research.
FWaaS: The pricing of the vendor's firewall as a service (FWaaS) offerings for CPE firewalls, for both current and next-gen technologies, is in the top quartile of attractiveness, compared to others in this research.
Data integrity process: ATSG provides a three-pronged comprehensive approach to maintaining data integrity that includes auditing and reporting of the service delivery platform, the devices and services managed by the platform and the platform itself.

Cons:

Market focus: ATSG also offers equipment design and implementation services. Buyers seeking to single- or sole-source adjacent market components, such as connectivity will need to source network services elsewhere.
Unique channel services wrapper: The vendor's service delivery model for MNS is both channel-partner-sales-led and direct-sales-led, which is uncommon and may lead to sourcing conflicts
MNS security capabilities: ATSG is lagging some competitors in capabilities regarding its plans for the next 12 to 18 months.

AT&T - Niche Player

Pros:

Broad scope capabilities: AT&T has a good breadth of services for very large enterprises that favor a single provider. AT&T has demonstrated flexibility in support of multiple OEM options that buyers may prefer for MNS for WAN (for example, SD-WAN).
Internet of Things (IoT) expansion: AT&T's MNS support for LAN IoT endpoints is growing, aided by its increased focus on standardized, scalable packaging.
MNS for security strategy: AT&T is demonstrating a strong strategy for adding security capabilities, including threat detection and response, over the next 12 to 18 months.

Cons:

Postsale support: Some clients report diminished support levels when AT&T subcontracts the delivery of services contracted.
Price competitiveness: AT&T's MNS pricing remains among the highest, compared to the other vendors in this research.
Dependency on partner vendors for security innovation: For its security features, outside of TDR, AT&T's changes and future changes to security features are in the hands of their partners and not being driven by AT&T development, but by chosen partners' integration efforts.

BT - Niche Player

Pros:

Portals: BT's enterprise and global customer portals demonstrate an improved end-user experience
User-to-application visibility: In the past year, BT has added integrations with application performance monitoring (APM) and end-user visibility monitoring, to improve application performance and data analytics capabilities.
Comprehensive threat detection and response portfolio: BT's foundational security platform provides a cross-portfolio threat detection and response toolset, in addition to a focus on OT threat management.

Cons:

Indirect regional coverage: BT focuses on global, multinational enterprises, whereas regional customers are served by regional direct and inside sales teams and partners; indirect support models can cause disruptions in service and support.
ITSM integration: The vendor has a limited number of customers that have two-way integration of ITSM for CMDB, and case management between its platform and customers.
Limited availability management process: Limited availability management process: BT needs to develop a more mature and robust availability management process to improve customer experience and reduce risk.

Comcast Business - Niche Player

Pros:

Change management: Among others in this research, it delivers top quartile cycle time performance for completing simple and complex MACD service requests.
Pricing: Comcast's MNS pricing is competitive and within the top quartile for attractiveness compared to others in this research.
Foundational security portfolio: Comcast's established security portfolio is a solid proposition for small and midsize enterprises.

Cons:

Automation: Comcast's zero-touch incident resolution metrics are among the lowest quartile of performance compared to others in this research.
Incident management: Comcast's predeclaration ticket enrichment is currently basic, which slows automation improvement execution.
Security portfolio: Comcast has an emerging portfolio of security services that is still being developed and matured.

HCLTech - Leader

Pros:

MNS: Customers rate the vendor's overall MNS capabilities among the highest-performing, compared to others in this research.
LAN: The vendor's extensible MNS support for LAN-connected endpoints across enterprise IT and OT, and IIoT is a significant strength, as compared to others in this research.
Secure SD-WAN: HCLTech provides a strong strategy and capabilities in securing its SD-WAN deployments with aligned SSE services.

Cons:

SD-WAN OEM support options: HCLTech's SD-WAN OEM leading vendor support options lag some other leaders in this research.
Pricing: Its MNS for firewall pricing, whether co-resident with SD-WAN or stand-alone, is among the highest relative to others in this research.
Future NAC strategy: HCLTech's planned network access control (NAC) approach lacks maturity.

Hughes - Leader

Pros:

Pricing: Hughes' pricing across all MNS offer price propositions is among the most attractive among all others in this research.
Multiaccess technology: Hughes is among the best at supporting a full range of access technologies — including multiple landline, wireless (LTE and private 5G), microwave and satellite services.
Security availability management: Hughes has a well-developed and correlated availability management process that is visible on the HughesON portal.

Cons:

Portal: Hughes' portal is lacking when compared to other Leaders in this research.
Integrations: Hughes has two-way integrations with enterprise customer ITSM platforms that are limited to case management only.
Security portfolio progress: Recent changes have been mostly product-focused.

Kyndryl - Niche Player

Pros:

Private 5G: Kyndryl is in the top quartile of MNS leadership and performance for its private 5G service delivery.
Process: Kyndryl's service delivery methods perform at above-average levels, due to its process discipline and continual service improvement activities.
Security incident management: Kyndryl has a mature and comprehensive security incident management process that includes a problem management roll-up ability.

Cons:

Receptiveness: Some prospective MNS buyers who are not also seeking significant professional services are experiencing diminished interest from Kyndryl.
Proposals: Customers report that Kyndryl's proposals in response to service evolution requests differ significantly from what customers asked for.
Security portfolio: Kyndryl's security portfolio is lacking maturity and completeness as compared to Leaders in this space.

Lumen - Niche Player

Pros:

Committed investments: Lumen's MNS investments are underway, including services packaging, automation and customer experience.
Standardized offers: Enterprises seeking Lumen's MNS for WAN standardized services can expect minimal customization and an improved service delivery experience with its most premium offer.
Data integrity management: Lumen has partnered with Ivanti (RiskSense) to provide a comprehensive data integrity management system.

Cons:

MNS support: Lumen's EMEA asset sale to Colt Technology Services will result in some of Lumen's EMEA-based MNS customer sites continuing to be served by Lumen, though the majority will be served by Colt's managed services. This may create provider interdependency risks for enterprise clients served by Lumen's retained MNS client sites in EMEA.
Investments: Lumen's MNS offer capability improvement speed that lags most others in this research.
Security portfolio: Lumen is still working on expanding security portfolio choices and is limited in some areas.

MetTel - Leader

Pros:

Network automation performance: MetTel's network automation performance improvement execution continues to be top-performing compared to other Leaders in this research.
Onboarding cycle time: MetTel's typical onboarding cycle time for new customers is 10 to 20 days, when working with the common client requirement of walking in and taking over an existing environment, which is the most common scenario in the MNS market.
Security: MetTel has developed their data integrity practices by creating a single data source truth and building reporting capabilities around it.

Cons:

Service support: Some MetTel customers report dissatisfaction with some included service elements including the in-scope of network infrastructure design, planning support and Day 2 administrative responsiveness.
ITSM integrations: MetTel's quantity of two-way ITSM integrations with customers, including case management, CMDB and service mapping, is lower than other Leaders in this research.
NAC: MetTel's NAC capabilities, deployments and integrations are limited as compared to others in this research.

Microland - Leader

Pros:

Network automation and orchestration: Microland's network automation and orchestration capabilities are consistently within the top quartile of performance, compared to other vendors in this research.
Business impact support: Microland includes advanced analytics capabilities with business experience and decision-making insights by providing performance visibility and decision-outcome guidance.
Security: Microland has a very comprehensive security portfolio with strong offerings highlighted by their threat detection and response improvements over the last 12 months.

Cons:

Provider size: Microland is in the lowest quartile of revenue size, relative to other providers in this research; continued market expansion may strain its resources and execution.
Onboarding: Microland's time to onboard new customers is longer than many others in this research.
Security: Microland provides standardized security offerings to about 30% of clients. This high variability commonly slows down the speed of delivery of service improvements for end customers.

NTT DATA - Leader

Pros:

Standardized service: A high percentage of clients receive the same standardized service experiences. These high repeatability principles improve cycle time, automation and service quality more than custom offers.
Upgraded SDP: NTT DATA has upgraded its core MNS legacy SDP components; this investment has resulted in improved activity cycle time and higher customer experience quality.
Security: NTT DATA offers an advanced security proposition that aligns to their in-scope managed elements within its MNS for LAN and WAN offerings.

Cons:

Service support: Some customers report dissatisfaction with implementations of new technologies, citing inexperience and limited language support.
Customized to standardized MNS migrations: Enterprises that are aligning their services to NTT DATA's improved standardization of MNS service delivery should govern closely to ensure quality is maintained.
Security: NTT DATA offers a limited number of security incident KPIs that limit performance transparency in customer reporting more than most others in this research.

Orange Business - Niche Player

Pros:

MNS offers adoption: Nearly half of all Orange Business' customers subscribe to its MNS for LAN services, in addition to MNS for WAN, with plans to add MNS for security from the vendor, an indication that buyers may prefer a single-vendor MNS solution.
SDP improvements: Orange Business' current software delivery platform has improved the company's MNS capabilities via more mature industry commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) platform upgrades.
Managed security: In conjunction with Orange Cyberdefense, the company offers a comprehensive Managed Secure Access product, complete with threat intelligence and co-management access.

Cons:

Platform: Orange Business' SDP has been evolving, with significant integrations and enhancements to achieve higher automation capabilities; platform stability could be impacted during this evolution.
SD-WAN: Some customers cite challenging implementations by the vendor for SD-WAN technology support.
Pricing: The vendor's pricing for MNS is consistently higher than half of all others included in this research.

Presidio - Niche Player

Pros:

Professional services: Presidio is a commonly known provider of IT services in the U.S., valued for its professional services and network engineering skills.
Life cycle provider: Presidio is preferred by customers for its ability to guide customers across the enterprise networking life cycle, including network and security planning, design sourcing and operating requirements.
Security: Presidio's customer reputation with its MNS for security is consistently positive.

Cons:

Integrations: Gartner believes that Presidio's customer integrations to its ITSM platform for either case management or CMDB are limited.
Pricing: Its MNS pricing is in the lowest quartile for attractiveness among others in this research.
Security: Alignment of is MNS for security offer to MNS for LAN and WAN is lagging in capabilities in comparison to leaders in this report.

Sify Technologies - Niche Player

Pros:

India: Sify Technologies' long-standing MNS clients include companies in some of India's largest and most complex banking and financial services segments.
Price versus value: Buyers seeking fewer advanced automation capabilities and constrained by budget concerns will be a fit for the vendor.
Security: The company's focus going forward is on combined customer experiences for networking and security, aligned to planned SASE offerings.

Cons:

Automation: Sify Technologies' performance with FCR-automated incident resolution is among the lowest in this research.
Integrations: Sify Technologies has limited integrations available for customer-owned ITSM platform data synchronization, supporting case management only.
Security: Sify Technologies is lagging behind leaders in overall managed security service offerings.

Systal - Niche Player

Pros:

LAN: Enterprises value Systal's MNS for LAN offerings, since a high percentage of their customers have these services, while a relatively low percentage purchase MNS for WAN.
Europe: Enterprises that are predominantly located in Europe align well with Systal's installed base, since the vast majority of its customer sites are in Europe.
Security: Systal's MNS for security managed firewall, and its combined platform SD-WAN and firewall pricing, are in the most competitive quartile, compared to others in this research.

Cons:

Customer alignment: Systal's current customers are predominantly within the SME market segment, reflecting its smaller-sized client focus fit, which may be less suitable for larger enterprise requirements.
Automation: Systal's zero-touch incident management network automation FCR performance is within the lowest quartile, compared to other vendors in this research.
Security: Systal has the lowest percentage of customers using standard security offerings, which raises concerns about scalability.

TCS - Niche Player

Pros:

Service delivery platform: TCS has accelerated its service delivery experience via its MNS SDP by leveraging multiple MNS-capable commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) vendors with current-state tooling.
Network capacity management: The vendor's capacity management capabilities are mature, enabling a proactive approach that is configurable for different industry verticals.
Security: TCS' support for software-defined LAN is solid, as enterprises increasingly adopt zero-trust network access architectures.

Cons:

Support: Some customers cite a lack of business acumen and context in TCS' service delivery support personnel communications.
Custom NOC: The comparatively high acceptance of customized outsourced NOC offers from TCS, versus its standardized MNS offer, risks higher life cycle costs and lower quality for its customers.
Security: TCS currently has a minimal capability for threat detection and response security.

Wipro - Leader

Pros:

Incident management: Customers report that Wipro is strong on incident and problem management, with leading troubleshooting capabilities.
End-user experience and anomaly detection: Wipro has leading end-user customer experience capabilities, while making strong progress in user-to-application anomaly detection (proactive monitoring).
Security portfolio: Wipro has a strong offering centered on automation, due to recent acquisitions and partner investments.

Cons:

Automation progress: Wipro's year-over-year automation performance improvements are lower than other Leaders in this research.
Onboarding: Customers report onboarding cycle time can be slow after contract execution, which can challenge commitments to business stakeholders.
Security pricing: Wipro's firewall prices are in the highest quartile compared to others in this research.

FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2023?

A: ATSG, HCLTech, Hughes, MetTel, Microland, NTT DATA, Wipro

Q: What does "Leader" mean in MQ terms?

A: A provider in the Leaders quadrant demonstrates the ability to fulfill a broad variety of customer requirements through the breadth of its MNS offerings. Leaders have the ability to shape the market and provide complete and differentiating services, as well as global service and support. Leaders maintain strong relationships with their channels and customers and have no obvious gaps in their portfolios.

Q: How do I interpret a Gartner Magic Quadrant?

A: https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/magic-quadrants-research

Report:

Top Vendor Products for Managed Network Services in 2023

Managed Network Services Vendor Product Comparisons 2023

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FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2023?

Q: What does "Leader" mean in MQ terms?

Q: How do I interpret a Gartner Magic Quadrant?

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