The Rate of Disruption Index SD-WAN by the Numbers (RDI) SD-WAN is the most disruptive technology in AVANT’s 2019 AVANT Research and Analytics has State of Disruption Study, a groundbreaking market conducted a study of the most disruptive research initiative of more than 300 technology technologies changing today’s IT landscape, decision-makers evaluating the most disruptive including SD-WAN, UCaaS, Hyperscale technologies changing today’s IT landscape, including Platforms, Colocation, and Managed SD-WAN, UCaaS, Hyperscale Platforms, Colocation, and Security Services. Our goal was to assist our Managed Security Services. Our goal was to measure how readers in assessing the rate of transition rapidly the market is transitioning from a legacy tech- from one technology to a newer technology nology to a newer technology that is either replacing or that is either taking its place or supplementing it. The “Rate of Disruption Index,” or “RDI,” supplementing it. The “Rate of Disruption represents the year-over-year shift in market displacement, Index,” or “RDI,” represents the year-over- based on responses to the survey conducted in the spring year shift in market uptake, as perceived by of 2019. The RDI is useful for comparing the significance of respondents to AVANT’s State of Disruption market impacts in a way revenue numbers and or revenue Survey, conducted in the spring of 2019. growth alone cannot. For more information on how the Our study showed SD-WAN had the highest RDI is calculated, please see the sidebar. Using this metric, RDI index and represented the most SD-WAN is posting a year over year 13% RDI in supplement- disruptive technology measured in the ing or replacing non-SD-WAN enabled networks. This RDI study. is nearly twice as great as the Cloud infrastructure 7% RDI replacing legacy on premise servers to cloud platforms, as AVANT polled 300 US-based enterprise well as twice as great as the UCaaS 7% RDI replacing legacy decision-makers at either the C-suite or PBX platforms. Management/VP-level in IT, security, or finance. To qualify for the survey, respondents had to be involved in choosing or helping the organization to implement SD-WAN has the highest RDI in the State of Disruption study. new data network, voice, or compute infrastructure technology including buying/ selecting new tools and services. Respondents include statistically significant subsets from the following five industries: Manufacturing Financial Services, Source: AVANT State of Disruption Report 2019 Healthcare/Medical, E-commerce, and Consulting/Business Services. As part of the survey, respondents were asked to compare their current progress The data shows that SD-WAN adoption is fastest in smaller within a technology transition with where companies with an RDI of 15%-16% for companies $1M that progress stood at the end of 2018. to $10M and $10 to $100M, but still respectable for > $1B That data was then processed through a companies with an RDI of 8%, still beating UCaaS and Cloud mathematical equation that quantifies that adoption RDI rates mentioned earlier. progress. For example, respondents were 5 Copyright © 2019 AVANT Communications, Inc.