Why IT Leaders Need to Think Like CFOs: The ROI of Elastic Acceleration
I still get frustrated when I see organizations treating IT as a cost centre or an operational necessity rather than a strategic enabler. But the reality is, digital experiences are business-critical and performance is the new currency. Today’s IT leaders must adopt a CFO mindset, aligning technology investments with business outcomes, agility, and measurable return. Nowhere is this more relevant than in the realm of application acceleration.
Historically, network performance has been delivered through fixed, CapEx-heavy infrastructure: buy a WAN optimization appliance, deploy it in branch offices, and hope it scales with your needs. But business today is elastic. Traffic is unpredictable. Teams are distributed. And the days of over-provisioning to accommodate peak demand are neither sustainable nor financially sound.
That is why I am excited to see Riverbed Flex for Acceleration launched, a model that reimagines performance delivery through a consumption-based lens. Rather than committing to fixed hardware footprints, enterprises can now dial performance up or down based on real-time need—aligning IT spend with actual usage, not forecasted guesses.
This kind of flexibility isn’t just operationally convenient—it’s financially strategic. Think of it like cloud computing: you wouldn’t run a fixed, always-on server to handle occasional demand spikes. So why do that with your WAN acceleration?
With Riverbed Flex, acceleration becomes elastic. You pay for what you use, when you use it. This allows for right-sizing performance for projects, departments, or seasonal loads—supporting agile initiatives without long-term capital lock-in. For enterprises balancing multiple cloud migrations, hybrid workforces, or global product launches, this agility translates directly to cost efficiency and faster time to value.
Just as cloud services enabled Finance to see the real cost of compute per application, Flex enables a similar transformation for network and application performance. It’s a model that brings IT and Finance closer together, not just in budget meetings but in strategic alignment.
Riverbed Flex for Acceleration represents more than just a technical upgrade—it’s a mindset shift. One where performance is delivered on-demand, measured by outcomes, and scaled with precision.
Want to know more, join Teneo on Riverbed’s “Acceleration Global Launch” webcast on Tuesday, May 13th or via their on-demand after the event. Register to watch here. Alternatively, Teneo would be happy to discuss how this solution can help your organization.