A report from Information Services Group (ISG) suggests the SDN market is consolidating around comprehensive service providers rather than just tech vendors, with only four firms achieving top marks across all segments in its latest Provider Lens.

Accenture, HCLTech, Orange Business, and Verizon Business emerged as “leaders” across all four quadrants – managed SD-WAN services, transformation consulting, edge technologies, and secure access service edge (SASE) – out of the 36 providers evaluated.

Notably, none of these winners appeared in Gartner's SD-WAN Magic Quadrant, which focused on technology platforms from vendors like Cisco and Fortinet.

Instead, ISG's focus on service delivery partners comes as enterprises are increasingly consuming SD-WAN through managed service providers rather than buying technology directly from vendors.

The analyst firm suggests the shift toward managed services comes as end users want SDN without having to rework their technology stack and make substantial hardware investments.

“SD-WANs are nearly ubiquitous in large U.S. enterprises, and many small and medium-sized companies have joined the migration,” Dieter Thompson, partner and president of ISG’s Network Advisory business, explained in a statement. “Rigid legacy infrastructures will not allow organizations to adapt to new technologies, business requirements, and processes.”

The trend toward managed service providers continued with the likes of Comcast Business, Kyndryl, and Microland being named as leaders in three of the four quadrants. Another nine providers achieved recognition in one or two segments.

HCLTech earned additional recognition as the global ISG CX Star Performer for 2025 among networking service providers, achieving the highest customer satisfaction scores in ISG's survey.

ISG also highlighted GTT and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as "Rising Stars," recognizing the pair for their “promising portfolios” with “high future potential.”

SME, cybersecurity needs driving market shift

ISG’s report noted that the market shift from vendors to service providers is being driven by several factors, particularly increased demand for SDN from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

ISG's report suggests that managed service providers are capturing that demand with solutions designed specifically for SMEs, including scalable SD-WANs with consumption-based pricing models.

Growing security threats are also driving market shifts, with end users seeking a single, secure attack surface. The service providers listed in ISG's report enable enterprises to combine SD-WANs with cloud-based security services to form broader SASE frameworks.

ISG also noted that end users are increasingly adopting multicloud environments, requiring SDN solutions from partners capable of supporting data and applications across disparate cloud platforms.

“Consuming software-defined networking as managed services is attractive to companies that want to reduce overhead and complexity, especially smaller businesses,” Kenn Walters, ISG global lead analyst and author of the report, explained. “Providers are meeting the growing demand for network flexibility to support new technologies, including AI and automation.”

Gartner’s analysis of the SD-WAN market picked the likes of Fortinet, Cisco, and Palo Alto Networks as leaders, with the number of vendors falling when compared to the rising number of providers.

Several of those who featured on that list have since consolidated, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) recently greenlit purchase of Juniper Networks, Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, and Ericsson’s increased integration of Cradlepoint.