Is SQL Server Backup single or multi-threaded?
Backup to multiple files is perhaps what your adviser is referring too. You'll often see improvements (although usually modest) if you're backing up to multiple files on a single disk/array, up to the point that you're saturating source and destination IO paths obviously.

BACKUP DATABASE [MyDatabase] 
TO 
  DISK = N'Z:\backup\MyDatabase_File1.bak'
  , DISK = N'Z:\backup\MyDatabase_File2.bak'
  , DISK = N'Z:\backup\MyDatabase_File3.bak'
  , DISK = N'Z:\backup\MyDatabase_File4.bak'
WITH 
    NAME = N'MyDatabase - Full Backup'
    , INIT
    , STATS = 10


Compression is the obvious addition if you're using 2008+. If not, there are gains to be had from experimenting with BUFFERCOUNT, BLOCKSIZE and MAXTRANSFERSIZE option. Paul Randall's article on Advanced Backup &amp; Restore Options is a good place to start.