As 2026 approaches, business leaders must align IT planning with fast-moving trends in cloud, AI, security, and infrastructure. A reactive or piecemeal approach will leave you exposed to technological debt, cost overruns, and competitive disadvantage. In this post we’ll outline key focus areas, risks, and how a partner like Centric Data can help you build a robust, future-ready IT strategy.
1. Embrace Hybrid & Edge Architectures
Pure public cloud may no longer be the default. Many enterprises are shifting back toward hybrid models, combining local, edge, and cloud resources to balance latency, cost, compliance, and control.
A recent survey, “Navigating the Edge-Cloud Continuum” (Belcastro et al., 2025), explores how organisations are positioning workloads across edge and cloud layers to meet real-time demands and reduce latency. The survey highlights adoption challenges, architectural complexity, and the need for clear deployment strategies.
When designing for 2026, plan for a multi-layer architecture: some functions in the cloud, some at local or edge locations, especially for latency-sensitive operations (IoT, real-time analytics, on-site processing).
Also relevant: a recent study, “Hybrid Cloud Security: Balancing Performance, Cost, and Compliance” (Polinati, 2025), examines how to manage security, performance, and cost trade-offs in hybrid environments. Its framework around encryption, zero trust, and policy governance is worth reviewing.
2. Get Cost Governance (FinOps) Right
Cloud and hybrid strategies scale well but unmanaged they also spiral in cost. In the 2025 State of the Cloud Report by Flexera, 84 % of respondents named cloud cost management a top challenge.
To prepare for 2026:
- Build FinOps or cost operations processes
- Monitor resource utilisation (idle instances, overprovisioning)
- Enforce usage policies and rightsizing
- Tag and chargeback cost centres to tie spending to business units
By adopting these disciplines early, budget surprises become less frequent and cloud becomes a source of agility instead of unpredictability.
3. Make AI and Agentic Systems Part of the Plan
AI is no longer optional it’s a core enabler. According to McKinsey’s Technology Trends Outlook 2025, AI and cloud/edge computing are among the top trends shaping enterprise technology.
As you build your 2026 roadmap:
- Evaluate internal use cases for AI agents (automating workflows, decision assistance)
- Ensure your infrastructure is capable of supporting AI workloads (GPU, high throughput, data pipelines)
- Look for ways to integrate lightweight AI at the edge or in hybrid settings
The goal is to avoid retrofitting AI later design your foundation now to enable it.
4. Prioritize Security, Compliance & Patching
Security will only grow in importance. Outdated software is a known vector for breaches: in the paper “The Hidden Dangers of Outdated Software” (Thiyagarajan et al., 2025), it is noted that 32 % of cyberattacks exploit unpatched software vulnerabilities.
In your 2026 strategy:
- Enforce automated patching and update processes
- Use vulnerability scanning and continuous monitoring
- Adopt zero trust network models
- Define your compliance obligations (data privacy, industry regulation) and embed them in architecture reviews
It’s better to build security by design than bolt it on later.
5. Design for Resilience and Disaster Recovery
Disasters whether natural, hardware failure, or cyberattack will happen. The question is whether your systems bounce back or take days to recover.
In your strategy:
- Define RTO (recovery time objectives) and RPO (recovery point objectives) per application
- Use redundant infrastructure across zones or sites
- Test backups and disaster recovery regularly
- Design failover or fallback paths
Resilience is not optional in 2026 it’s a baseline expectation.
6. Plan for Talent, Governance & Culture
Technology is only as strong as the people and processes behind it. Organisational readiness, governance, and culture often derail even well-designed strategies.
You should:
- Assess your current technical skills and gaps (cloud architects, AI engineers, security experts)
- Plan training, hiring, or partnerships to fill gaps
- Establish governance committees that include IT, security, and business stakeholders
- Use pilots and incremental rollouts to validate before scaling
7. How Centric Data Can Help
Centric Data’s experience in Zimbabwe and regionally positions it well to guide businesses in their 2026 IT journey. Here’s how we can assist:
- Architecture design & deployment: We help you choose hybrid, edge, or cloud setups that suit your constraints and future goals.
- Managed operations & FinOps: We operate cost control practices, monitor usage, optimize spend, and align IT operations with business units.
- AI readiness support: We help you build pipelines, data flows, and compute infrastructure ready to host AI and agentic workloads.
- Security & compliance services: From patching, threat detection, identity management, to audit readiness, we help you bake security in.
- Resilience & DR planning: We assist in backups, failovers, site design, and recovery testing.
- Training & governance advisory: For local teams, we offer training and help establish governance structures so your strategy is sustainable.
With a partner like Centric, you can avoid over-investment, surprise costs, and architectural regrets.
Conclusion
To succeed in 2026, your IT strategy must be proactive, layered, and aligned with business goals. Adopt hybrid and edge architectures, master FinOps, embed AI readiness, secure everything from the start, and build resilience. Also invest in the people, process and governance needed to sustain progress.
Centric Data is ready to walk with you through that planning.
