We require IT departments to innovate, implement artificial intelligence and digitise business processes. At the same time, we charge these same teams with an unprecedented amount of regulation and security requirements. In 2026, with increasing geopolitical tensions and the complexity of cyber threats, maintaining full digital resilience and compliance solely with internal resources becomes not only risky, but economically inefficient. It is time to redefine the approach to outsourcing.
Just a decade ago, the role of the IT department was clear: keep systems alive. Today, CIOs and IT managers stand in an awkward corner. On the one hand, boards expect them to be architects of business growth. On the other, regulators (EU and national) impose stringent frameworks such as DORA, NIS2 or RODO, which require titanic administrative and auditing work. Trying to reconcile these two worlds within a single, internal team, increasingly ends in ‘operational breathlessness’.
The end of the “Susan-something” era in IT
The traditional model in which an internal team of administrators takes care of everything from password resets to cloud configuration to advanced anti-ransomware strategies has run out of steam. With the quantitative and qualitative shift in cybercrime that experts are increasingly talking about, the company cannot maintain such a broad spectrum of expertise internally at an expert level.
The year 2026 promises to be a time of review. Companies that try to do everything themselves will get stuck in the maintenance treadmill, losing sight of innovation. The conclusion of the market analysis is clear: internal IT should become the centre of business strategy. They are the ones who know the specifics of the company, its products and its customers. In contrast, the so-called ‘digital plumbing’ – i.e. maintaining business continuity, backups, patching systems and ensuring regulatory compliance – are tasks that must be handed over to specialists for whom this is core business.
Outsourcing 2.0: From technology to processes
For this model to work, we need to change the way we think about outsourced services. Remote Managed Services (RMS) are no longer a way to make things ‘cheaper’. Today, they are a way to make it ‘safer and legitimate’.
The modern managed service provider is not limited to providing disk space or a remote desktop. In 2026, it is expected to take responsibility for entire operational processes. Audibility is becoming key here. In the context of directives such as NIS2 or the DORA regulation, a company must not only be secure, but must be able to prove it.
That is why specialist providers today provide ready-made runbooks (incident response scenarios), regular compliance reports and, perhaps most importantly, cyclical recovery tests. Backup that has not been tested is worthless in light of today’s threats. Transferring these responsibilities externally removes a powerful operational risk from management.
The trap of the giants and data sovereignty
The decision to choose a technology partner in 2026 is no longer simply a question of price and technical parameters. It is a strategic and even geopolitical decision. Recent years, including high-profile failures of cloud giants (such as the Microsoft Azure incidents), have brutally exposed the risks of relying on a single global provider (so-called vendor lock-in).
Companies are increasingly recognising that the convenience of the public cloud can be a pitfall. The risk of downtime or loss of access to critical data is one thing. The other aspect is sovereignty.
- Data sovereignty: Do you know where your data physically lies and what law it is subject to?
- Technological sovereignty: do you have the ability to change supplier without paralysing the company?
In response to these challenges, hybrid and multi-cloud solutions are growing in popularity. These allow you to benefit from the flexibility of the giants, but keep key resources under ‘your own’ local jurisdiction. Here, the role of European IT service providers is crucial. Technical support located in the EU, understanding the nuances of RODO and local regulations, becomes a superior value over a generic call centre in another time zone. Local support is a guarantee that ‘digital autonomy’ is not just an empty slogan in a company’s strategy.
Backup is now cybersecurity (and a legal requirement)
The biggest mental shift that needs to take place in the minds of IT decision-makers concerns backups. Until recently, backup was a policy in case of fire, server room flooding or employee error (Disaster Recovery). Today it is the first line of defence against attack (Cyber Recovery).
Cyber criminals, aided by techniques based on artificial intelligence, have changed tactics. Their aim is no longer simply to encrypt production data. Attacks are now targeting backups directly to prevent the victim from recovering without paying a ransom.
This necessitates a fusion of the disciplines of backup and cyber security. A modern data protection strategy must be based on three pillars, which are difficult to build alone without a huge investment:
1. Immutable Storage: Guarantee that once a backup is saved, it cannot be overwritten or deleted for a certain period of time – even with administrator rights.
2 Air-gap: Physical or logical separation of the copy from the production network.
3 Clean Rooms: Recovery environments where systems are meticulously checked for viruses before being restored to production.
This is where the role of an external provider cannot be underestimated. Building an in-house “clean room” and maintaining a second, independent Data Centre is an expensive nightmare for any CFO. Purchasing these competences in a service model (BaaS/DRaaS) is simply more cost-effective and, more importantly, more efficient.
Stability is the foundation of innovation
In 2026 and beyond, the winners will be those organisations that understand that security and compliance are team sports. Remotely managed services are not meant to replace internal IT, but to stabilise it.
Companies that systematically protect their data through professional third-party partners are better prepared for technical failures and hacking attacks. But they gain something even more valuable – the time and resources of their own experts, who instead of fighting the ‘digital plumbing’, can focus on building a competitive advantage for the business. Independent, auditable and resilient backup is thus becoming not just an operational cost, but a key factor in sustainable business processes.
