How infrastructure and IT operations leaders can develop a strategy for success in 2026 – News

Leaders for infrastructure and information technology operations, or I&O for short, must cope with unpredictable demand for new services, as well as workforce skills deficiencies and spiraling technical debt. With this in mind, they are still responsible for creating an effective action plan that will deliver success for their organization as they head toward 2026.

There are a few notable trends affecting I&O leaders to keep in mind as they begin action planning.

Business-led IT

One such trend is business-led IT. Many business teams are taking the lead in identifying, selecting and implementing technology solutions that directly support their specific goals and needs. However, this is often being done with minimal direct oversight from the central IT department.

The challenge here is that many I&O leaders are facing spiraling levels of technical debt in their systems. Technical debt is the cost and impact of not keeping technology components up-to-date. It is consuming their budget and stifling their ability to innovate and support new business demands. An average of 41% of systems are beyond end of life or support, and an average of 38% are incompatible with target architectures and new projects, according to recent surveys.

A key action that I&O leaders can take here to combat both business-led IT and spiraling technical debt is to inspire collaborative technical risk management. They should leverage I&O’s technology visibility, prioritize risks and collaborate with peer leaders in order to help tackle their risky technical debt. This, of course, requires a consensus of approach with said peer leaders in order to proactively manage infrastructure’s technical debt.

Talent displacement

Another key trend is talent displacement. The wide-scale introduction of artificial intelligence, automation and other technologies promises to augment employee productivity and maximize their impact.

According to recent surveys, 38% of chief information officers expect AI to fully substitute IT help desk in the next three years, and 52% of I&O leaders expect generative AI to have an impact on their function significantly in the next two to three years. This makes it imperative for I&O leaders to reskill and redefine roles as technology makes existing skills insufficient or obsolete.

I&O leaders, however, are facing challenges in attracting, engaging and retaining a workforce that can grow with the business, and ensuring that future skills and competency needs of the I&O function are met.

They’ll need to look beyond technology in their talent roadmaps. This means that they’ll need to build a highly engaged workforce that understands and can meet their business’s shifting skill requirements.

This includes developing nontechnical competencies, such as innovative/creative thinking, collaborating/communicating, prioritizing/strategic decision making and analytical thinking. They can also leverage a learning map: a visual tool, such as a graphic, that shows the “big picture” in looking beyond technology. It should include formal training, foundational knowledge and on-the-job development to reinforce behaviors and improve competency proficiency.

Technology diversification

Lastly, another key trend that I&O leaders are facing in this day and age is technology diversification. Infrastructure is increasing in complexity and diversity. This begs the question: How can I&O leaders, facing rapid technology diversification, improve infrastructure resilience?

A key challenge they face are managing a diverse array of infrastructure environments that include the following: on-premises data centers, colocation, edge, private clouds and a mix of public clouds. At the same time, I&O leaders must simultaneously enhance the resilience, flexibility and performance of services built on this infrastructure. According to recent surveys, 81% of organizations who use cloud rely on multiple providers.

The unanticipated internal and external demands are straining the ability of I&O teams, as they do not have the time or capacity to meet increasingly dynamic or complex demands consistently.

I&O leaders will need to respond quickly to change through adaptive governance. This means that they’ll need to implement a more rapid and effective adaptive governance model to improve the flexibility of the I&O function, and to meet the unexpected demands that they’ll continue to face. It will be crucial for I&O leaders to utilize a coordinated approach to deploy resilient hybrid infrastructure that can grow with the needs of the business as they evolve.

Novel challenges are facing I&O leaders in 2026. Each of these actions can help tem develop a strategy to deliver success for their CIO and organization as a whole. Each of the actions outlined also presents a valuable leadership opportunity. The senior-most I&O leader can showcase their competency by working closely with their CIO, business unit and IT leadership peers to create a winning I&O strategy going forward.

Nathan Hill is a chief of research with Gartner’s Infrastructure & Operations Research. He and other Gartner analysts will provide additional insights on cloud strategies and infrastructure and operations trends at the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conferences taking place Nov. 17-18 in London, Dec. 3-5 in Tokyo and Dec. 9-11 in Las Vegas. Hill wrote this article for News.

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