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Developing a range of business continuity strategies should be a core priority for Irish businesses as we gear up to enter 2026.
With an increase in continuously evolving cyber threats, paired with a surge in intense weather events, business owners operating digitally are constantly on tenterhooks, facing the possibility of downtime at any moment. The only way forward in the face of such uncertainty is to mitigate risk and prioritise resilience.
This is where a well-crafted business continuity strategy comes into play, providing both peace of mind and a competitive advantage.
Read on to discover how you can strengthen your business’s resilience in the coming year.
Threats to business continuity in 2026
In the digital sphere, new threats are constantly emerging. It’s therefore vital to regularly keep up to speed with what’s trending in this context, so you can mitigate the risk of downtime within your organisation.
Start the new year out on the right foot by carrying out a risk assessment to identify potential vulnerabilities (cyberattacks, natural disasters, hardware failures) which may negatively impact your business.
Threats that are likely to be prevalent in 2026 are:
Cyber threats: SMEs are still attractive targets for ransomware and phishing attacks.
Regulatory change: Shifting data-protection or cross-border compliance rules could disrupt operations.
Supply-chain volatility: Lingering global supply chain vulnerabilities leave businesses at risk.
Regularly revisiting and reassessing your risk assessment will enable you to seize the digital advantage, without compromising the resilience of your organisation.
How to create effective business continuity strategies
It’s clear that in the current climate, a strategic plan that matches your needs in business continuity terms is a must. But what should the core pillars of this strategy be?
Firstly, it’s important to remember that a strong continuity plan represents more than simply IT recovery; it should be a multi-layered response that supports all aspects of your organisation after business continuity is compromised.
The core pillars of business continuity strategies
Here’s what should be included in an effective strategy:
Continuity procedures for critical business functions, ensuring minimal downtime.
Immediate response measures to protect staff and assets right after the disruption.
Recovery plans focused on restoring full operations quickly, with defined recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs).
A communications framework, so your people, clients and partners stay informed when things take an unexpected turn.
To create a robust strategy under expert supervision, it’s advisable to partner with an expert managed services provider (MSP), who will ensure that your plan aligns with key organisational priorities.
Recommended business continuity strategies for 2026
Irish businesses that invest in creating a dependable business continuity plan today will be better placed to withstand the uncertainties of 2026 and beyond.
Here are the strategies we recommend adopting now to safeguard both your operations and your reputation.
1. Leverage proactive technology solutions
Modern technology plays a huge role in protecting your business from falling prey to downtime. There are three key ways you can leverage innovative practices for the benefit of your organisation:
1. Adopt on-site, cloud or hybrid backup architectures that match your risk profile.
2. Utilise immutable data storage systems to protect against ransomware or accidental tampering.
3. Create a scalable infrastructure through the use of cloud services and virtualisation, which enables you to pivot quickly when disruption hits.
These solutions, when combined with continuous monitoring, facilitate faster detection of issues, proactive fixes and reduced recovery times.
2. Continuously review your business continuity strategies
Business continuity is not a “one-and-done” exercise. Your plan should be reviewed annually at a minimum, or whenever significant organisational or regulatory changes occur.
Similarly, technology and processes should be retested, refined and updated regularly to reflect the addition of new backup platforms or more automated recovery tools.
3. Make business continuity part of your company culture
Technology isn’t enough if people don’t know how to act in the event of a disruption.
To ensure employees understand their roles during an incident, it’s vital to provide regular training on who is responsible for each task in the recovery process and what action needs to be taken.
Periodically carrying out drills, tabletop exercises and full recovery tests is an effective way to verify that your plan works in practice.
Following these simulations, plans should be updated to improve or remove any weak points, and employees should be notified accordingly.
4. Partner with a trusted MSP with expertise in business continuity strategies
Collaborating with a managed IT provider brings real value to continuity planning.
At Arbelos, we have almost two decades of experience providing managed IT services to Irish businesses.
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