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For visible IT progress before year-end, prioritize six deliverables: reduce internet-facing exposure, prove backups can be restored, make cloud costs and ownership visible, govern AI use, map critical suppliers, and test continuity plans. Treat them as bounded workstreams, not six large transformation projects: each should end with evidence of completion, a named owner, and any remaining work carried into the next budget period.
The recommendations draw on official guidance, but its obligations vary by jurisdiction and sector. Australian Cyber Security Centre advice offers broadly useful operational practices; Australian cloud policy and APRA expectations apply to defined audiences, while the UK joint statement is directed at UK regulated firms. Check local requirements before treating any item as a compliance obligation.
How to choose year-end IT improvements
Set a short deadline and make each win verifiable. A project is not complete because a policy was written or a tool was purchased: the team should be able to show the inventory, test result, decision, or assigned action that demonstrates progress. Keep scope manageable by selecting a few high-impact actions in each area and documenting what cannot be finished in time.
The urgency is visible in European enterprise figures, though they should not be mistaken for global adoption rates: the European Commission reported that 46.7% of EU enterprises used cloud computing in 2026, 39.9% used data analytics, and nearly 20% deployed AI. AI adoption increased by 48% in 2025 compared with 2024, according to the Commission’s 2026 report. These are EU enterprise statistics, not measures of every organization or region. European Commission figures.
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1. Reduce internet-facing exposure
You cannot prioritize what you cannot see. Build or refresh an inventory of internet-facing services, including systems managed by vendors or business units outside central IT. For each item, record its purpose, owner, support status, and how it is maintained.
- Identify externally reachable services and confirm each still has a business need and accountable owner.
- Remove services that are no longer needed. For retained services, patch vulnerabilities promptly or apply an appropriate mitigation while a permanent fix is prepared.
- Prioritize unsupported services for removal or replacement; they need increased urgency because routine vendor fixes may no longer be available.
- Review access and configuration: apply least privilege, segment systems where appropriate, and use secure configuration baselines.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre recommends rapidly addressing vulnerabilities of all severities in internet-facing services, with greater urgency for unsupported services. Its guidance also emphasizes least privilege, segmentation, and secure configuration. These are operational recommendations; whether a particular control is legally required depends on your jurisdiction and sector. Australian Cyber Security Centre guidance.
For services your team cannot safely operate, consider whether a cloud or managed-security service can provide the needed capability. Compare responsibility for security and patching, resilience and recovery commitments, cost visibility, data handling, auditability, dependency concentration, exit effort, and the staff capacity required to operate the service. No provider is automatically secure simply because it is managed.
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2. Prove that recovery works
A backup is useful only if you can restore the data and systems you need. Run a restore exercise using a recent backup and a realistic scenario; confirm that the result is usable, not merely that a job reported success.
- Select a representative system or dataset and define what a successful recovery means for it.
- Restore it in a controlled environment, record the time and any missing or corrupted data, and verify that the recovered service or files work.
- Check that backup copies are protected against unauthorized access, modification, and deletion. In particular, assess whether production credentials or network access could also be used to alter backups.
- Record gaps, assign an owner and deadline to each, and schedule another test after material changes.
When choosing backup storage, evaluate restore time, capacity, separation from production credentials and networks, tamper and deletion protection, and whether restores can be tested. An external backup drive can be one way to hold a separate copy, but hardware by itself does not make a backup protected or prove that restoration works.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre recommends recent, tested, protected backups and exercising incident response and business continuity plans. Its mitigation guidance supports treating recovery as a tested capability rather than an assumption.
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3. Make cloud cost, ownership, and risk visible
Cloud governance is not just a spending report. Inventory cloud services and legacy dependencies, name an owner for each, and review cost and risk together. Then choose a small number of migrations, retirements, or cleanup actions that the team can finish and verify before year-end.
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- List services, subscriptions, and dependencies, including those purchased outside the central IT process.
- Assign a business and technical owner, and confirm who is responsible for configuration, patching, access, and recovery.
- Review actual costs alongside business value, security exposure, resilience, and the effort needed to maintain or exit the service.
- Choose a bounded action, such as retiring an unused service or resolving one legacy dependency, and document the decision and follow-up work.
Australia’s whole-of-government cloud policy took effect on July 1, 2026. It aims to support secure adoption, transition from legacy systems, cost management, and transparency for non-corporate Commonwealth entities; corporate Commonwealth entities are encouraged to adopt it where appropriate. It is not a universal requirement for businesses elsewhere. In announcing the policy, Australian Digital Transformation Agency Deputy Chief Executive Officer Lucy Poole said, “This policy gives agencies a clearer, more consistent basis for making cloud decisions — decisions that affect the security, resilience and value for money of government services,” DTA announcement, July 1, 2026.
4. Put accountable controls around AI use
Start with a practical inventory rather than assuming employees use AI only through approved channels. List approved uses, name accountable owners, and set rules for sensitive data and consequential outputs. Make sure leadership reviews material risks and knows who can pause or change a use if problems emerge.
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- Document the AI use, its business purpose, the systems or providers involved, and the team responsible.
- Define what information may be entered, especially sensitive or confidential data, and what human review is required before consequential outputs are acted on.
- Identify risks to security, resilience, and operations, including how the organization would respond to a failure or harmful output.
- Bring material risks and decisions to appropriate senior leaders or board oversight, with owners and review dates.
Expectations differ by sector and jurisdiction. APRA expects regulated entities using AI to strengthen governance, risk management, operational resilience, and board oversight. UK authorities advise regulated firms to ensure senior leaders understand frontier AI risks and that vulnerability, protection, and response capabilities keep pace. These regulator statements do not make the same requirements applicable to every organization. APRA guidance; UK authorities’ joint statement.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.5. Map critical suppliers and shared dependencies
A supplier list is not enough if it does not show what the supplier supports or what happens when the service fails. Map providers, platforms, services, and software dependencies that underpin important operations, including external applications, libraries, and services.
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- Record the likely impact of an outage or vulnerability, how it will be escalated, and the recovery route.
- Identify shared platforms or common dependencies that could disrupt multiple services or teams at once.
- Confirm that owners know how to contact suppliers and what alternatives or workarounds are available.
APRA warns that common technology platforms can create correlated disruption risk across entities. UK authorities call for effective management of third-party and supply-chain cyber risks, including external applications, libraries, and services. Use these as relevant risk prompts, while checking whether the specific regulator expectations apply to your organization. APRA; UK joint statement.
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- The available storage capacity may vary.
6. Test continuity and fund the next steps
Close the year with an exercise that shows whether people, plans, and technology work together under pressure. A tabletop scenario can test decisions and escalation; a technical exercise can test recovery steps. Choose the format that exposes the most important gaps for your organization.
- Set a plausible disruption scenario that affects a critical service, supplier, or system.
- Exercise the incident response and continuity plan with the people expected to use it; include technical recovery where appropriate.
- Document decisions, delays, missing contacts, unclear responsibilities, and technical blockers as they occur.
- Assign each gap an owner and deadline, then prioritize unfinished work for the next budget period.
Official Australian guidance calls for exercising incident response, business continuity, and disaster recovery plans. APRA expects regulated entities to test continuity arrangements regularly against severe but plausible operational disruptions. A year-end exercise is a useful starting point, not a substitute for whatever frequency or requirements apply to a regulated organization. Australian Cyber Security Centre; APRA.
What a completed year-end plan should leave behind
For each win, keep a short record of the evidence, remaining risk, accountable owner, and next deadline. That makes progress visible without pretending every issue can be resolved by year-end. For regulated environments, validate the plan against applicable local requirements; these six workstreams are a practical prioritization guide, not a compliance checklist for every country or industry.
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