The last few years has seen the shape of business IT change entirely. New technologies like AI and automation now need to be considered, alongside increasing digitalisation and the rising risk of cyber security threats.
As we look ahead to 2025, every business wants the next year to be the one where performance and profit skyrockets. Or maybe you just want some stability, when many organisations are facing unprecedented challenges.
In either scenario, having an effective IT infrastructure that secures your business is crucial. But what should you be focusing on to optimise your IT and prevent it derailing your potential into the new year?
Our experts, covering core service areas across Infinity Group, have listed the key IT trends you need to consider in 2025, and how to implement them into your business.
Futureproofed IT infrastructures_
Stacey Latham, Senior Account Manager
One key area of focus for any company’s IT strategy is futureproofing its infrastructure to support growth. As companies grow, they need technology that can keep pace—not just to handle a larger volume of work, but to adapt swiftly to evolving industry demands, customer expectations and competitive pressures.
If you’re focused on the rest of your growth strategy, this may seem like an unnecessary investment at the time. It does require a long-term vision. If the company is gearing up other areas for growth (such as sales, production, marketing etc), the technology must underpin this. Otherwise, you end up having to suffer unbudgeted spend further down the road to catch up. This is often more stressful and can derail the momentum you’ve built.
Investing in futureproofing means building a foundation that’s flexible and scalable, to enable growth without constant overhauls. This could be adopting cloud solutions, implementing robust data management practices and leveraging all the technology within the Microsoft stack. This will help a company stay agile, maximise productivity and boost its profitability.
Robust identity security_
Tom Lovell, Chief Technology Officer
Despite the rising threat of cyber attacks, many businesses do not have a serious identity access and management (IAM) security policy in place. With spam and phishing email continuing to plague businesses, exacerbated by AI, locking down access has never been more crucial. It can also safeguard you against insider risk.
The first step is to define who has access to what across your business. Aim to give people access on a need-to-know basis only, so they have what they need to do their jobs but there’s limited risk of them breaching other data.
Then, set up a strict policy to manage IAM. This should determine how access is granted, how regularly it’s reviewed, who is responsible for managing access and how access is revoked when someone changes role. This policy should be adhered to and monitored consistently for constant protection.
You can also consider bringing in IAM tools or security specialists to simplify the process.
Improved data governance_
Andrew Jenkinson, Infrastructure and Modern Workplace Engineer
Mastering data governance is crucial due to the increasing volume and complexity of data, coupled with evolving regulations and heightened security concerns. By better governing data, you can ensure data accuracy, consistency and accessibility, enabling informed decision-making and driving innovation. This will be integral for any business’s efforts to pursue growth, improve efficiencies and boost performance into 2025.
Data governance involves defining policies, standards and processes that aim to clearly outline data usage and best practice internally. By doing this, you can ensure compliance with industry regulations, protect customer privacy and minimise the risk of data loss and breaches.
So, businesses need to invest time in scoping out their policies and standards. Most crucially, these must be documented, regularly reviewed and adhere to long-term. Tools like Microsoft Purview can help you gain visibility into your data estate, making it easier to map your data and make decisions about how it should be used.
Preparing your data for AI_
Ian Stretton, Head of Practice: Infrastructure, Modern Work and Security
As businesses begin to explore AI, there’s the risk that many are jumping onto AI tools without taking the time to secure their data. While AI does drive benefits for your business in the way of productivity and creativity, it can put your data at risk. The inputs you share can be learnt by the AI, which may then share it with other users outside your organisation.
To prevent this, you need to protect your IP and key business data. This means using AI in the correct way. Firstly, you’ll need to ensure you are using secure tools which keeps data within your organisation, like Copilot. These prevent information your staff share being leaked to external users – including potential competitors.
Next, you’ll need to configure your data, including classifying and labelling it. This requires marking your sensitive data and determining exactly what AI has access to. This will enable you to prevent private customer information or internal employee data being shared to the wrong people. Again, tools like Microsoft Purview can help you manage this across your data estate.
Once your data is prepared, you’ll be able to introduce AI without security risks and get faster rewards.
The evolution beyond network firewalls_
Deeptha Madhuranga, Infrastructure and Modern Workplace Consultant
With remote work, IoT and cloud computing on the rise, traditional network security approaches are no longer sufficient for the modern threat landscape. To ensure comprehensive protection, companies should consider implementing network segmentation, SD-WAN and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
Network segmentation involves dividing a network into smaller, isolated segments. This approach limits the potential damage from a security breach by containing it within a specific segment rather than impacting the whole network.
SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) is also useful, offering a flexible way to manage network connections across multiple locations. It enables organisations to encrypt traffic, enforce strict access controls and dynamically route traffic based on security policies.
Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) takes a fundamentally different approach to network security by assuming that no user or device is inherently trustworthy. ZTNA requires continuous verification of user identity, device health and application access requests, so nobody accesses your data that shouldn’t.
By combining these solutions, you can build network security that protects your users across physical and digital locations.
Driving a cloud-based infrastructure_
Matthew Killick, Infrastructure and Modern Workplace Engineer
It’s integral that every organisation keeps on top of their IT infrastructure. Without proper maintenance, this can quickly become uncontrollable and inefficient to manage. This means remembering to remove servers that are out of support. If you don’t, you risk instability, performance issues and weak cyber security.
Part of maintaining your IT infrastructure in the modern age is looking at cloud-based solutions. This grants scalability and flexibility so you can easily adjust resources to meet fluctuating demands, which is crucial when many companies are seeking to optimise costs.
Cloud-based solutions also tend to be more secure and enabling of remote work and collaboration, which aligns organisations better to the needs to the modern workplace. This will help you improve operational efficiency and drive innovation into 2025.
Improve your IT and cyber security approach for 2025_
If you’re looking to level up your IT and security, there is no better time to start than right now. By improving your infrastructure, policies and processes now, you can minimise business damage, improve efficiencies and focus on securing the results you want in 2025.
We’ve worked with countless businesses to streamline and optimise their core IT areas, ranging from security processes to infrastructure. So, we can provide practical advice about the common obstacles companies face, backed by insights in the latest trends and technologies you can leverage.
Read more of our insights covering cyber security, compliance, cloud computing and IT.
