Trend 23: Need for Flexibility Drives Standardization, Consolidation

CIOs continue to wring more efficiency and effectiveness out of their systems. Most companies have been aggressively pursuing standardization and consolidation for years, first to solve the Y2K problem, then to slash IT costs during the post-dot-com recession. And standardization and consolidation of the IT infrastructure will remain the common IT strategy, despite—or perhaps because of—today's focus on growth.

There's no sign CIOs are loosening standards or handing control of IT back to individual business units; that wouldn't allow companies to obtain the information integration and flexibility they need. Expect more companies to adopt virtual storage and servers as the new technologies prove themselves.