Many of the discussions and decisions about cloud-based offerings will be handled by business unit or function owners rather than IT, says Kamran Ozair, executive vice president and CTO at offshore outsourcer MindTree. That could pose problems down the road. "CIOs must get ahead of business users reasonable zeal for the power of focused SaaS applications that could back the enterprise into stealth architecture decisions that could be expensive to undo," says Trowbridge. "Business stakeholders want cloud, and they know smart CIOs can mitigate its risks," adds Fersht. "However, IT professionals must tool-up to deliver cloud to their business stakeholders, otherwise they risk a gap growing between business demand and IT supply."

5. The End of Customization

"Clients will be increasingly open to changing their internal processes and accepting standard 'vanilla' services in 2011," predicts Bob Mathers, principal consultant for Compass Management Consulting. "Service providers will put renewed emphasis on internal initiatives to standardize their own offerings to leverage economies of scale and stabilize profit margins." It's the stuff of benchmarking dreams, but economic conditions may turn it into a reality. Stan Lepeak, managing director of global research for outsourcing consultancy EquaTerra, also predicts more process, technology, and location standardization including platform-based solutions.

6. Prices Get Firm

Remember when you could persuade (read: bully) your provider into lower pricing? Days of auld lang syne, my friends. "Outsourcing providers have filled up their prior excess capacity and will be driving to secure higher price points," says David Rutchik, partner with outsourcing consultancy Pace Harmon. "Pounding on the table for price reduction is unlikely to be effective this year."