Gartner analysts examined how IT managers can implement initiatives to achieve faster return on investment (ROI) at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo. For IT managers to successfully provide rapid results, they must achieve three basic objectives: Eliminate, Consolidate and Focus.

"Deliver rapid results by eliminating clutter," said Andy Kyte, research vice president and Gartner Fellow. "Consolidate and simplify your infrastructure and applications, and focus on the one project that can make a real difference to the business. That will make business leaders sit up, take notice and understand that IT really is delivering value."

Gartner analysts said it will take strong drive and energy from IT management to refocus the IT organization and do new things. What IT delivers in the future will be tangibly different than what was delivered in the past. There have been trillions of dollars spent on computer systems over the last 35 years that have significantly improved the productivity of administrative processes. This is important and necessary, but no longer sufficient.

"In order to energize IT management to deal with the new challenges to deliver rapid results, it needs a vision that says, 'We are going to be delivering a different type of information technology in the future which is about supporting the decision makers in the organization with non-routine, cognitive work," Mr. Kyte said. "IT professionals that remain fixated on the data and transaction paradigm will be relegated to a minor role in business support."

The IT industry is no longer arranged into specific categories. IT is being redefined to a level that has not been seen before."The IT industry is being completely redefined by concepts and technologies such as virtualization, wireless technologies, consumer technologies that impact on IT, and ubiquitous access to information," said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and head of research at Gartner.

There will be continued consolidation creating super ecosystem vendors while equally resulting in a mushrooming of small, nimble non-conformist vendors. The location of these vendors will not be in existing centers of excellence, such as Silicon Valley. Competition and innovation will come from places such as South Eastern Asia and India.