What is it that makes this title such a thorny issue for Petlon? After all, by his own account, he embraces much of the ideology behind the services broker model. He estimates he spends about a third of his time talking with leaders in the business about what they’re working on and how technology can help them move forward — enough to exorcise the specter of shadow IT. And he’s a self-professed “huge cloud fan,” counting about two dozen cloud-hosted applications in use at his company. So, is the issue just a matter of semantics, then? Yes and no.

“My job is to provide appropriate technologies to meet the needs of the business, whether that’s in the cloud or in-house, but I don’t think of myself as a service broker,” Petlon said. “I’m still a value-added function in the business; I’m not someone who arranges for someone else to provide a service.”

And therein lies much of his concern — CIOs and IT leaders devolving into a strict interpretation of “services broker.” He’s seen it happen to IT leaders who’ve given up on keeping up, Petlon said. They become glorified outsourcers, fighting with vendors and shuffling contracts while their relevance within the company diminishes.

“Increasingly, a lot of IT groups are finding themselves in that role, managing contracts, executing [service-level agreements] — and other than that, they’re not improving the business process,” he said. “It’s kind of like admitting defeat, saying ‘we’ll take that contract management vendor relationship role instead of being an active part of the business and trying to help the business compete on a higher plane. I think it’s the wrong path.”

If the title “CIO” becomes synonymous with “services broker,” will your role smell as sweet? Certainly there are benefits to the services broker model. But you should be aware of whether you define the label or it defines you.

What I have to offer is not so much a guess at a trend as a sure thing. How do I know this? Because it’s already happening. I’ve been talking to analysts and CIOs about the idea of the IT organization as a services broker. IT as a services broker is a trend my colleagues have written about previously, and it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere but forward. From small and medium-sized businesses to large enterprises, IT organizations more and more are responding to the one-two punch of the consumerization of IT and an unstable economy by getting lean and decidedly less “mean.”

To keep up with the demand for flexibility from the business and to keep costs in check, IT leaders are positioning their organizations and themselves as facilitators of technology services rather than as the managers and mainframe-minders of yore. To remain relevant and keep tech missteps by the business at bay, IT is retaking the cloud reins from customers and stepping in to take over a myriad of cloud vendor relationships.

It’s not an overnight change. It requires a lot of planning, of course, and a lot of talking with the business to get to know customers’ needs and soften the Grinch-like reputation of the “Department of No.” The biggest benefits (sure to make eyes light up and hearts grow three sizes in the C-suite) are the financial ones. Done right, Chief Technology Officer Abdullah Haydar said, the financial benefits are huge. Think no more periodic hardware refreshes, leaner staff, less downtime for maintenance. In fact, a focus on finance is really the key here, he said.

The most important thing to do when setting down this services path, Haydar said, is to evaluate the ROI and present a business case. And for goodness sake, don’t rush it.

“Any CIO can tell you a huge number of projects fail because people rush in,” Haydar said. “If you migrate haphazardly, you risk having colossal failures, you risk having your systems fail. You have to have proper planning and proper management … there is nothing about this [strategy] that says the same lessons don’t apply. You need proper planning and a business case. You have to prove it’s worthwhile and have a plan of execution.”

I hope you’ll check out the full story after the holidays and share your thoughts on the whole concept of IT as a services broker. And when you do, feel free to “regift” it on the social media platform of your choice — I won’t be offended at all!