Solution providers will also play a vital role in closing the gap between the personalized experience offered by consumer-facing companies such as Airbnb, Costco and Starbucks and the subpar customer experience in today's workplaces, DeLuca said. Partners can help improve the customer experience by simplifying the complex world of business IT, which in turn will drive greater adoption, DeLuca said. 

"Users don't care about what complexities are under the veneer," DeLuca said. "They just want their needs met, and they want them met fast."

For this reason, DeLuca said Logicalis has dramatically shifted how it goes to market so that customers can consume analytics, mobile, managed service and as-a-service applications through alternative methods.

Partners can also boost the IT experience for employees by bringing consumer devices such as the iPhone into the enterprise. Although the iPhone has not been considered a source of enterprise-class voice and applications, DeLuca said fully integrating it into the enterprise infrastructure would improve the user experience.  

DeLuca said solution providers also have a tremendous opportunity to help commercial customers develop services practices since most enterprises want to focus more on services but lack the internal strategy to get there on their own.

To wit, DeLuca said a Logicalis survey found that 76 percent of chief information officers view their function as service-focused, while just 24 percent view their role as technology-focused.

Partners should approach clients with a service-defined strategy, DeLuca said, using technology as a lever to aid with delivering the service offerings.

"In today's world, services are being built through the epicenter of technology," DeLuca said. "While technology plays a significant role, services will play a more significant role in the future." 

Thought leaders typically focus too much on the incremental, year-over-year changes, DeLuca said, and don't pay proper attention to how technology, operations or consumption models change over a period of several years or a decade.

"We often overestimate the amount of impact of change in the short term, and we underestimate (the) amount and impact of change in the longer term," DeLuca said.