It so happens that Carousel has extensive expertise in one of the richest portfolios of enterprise-class audio-visual (AV) integration and videoconferencing technologies around. Its Juniper and Extreme relationships provide the network foundation needed to support AV and videoconferencing seamlessly, while its application development experience marrying Avaya's unified communications platforms and with the Microsoft Lync client has been demonstrated in key verticals, such as health care. The Microsoft partnership is particularly strategic, given the services revenue that the combination of Avaya and Microsoft Office 365 creates, he said. During the past decade, Carousel has earned "partner of the year" kudos for Extreme, Juniper and Avaya, among several other technology vendors.

Carousel holds frequent conversations about the consumption model for these services: on-premises versus some combination of private and public cloud infrastructure, Marsh said. According to the recent Forrester survey cited above, 29 percent of network and telecommunications managers intended to use some hosted or cloud-inspired delivery model. "The cloud is definitely disruptive. People want to talk about it and understand the consumption model," Marsh said.

That's why Carousel is standing up cloud-delivered versions of its voice and video solutions in its co-location facility. "Clients want to own their direction," he said.

Since the integrator was founded in 1992, it has grown revenue an average of 30 percent to 50 percent annually, and there are 6,000 customers on its account list including 35 members of the Fortune 100. For 2013, Carousel recorded $370 million in annual revenue. Still, Marsh is tempering his expectations for this year as more of Carousel's business shifts to cloud offerings and managed services. Right now, the integrator is on track for sales expansion of 10 percent to 12 percent. But some areas, such as visual communications, could drive 300 percent growth year-over-year. "The more you put into cloud, the less growth on the top line, the more growth on the bottom line," Marsh said.

While Carousel doesn't take on new vendor relationships often because of the cost involved with developing engineering skills, the company is exploring potential partners with vendors of cloud security platforms and technologies that complement its communications offerings. In addition, it is evaluating deeper relationships with ISVs in the healthcare space such as iMDSoft, a maker of clinical information systems. Last fall, it announced a bundled telehealth solution in collaboration with Polycom and NuPhysicia. These sorts of industry solutions will become more common as Carousel evolves.

"We've done a good job of changing with the times," Marsh said. "Now, we're becoming more focused around the business relevancy of these technologies. We're approaching them at the line of business."