Partners looking to expand should double down on cloud, analytics and security and shift resources away from areas where they don't have a competitive advantage.

IBM has derived all of its growth from cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security, Michele Stern, vice president of North America business partners for Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, said Tuesday during a vendor and distribution panel at the Best of Breed conference, hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company.

Partners need to strengthen support for line-of-business (LOB) executives, focus on services rather than technology, and simplify the customer experience to be successful in the years ahead. 

Logicalis CEO Vince DeLuca said his company plans to change 40 to 50 percent of its sales organization within the next three years to make IT more relevant to LOB executives as they assume responsibility for additional technology decisions.

Dozens of things can go wrong during a conference call - from a missing PowerPoint presentation to dropped calls to AWAL attendees. But Revolabs, a Sudbury, Mass.-based subsidiary of Yamaha Corp., says you can count on one thing not to let a teleconference fall short: its audio equipment.

The cloud is taking off and many partners - including the traditional VAR - want a piece of the recurring revenue pie that cloud services promise. But instead of simply reselling low-margin cloud offerings, solution providers can wrap their own professional services around cloud solutions and act as a cloud broker to their customers.