HP Inc. launched print-as-a-service more than a decade ago, and after some initial hesitation, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based vendor today sells more than 70 percent of its print business as a service on the corporate side, according to Tami Beach, HP Inc.'s senior director of Americas support services.

In order to accelerate print-as-a-service in the personal systems space, Beach said HP Inc. is working to develop relevant programs for channel partners. The vendor is just starting to see rapid adoption in that space as well, Beach said.

Big picture, Beach said HP Inc. is focused on improving its economic value proposition by shifting from transactional to contractual relationships and focusing more heavily on device-as-a-service and trends and mobility, security and the merging of the two- and three-dimensional worlds.

HP Inc.'s channel can additionally leverage the vendor's global supply chain, call centers and parts in the field to help them extend their reach nationally or even globally, Beach said.

But too many partner sales organizations are still focused on product features, speeds and fears, and on installation and maintenance rather than business outcomes, said Sorice of Wayne, Penn.-based Sungard AS.

Sorice encouraged solution provider executives to sit in on sales team reviews and listen to how they sell, with the intent of getting them to focus more heavily on product evolution and fulfillment of the customer's digital strategy.

"It's less about 'built to last,' and more about 'built to change,'" Sorice said. 

Ray Paganini, CEO of Mentor, Ohio-based solution provider CornerstoneIT, who was in the audience, said more than half of his customers understand, see the benefits of and are fine with transitioning at least some of their business to the cloud.

However, Paganini said he has seen hesitation from many of his peers in the IT channel who had grown accustomed to having customer information in their own data center and didn't want to change. Instead of transforming over the past four to six years as CornerstoneIT did, these solutions providers are now being forced by their customers to jump into the cloud even though they lack the technical expertise.

"Clients are now saying 'I'm moving to the cloud, with or without you,'" Paganini said. 

But that transformation isn't easy, Paganini said, since legacy sales reps will typically rely on what they're comfortable with. To overcome that hurdle, Paganini said partners must put the right salespeople in place and come up with a creative compensation plan.