Channel partners should realign their strategy to focus on obtaining expertise in specific verticals and having engineering and sales professionals figure out the business challenges of their channels and figure out how IT could help mitigate those issues, Rogers said. That requires convincing company decision-makers to open up about what's not working well, he said.

MSPs too often dive right into trying to sell solutions, Rogers said, without learning about the problems the business is actually experiencing.  

"They (MSPs) don't bond with any of the problems of their clients," Rogers said. "We need to have more reason than just because the technician said so."

Most small- and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) don't have an internal IT department, so MSPs should focus on becoming the company's perfect IT department. In reality, though, Rogers said most MSPs have a ways to go before being sufficiently embedded with their client's line-of-business applications, engineering and strategy.

Partners should be building toward being able to deliver all IT needs as a service, VanDeWalker said, so that they can assist every customer no matter what happens to be the best tech solution.

"Successful partners we see in the marketplace provide everything for a fixed payment," he said.