1. The Rise Of The Strategic Service Provider

The rapid adoption of off-premise, recurring revenue cloud services sparked record merger and acquisition activity in the channel in 2015 and a new channel business model -- the rise of the strategic service provider.

The strategic service providers are architecting, integrating and managing services from vendor partners, driving business outcomes with an emphasis on cloud and managed services delivered via a recurring revenue model.

Douglas Grosfield (pictured), considered one of the best and brightest in the channel, sold his stake in a respected managed service provider – Xylotek Solutions – to start a new strategic service provider business – Five Nines IT Solutions of Kitchener, Ontario. He sees the new business model as 10 times more profitable with fewer employees and a simpler, more reliable, scalable and predictable IT model for his customers.

"If you are truly listening to your customers, you are hearing over and over again the challenges they are facing and the frustration they have with IT. There is a different answer needed today," said Grosfield. "The model is changing, and you better be changing with it."