Innovation sets Lenovo apart as a PC leader

Rahul Agarwal
Executive Director, Commercial Business Segment, Lenovo India 

Recognized as a leading PC vendor worldwide, Lenovo’s star commercial product is the ThinkPad - a reliable laptop brand, computers and tablets for enterprise users. ThinkPad has been continuously improved, with on-going novelty, better design and upgraded performance.

Lenovo’s Enterprise business is called REL (means relationship). As the name suggests, Lenovo believes in building relationships with its customers. Currently, the REL business contributes to about 45-50% in Lenovo India’s revenues. Rahul Agarwal, Executive Director, Commercial Business Segment, Lenovo India talks about Lenovo’s strategies, opportunities and initiatives for the coming years.

Key drivers for Lenovo 

Education is a thriving segment in India and furthermore, state governments are increasingly working on projects that encourage adoption of computing devices in Tier II, III and IV cities. Understandably, there are tremendous market opportunities in both segments and Lenovo is well equipped to leverage them. 

Rahul comments, “Our commitment to the PC space remains intact and will remain as our central business. There is a lot of potential for profitable growth in PCs. In addition, we are driving innovation and growth by adding PC+ products in our portfolio. These are smartphones and tablets. In spite of the overall decline in global PC shipments, Lenovo’s results clearly prove great business momentum and that Protect & attack is the correct strategy for PC+ dominance, where consumerization and mobile are the dominant trends.” 

Tablets Vs laptop/desktop 

Tablets are definitely winning the heart among consumers and every vendor wants to have a portfolio of tablets. Rahul explains, “We expect that mobility at workplace will be the single most important trend that will significantly influence the future of products for the enterprise PC market. As more organizations realize the importance of technology as a business enabler, we expect a substantial interest in technologies like cloud computing, enterprise grade tablets and other mobility based devices.”

Lenovo believes that while PCs will not be replaced by tablets, they supplement the total computing experience by allowing greater collaboration and efficiency in the company. 

Schemes and Programs

Incentive schemes play a significant role in driving business efficiently and to increase productivity in any business. The incentive programs are customised to tie in with the business objectives of the company and it differs with each vertical. 

Rahul says, “We have refurbished our partner programs so that partners can earn more on achieving targets. We are also focusing on marketing and execution of high tech premium products like ThinkPad Yoga, ThinkPad Helix, ThinkPad Tablet 2, X1 Carbon and Tiny desktops. The new rewards programme, “Black Knights” incentive scheme is for its channel partners in India. This initiative is aimed at rewarding channel partners for new business acquisitions, as a means of boosting sales for Lenovo’s enterprise business, as well as incentivizing partners to go the extra mile.”

Challenges enterprises face in finding right partners 

The challenge for enterprises remains in understanding and predicting the needs of the consumers and building a partner network that is constantly evolving with the business. Rahul comments, “We have been able to build a strong channel ecosystem by helping them to evolve as we grow and taking active interest in educating them through regular communication and training programmes.” 

Effect of BYOD 

Most changes with respect to BYOD revolve around enabling employees with mobility and flexibility-based initiatives within the organization. Due to consumerization of IT, Lenovo sees a push and pull based approach to initiatives like BYOD as companies realize that it enhances employee fulfilment and output in the company. It is unavoidable and we need to support the trend by offering increasing number of mobile computing devices for our enterprise customers.