In the last one year, Lenovo faced losses of $226 million globally. In India too, its performance was not as one would have expected. What contributed to this?
Liu Jun: In Lenovo, we have two core competencies. We have leading business in global large enterprise segment and we have leading marketshare in China. In the last one year, because of the ups and downs in the market, most of the marketshare shifted to consumer side globally, and after Olympics, the Chinese economy has not been stable. But we are confident that we will now build our momentum in the market.

Fran O'Sullivan: Consumer segment has been very strong in China but not in other countries. The key for us is to have a portfolio of the Idea product around the world so that it performs well in India and in other emerging countries. This is why we are positioning ourselves to high-end and large enterprise customers.

Liu Jun Sr VP-Idea Product Group, Lenovo	Frances O'Sullivan Sr VP-Product Group, Lenovo

In India, the marketshare of Lenovo has gone down by 20 percent. So how will you change this status quo?
Jun: Our effort is to achieve large marketshare in India. Our main strategy is to get our transactional business model implemented in India. It is the same model that has been successful in China.

Firstly, we are going to protect our large enterprise market segment globally and in China. Next, we are going to gain marketshare in the emerging market. We will focus on the consumer segment because this is an area which is growing much faster and the transaction is also fast.

What would be your core competencies to accelerate market growth?
Jun: In Lenovo, we possess three core competencies. We have in-house innovation capabilities and we are the leader in innovation. Second comes our capable supply chain and third one is our unique business model for faster selling, especially after we acquired IBM PC business. So we have two different business models internally to meet end-to-end customer needs for large as well as small enterprises.

Recently, Lenovo announced that it would launch 50 new products this year. What is the strategy behind launching a wide range of products in the period when the market condition is not the best?
Jun: We will be launching several products, like netbooks, notebooks or all-in-ones to meet various customers' requirements, both for SMBs and consumers. The reason for launching the wide range of products is that we have to keep a finger on the pulse of the customers.

O'Sullivan: We understand customer requirements and develop products accordingly with our partners. Our competitors shop technology from the OEMs but we develop everything internally.

How are you going to improve your supply chain management in India?
Jun: Every time we launch a product, we invest not only on products but also on the forecasting system. We are also strengthening the back-end process which will help us to factor the demand and forecast it. We can then leverage manufacturing and supply chain so that we have seamless supply to meet the demand.

We are aligning with the China team as they work on the demand and supply system. We are replicating the system that is working there currently. We have projects that are already working well and by October, we will have the system replicated in India.

O'Sullivan: We are transforming our entire IT infrastructure across the company. India is the first country where we are revamping it. In the US, it will be done in late 2010.

How are you going to enthuse your channel partners?
O'Sullivan: In India, we have presence in tier-1 and 2 markets through our distributors-Redington, Ingram, Iris and Neoteric Infomatique. We are leveraging our channel partners to tap the upcountry market.

We are pretty strong in large enterprise segment but with the products we have now, even small and medium business and mid-market can afford us. We are working along with the business partners to tap that vertical.

What about providing services and after-sales support?
O'Sullivan: We have more than 300 service centers across India located in almost 120 cities. In the last couple of quarters, we have covered a range of regions to ensure that we are present in each and every city so that customers do not have to take pains to get the service and the same is being reflected in the feedback from the customers.

Amrita Tejasvi
amritat@cybermedia.co.in

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