“Each quarter Lenovo provides more comprehensive incentive programs for partners”

What according to you is the key role that channel partners play in the Indian business ecosystem for large enterprises like yours?

Partners are extremely critical for our business. It is next to impossible to address each and every challenge that organizations face with respect to their IT Hardware. Herein, partners play a key role in IT implementation for the customers.

Please elaborate on the recent revamp that you have undergone on the commercial business structure?

Enterprise, as a business segment, currently contributes to about 40-50% of Lenovo India’s total revenues, and is therefore, an extremely critical piece for the company. Lenovo’s growth in the Indian PC business has been meteoric with IT increasing its market share year on year. Having won close to 150 new accounts in the REL business, Lenovo continues to gun for more projects in the government and education vertical. With a successful implementation of their “Protect and Attack” strategy, Lenovo has witnessed consistent growth over the years, resulting in becoming a strong contender in the personal computer market in India.

What are the key market trends witnessed by you and what kind of strategy are you employing to address the trend/s?

There has been a tremendous shrink in the PC and Tablet market. However PC continues to be the core of Lenovo’s overall strategy. Lenovo believes that the majority of enterprise users are not able to do everything on tablets, and that ultra portables and hybrid devices are likely to replace tablets at work, and 20% to 25% of business users will adopt the two-in-one devices (hybrid) over the next one to two years

What kind of initiatives are you undertaking for better partner engagement?

Lenovo is pleased to present our Channel Programs for our Value-Added Reseller community. Each quarter we strive to provide the most simple, most comprehensive suite of incentive programs designed to drive growth and profitability for each member of our reseller/partner community. We manage our programs to be simple, consistent, predictable and profitable… ensuring that you have the best possible experience selling our client, server and storage systems, along with our complete suite of services and options.

The following quick reference guide will give you a summary of each of our programs, including: TopSeller™ Base Rebate Program, New Customer Bonus Program, Partner Demo Program, TopSeller™ Volume Delegation Program, SMB Advantage SPIFF Program, Lenovo Partner Credit Program, and the MAX Stack.

For over three years Lenovo has outpaced competition in the market. We know that our success is a direct result of the loyalty, persistence, and excellence of our reseller/partner community. Our programs are designed to support partners’ commitment.

With e-commerce up and running, do you think that the offline partner business will gradually become obsolete, going by the fact that the e-commerce portal offer products at a cheaper rate coupled with the price sensitive mindset of Indian buyers?

An individual end consumer might find online purchase more profitable especially when it comes to buying laptops and smartphones. However, such is not the case with enterprises as after sales services form one of our primary concerns while implementing IT infrastructure into the organization. Even for buyers who prefer online, those who are struck with bad luck and face issues with their gadgets within a couple of months post purchase and fail to receive a replacement realize the importance of physical partners. This does not mean that I am supporting offline partners over online partners. The presence of e-commerce has acted more as a leveler and has enabled to access tech gadgets without moving out of doors. Overall, both platforms will co-exist with their own pros and cons. The only thing that vendors like us have to keep in mind is to generate a healthy ecosystem so that both can exist within the same business environment.

Anushri Mondal

(anushrim@cybermedia.co.in)