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Sharad Verma, Head, Commercial Channel, Lenovo India talks about the channel strategies of Lenovo India.
What is your strategy for expanding the Lenovo channel network in India?
Sharad Verma - For seamless engagement at Lenovo, our key priority is to have a unified approach for all channel partners where we can provide a one-stop shop for all their devices, infrastructure and services needs. We currently have partners who sell only one component of the Lenovo portfolio like traditional hardware and we can help them expand further and tap into the services and ESG requirements.
There has been a major emphasis on equipping the channel with technologically advanced equipment. Lenovo operates with a channel-first strategy, which means flexibility and collaboration are offered to all our channel partners. Most small and large enterprises have moved to the “Everything-as-a-Service” model. This is where Lenovo meets all of our customers' demands, from devices to infrastructure to services and beyond. We have also introduced a new channel framework called Lenovo 360 to support our channel-first approach. This is designed to help channel partners maximize use of their most important assets: time, people, and money.
With integrated sales teams across our business groups, our channel partners will be able to provide a more robust portfolio of solutions based on a combination of Lenovo hardware, services, and software. We aim to build the “channel of the future”.
Additionally, we have launched a mobile app called ‘Evolve’ as part of an industry-first initiative. This is a comprehensive app that enables partners in getting loyalty points, marketing collaterals, pricelists and other relevant information. The partners can access the contact matrix on the app for each segment to provide any feedback or escalate requests. We have over 9000 partners benefiting from using this app. It has also helped us increase our reach in remote areas where face-to-face reach is not always possible.
How do you help the partners who face problems in meeting the demands of laptops, supply chain problem, and obtaining other products?
Sharad Verma - In recent times, we have seen an increase in demand for work-from-home setups as our customers move into the hybrid cloud environment to serve the companies that need guidance. We have addressed this by consolidating our ‘as-a-service’ offerings under Lenovo TruScale which will allow businesses of all sizes to customize IT solutions through Lenovo’s full portfolio of services and products. Each of our partners is also assigned individual channel managers who are in charge of managing their customer experience.
We take feedback from our partners on a regular basis and align our demand and supply accordingly. Our Pondicherry plant facilitates with faster turnaround of our devices. We also have a strong supply chain which helps us to sort out the supply chain problems of our partners.
What plans does Lenovo have to help its offline partners go online and meet the challenge from large E-commerce platforms?
Sharad Verma - Lenovo’s solutions and services portfolio is multi-faceted, complementing diverse segments and groups. This is bucketed into segments - Attached Services, Managed Services and Device-as-a-service (DaaS), and Complex Solutions. These services are backed by the latest smart technologies, spanning across IoT, infrastructure, and intelligent application functions. This is where Lenovo has been able to step in as a comprehensive solutions and services provider, and also support all our partners in their digital transformation journey.
The main challenge for E-commerce is that commercial products have a limited play on such platforms since these products demand a lot of services and installation support. However, we ensure that there is a price parity between channel and eCommerce platforms so that there are minimum conflicts between both segments.
What has been the business growth of Lenovo through its channel partners in the last 2 years? How do you see this figure in the next 2 years?
Sharad Verma - In the last few quarters, the channel landscape has shifted to partners with a larger capacity to deliver end-to-end customer demands. As the overall consumer needs continue to evolve, the partners that have niche operations tend to face some challenges. It is critical that partners continue to work on expanding the portfolio of their offerings and solutions. We have also rolled out a new channel framework called Lenovo 360 with which our partners will be enabled and encouraged to sell across our entire portfolio, including our services portfolio. There will be several other aspects that we build into our new framework to really augment that partner experience. India is a dynamic and adaptable market, where services and solutions have become huge drivers for growth. In the coming years, we also intend to accelerate our transition into a fully integrated and comprehensive provider of services and channel-focused solutions.