Lenovo Looks Beyond the Box

Lenovo is in the process of transforming its approach to the channel away from focusing mainly on classes of products in favor of types of customer experiences as part of a larger shift to gain market share.

For the last several years Lenovo had concentrated on maximizing profit margins during a time when the company had been experiencing an extended period of financial stress that resulted in losses in its most recent third quarter, says Rob Cato, executive director of North America Channels for Lenovo.

But with most of those issues now behind Lenovo, Cato says the channel team at Lenovo is focusing on a sales enablement strategy that aligns more closely with channel partner objectives across the three major markets Lenovo addresses, says Cato. Those segments are enterprise, small-to-medium business (SMB) and the K through 12 education market.

To achieve that goal Cato says Lenovo has been crafting IT solutions that create a new compelling digital experience.

“We want to go beyond the box,” says Cato.

For example, Lenovo has helped create augmented and virtual reality applications in partnership with Magic Leap One specifically aimed at the education market to better differentiate its PCs and servers, says Cato. That creates an opportunity for partners to not only sell hardware but also drive higher-margin services revenues, notes Cato.

Lenovo is also making it simpler for a partner to do business with them via a redesigned partner portal it launched this summer. The portal includes a revamped deal registration process and a variety of sales and marketing tools that partners can leverage. The goal is to build a path for each channel partner that ultimately moves them up the tiers of the Lenovo channel program as the level of experiential bias the partner has towards Lenovo continues to increase, says Cato.

Naturally, it may take Lenovo a while to move its entire channel in this new direction. But given the relatively thin margins any partner makes selling a device of any kind these days, it’s clear there’s a need to create a much more compelling customer experience that goes way beyond the price of the box.