The world’s largest PC maker Lenovo is looking to replicate its success in global markets in India, where it is aiming for the top position in PCs in the next 12 months.
Asia Pacific (APAC) has been identified as one of the key growth engines for Lenovo, for which the company is investing in incremental people who are strategic to growing the business.
Speaking to
“And Rahul Agarwal, who has successfully led our commercial business over the last three years, will take over as Managing Director, India effective July 1.”
Both these appointments come at a time when Lenovo is gearing up for its next phase of growth, diversifying into smart connected devices while continuing to maintain a strong PC focus.
“India is our biggest strategic opportunity market, where we are currently the number three PC vendor. Amar and his team had a great FY2015 delivering a 54.8 per cent YoY growth in total units of PCs, Tablets and Smartphones shipped and 25.1 per cent YoY growth in revenue. Our objective is to get to number one position in the next 12 months” said Lappin.
According to IDC, a total of 9.7 million units of PCs were shipped in FY2015 with HP leading the market.
APAC contributed 14 per cent to Lenovo’s total revenue of $46 billion. “Considering that APAC constitutes about 33 per cent of the world’s population, my team should be contributing a lot more. There’s a big opportunity in APAC of which India plays a big part. I told my team, that they need to be like sharks, moving all the time for water to run through their gills,” added Lappin.
Hiring specialistsThe company is scouting for key talent in sales and marketing for its Enterprise business which it recently acquired from IBM and for specialists in supply chain, finance and e-commerce to fill in the talent gaps within the company. Lenovo’s diversified product portfolio from smartphones, PCs, tablets all the way up to the data centre allows the company to have diverse revenue streams and embark on a PC plus strategy.
For instance, 12 months ago, PCs contributed 82 per cent to Lenovo’s revenue worldwide, which was down to 64 per cent in Q4 of FY2015.
Closer home, in India, Lenovo sees huge growth contributions from smartphones and PCs in the next 12 months.
The company is in the process of conducting due diligence on the need to set up a manufacturing facility for smartphones and tablets, especially after the Centre announced a 10-11 per cent duty benefit for ‘Make in India.’
Customer voiceLenovo is launching ‘Voice of the Customer’ initiative in India and Japan later this month. “The idea is to ensure we are getting the right customer feedback specific to the geography, and using that feedback to change our product right from the design process itself.
The Voice of Customer score is a part of our individual KPIs this year and we will need to show improvement on that score for our regions” said Lappin.