Lenovo's Enterprise Product Business Strategy

On April 2, the second day of Lenovo’s new fiscal year, Lenovo officially released its enterprise-level product business strategy and Lenovo’s first network storage products and solutions.

"In five years, it has become the world's first camp IT infrastructure solution provider." In the enterprise market, Lenovo has set new goals, and a series of strategies have begun to be implemented from the China headquarters.

It is time to cultivate "crops"

2012 was the year when Lenovo’s enterprise-level products began to take off. In June, Lenovo brought ThinkServer, ThinkServer, to the Chinese market. In August, Lenovo and EMC began global strategic cooperation and announced that they will cooperate closely in the industry standard server and network storage solutions. In October, Lenovo was established. A brand-new enterprise-level product group (EPG) has enabled Lenovo's R&D and sales system for enterprise-level products to achieve a globalized layout. On January 3, 2013, Lenovo EMC LLC was formally established; in March, Lenovo was established in Taipei, China. The newly established enterprise-level product R&D center has been put into operation...

Lenovo's actions in the enterprise market are frequent and this official release of the overall strategy seems to be a matter of course. However, are Lenovo's PCs capable of doing business-class product businesses that require more technical strength? There are also many people who are skeptical.

“Some people may think that Lenovo is whimsical. We have also experienced similar queries when we first started making mobile phones. In 2010, Lenovo had only 0.5% market share in the domestic smart phone market, but after more than two years of hard work, we’ve already This figure is increased to 12.3%.” Chen Xudong, senior vice president of Lenovo Group and president of China, responded to this questioning voice with Lenovo’s performance in the mobile phone market. He said that Lenovo’s mobile phone R&D staff has expanded more than 1,000 people within two years. They can't design products from their own. They can now independently develop mobile phones that can compete with any other manufacturers. The speed of technological progress exceeds Lenovo's expectations. . This time, "by standing on the shoulders of giants, we are confident of reaching new goals," said Chen Xudong.

Gao Wenping, vice president of Lenovo Group and general manager of Global OEM Storage and Enterprise Product Group China Business, believes that technologies such as big data and cloud computing are already being applied to enterprise customers' applications. These applications no longer depend on the mainframe alone. Instead of minicomputers, they are more likely to appear in the form of low-cost, modular, and standardized x86 server products. The server and storage industry is no longer a vertical integration model, but a horizontal integrated model similar to the PC industry. Enterprises do not need to have a full set of technologies such as chips, platforms, and systems. “Latecoms like Lenovo have the opportunity to find their place under this new structure and compete with other competitors on the same starting line. Therefore, we are confident in entering this field and have the ability to succeed.”

From the perspective of Lenovo's own development, it is timely to fully enter the enterprise-class business market. On the one hand, Lenovo continues to make new breakthroughs in the PC field where it has established itself. In the mobile Internet field under the PC+ strategy, it has also made initial victories. Lenovo has also spared no effort to open up the third battlefield; on the other hand, Lenovo wants to become a century. The old stores must continue to have new profit growth points, while the enterprise-level market is exactly the high-growth, high-margin market.

"If the PC business is a bowl of rice, the mobile Internet business is the meat in the pot, then the business-class business is Lenovo's crop in the field." Gao Wenping said that Lenovo has resolved that no matter how difficult it is, Must achieve the goal.

Starting from a high starting point for storage services

If expanding the business from PC to server is a logical choice for Lenovo, entering the higher technology storage market is a new challenge for Lenovo. As a recruit in the storage industry, Lenovo's proposed storage business goals can not help but be astonishing: 2014-2015, enter the first camp in the Chinese market; in 2016, provide cloud computing data center overall solution, form an association-centered enterprise-class The business ecosystem has entered the first camp in the global market.

Lenovo’s self-confidence obviously comes from its global strategic cooperation with EMC.

“We did not have an advantage in the storage market, but through the global strategic cooperation with EMC, we have joint ventures on low-end products, co-brands on mid-range products, and EMC products on the high-end market.” Chen Xudong believes that EMC can not only help Lenovo enter the enterprise storage industry with a very high starting point, but also help Lenovo to rapidly promote the server business worldwide. "The global expansion of the server business will be very beneficial to the rapid development of our entire business. At the same time, through the joint development project with EMC, Lenovo's ability in the enterprise-class business area will be greatly improved."

In turn, such cooperation is also very valuable to EMC. Cai Hanhui, vice president of EMC and president of China, said: "This cooperation will bring significant growth opportunities to both parties. For Lenovo, it can enhance its product advantages through EMC's leading storage technology and server technology. And EMC can help us develop our business in the high school end market, especially in the Chinese market, through Lenovo's strong global coverage and sales capabilities."

At present, Lenovo has made clear its development strategy in the field of storage services: relying on its strategic cooperation with EMC to build its business infrastructure; relying on the basic capabilities of the Chinese market to achieve breakthroughs in the global market with its OEM business model; two-way expansion of product lines and collaborative server solutions Sales; Undertaking after-sales service and expanding service products; Making full use of existing channel resources, actively developing SI/ISV (system integrator and independent software developer); Working closely with EMC sales team.

Relying on solutions to fight the world

The acronym EPG of the Lenovo Enterprise Product Group just illustrates the strategy of the organization: E-Enterprise means enterprise-level products, including servers, storage, networks, software, services, etc.; P-Partnerships (Cooperation ), that is, through strategic alliances to seek new competitive advantages. Alliance partners include back-end hardware vendors, solution providers, service providers, and front-end sales partners; G - Globalization, illustrating Lenovo's goals The market is not only China but also the world.

In fact, prior to the establishment of the EPG, Lenovo had entered into some enterprise-level business and achieved good results. "From the first quarter to the third quarter of fiscal year 2012, in the full range of products covered by enterprise-level business, since its release in June 2012, ThinkServer has further reduced its gap with the first camp with a market share of 13.6%; Our storage products have grown rapidly for five consecutive quarters, and our growth rate ranks first in the Chinese market; our ThinkStation workstations have also grown rapidly, with a market share of 21.8%,” said Tong Fuzheng, vice president of Lenovo Group and general manager of China's large customer division. These achievements have made Lenovo no longer behave in the face of new challenges.

Tong Fuyi also shared with reporters the development strategy of the enterprise-class business in the Chinese market: further segmenting the industrial market, consolidating the mature industry, and breaking new industries; strengthening the overall strength of the enterprise-class business and establishing a full range of products, programs, and services; working with industry partners Establish an ecosystem centered on customer applications.

"If we say that previous associations depended on products to hit the world, then I can tell you very confidently now that we have to rely on solutions to fight the world and we must strengthen our strength through various means such as mergers and acquisitions, alliances and cooperation." Tong Fulu said that in terms of hard power, Lenovo will accelerate its breakthrough in Thinksever server and enterprise-class storage, and will extend the layout to network products. In terms of soft power, Lenovo needs more software, services, and solutions. Big investment. The software includes system management software and data center management software. The service extends from the after-sales service of enterprise-level products to various value-added services, including the outsourcing of business data centers. The solution is an important development direction in the future. In addition to building basic platform solutions in the four areas of high-performance computing, virtualization, data management, and data center construction and management, Lenovo can also target government, education, and finance. The industry offers industry solutions in a variety of subdivisions.

"In the construction of the channel system, we must balance old partners and hope that they will grow together with Lenovo. At the same time, we must also incorporate fresh blood and cooperate with more SI/ISVs," said Gao Wenping.