The IBM effect is still visible here.

However, the ultimate verdict, of course, lies with the Indian consumer and this is where the company has digressed from the IBM way. Nearly two years ago, people did not even know Lenovo. The first objective was to build brand awareness & sponsorship of KBC 2 played a huge role. Today, brand awareness of Lenovo is 85% in corporates & 74% in consumer space, as quoted by Rahul. Unlike IBM, Lenovo is competing head on in the HP dominated home PC segment. The company has therefore ramped up the distribution model significantly. There is more focus on B & C class towns as opposed to IBM’s focus on metros. The company has more than doubled its Lenovo exclusive stores to 100 currently. The multi brand outlets have more than tripled to 579 currently while the business partner network is now present in over 366 cities with 2,076 partners currently. But Lenovo is also taking its relational business model (with large corporates) very seriously. According to Neeraj, the company looks at segment- wise leadership like government, education et al. And Rahul claims the transition to Lenovo was very smooth, as he says they lost “practically no one” from their key corporate customers.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source: IIPM Editorial, 2006

An IIPM and Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Initiative