The wide acceptance of Lenovo as a Channel-friendly company gets reflected in the testimonials that it receives from its distribution and re seller community. By interview given to our spokesperson by Mr Anand Chakravarty , President- Redington (India) ltd we got to know about the relationship between these two companies – one a principal vendor and the other a national distributor. How much time you have been with Lenovo? Our association has been on ever since Lenovo began its operations in India. Lenovo is a channel-friendly company and we owe a part of our success to it. How has been your journey with Lenovo in terms of support? From a product perspective, Lenovo has an ever-expanding product portfolio. The best part is that they keep in view the distribution community while devising their growth plans. It provides us an opportunity to grow along with them and makes us invest in the right resources and places. It is a company that has shown a lot of promise and vision with respect to its investments and capital to identify the right production technologies across different portfolios. This has not only helped us alone but the entire distribution community to grow. It has expanded its horizon across all segments – commercial, consumer and enterprise – and has never been stagnant. How instrumental has been the role of Lenovo in shaping your business? By establishing an effective channel strategy, Lenovo has been able to increase channel engagement, thereby boosting growth and profitability. Lenovo has always believed in implementing fair and ethical practices to grow its business. It has been successful in realigning its strategies to match with the business goals, backed by a comprehensive marketing programme to create awareness. As incentive schemes are important to drive business efficiently and increase productivity, it keeps on revamping its partner programmes so that partners can earn 50% more on achieving targets. Besides, it creates the right mix of communication, enablement and engagement policies and maintains an open communication with us. To help partners maximize their growth opportunities, Lenovo sets targets depending on the vertical and profile they are into. As mentioned, Lenovo introduces reward programs from time to time that are aimed at rewarding partners for new business acquisitions. By such initiatives, we have been able to grow, by way of identifying the opportunities in specific segments of the market. What has been your core strength in helping Lenovo to grow further? The basic strength of any distribution company is the availability of capital, deploying resources in the right place and getting the kind of reach that Lenovo or any other brand needs. Our strength comes from the following aspects – Capability to invest in inventories; having the required number of offices across the country and looking at a countrywide geographic expansion with the help of more than 25,000 channel partners with whom we share a cordial business relationship. We operate through 54 branches and reach out to more than 150-160 cities across the country. This has definitely helped Lenovo to expand its presence in all the key markets. What kind of projects have you associated yourself with Lenovo? Without naming any projects, I can say that Lenovo has grown immensely in the small and medium enterprises together with the distribution and the partner community. With respect to its enterprise products, Lenovo has been doing well in all the major sectors like BFSI, Public Sector and SMBs. We as an active association are participating in every kind of projects with it. What message would you like to convey to the partners through our medium? To stay ahead of the curve, channel partners need to learn about new technologies that can help them to be more competitive in the industry. Also, they can follow a more consultative approach rather than just being the sales point of contact, which will add more value. Lenovo has undertaken several engagement initiatives on the channel front and imparts training for partners every quarter, which helps them to understand the market better. Lenovo relies on its strong relationship with the channel community to extend its reach and considers them as natural partners in profit. I believe more and more partners should join Lenovo’ s channel ecosystem because it is a company that works in tandem with everyone and tries to have an open discussion for initiating anything new. It is a wonderful company to work with.
