India is the only PC market other than China, in the APAC region, that has increasingly become consumer drivencontributing close to an estimated 8% of Lenovos revenue in the region. Lenovos challenge was clear. It had to build a brand in the consumer (and SMB) segment. In the enterprise segment, it has enjoyed very high mind and market share from the IBM heritage.

Lenovo restructured the business into two parts: the relationship model that catered to enterprises, and the transactions segment that catered to SMBs, SOHO, and the consumer segments.

In the transaction segment, Lenovo tried to build its brand as well as expand presence. Keeping with the celebrity endorsement strategy of most PC vendors, Lenovo signed up Saif and Soha Ali Khan as brand ambassadors, and also advertised extensively on television with brand inserts in KBC and a host of cricket programs. According to an AC Nielsen study, brand awareness grew from 38% in Feb 06 to 74% in Oct 06. It also expanded its network to match that. Lenovo increased its channel partners from 1,154 to 1,976, spread across 366 cities. Exclusive stores doubled from 40 to 98, and multi-brand outlets from 148 to 564.

While brand awareness grew, channel satisfaction dipped a bit. Lenovo slipped to #4 in the DQ Channels-IDC Channel Satisfaction Survey 2007 from #2 a year back. Yet another concern was the exodus of a number of senior people including Vivek Malhotra (enterprise and mid-market) and Ajay Mittal (brand and marketing) who went back to IBM. Princy Bhatnagar too (desktop PCs) moved to Xerox. DQ

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