Keeping in mind its focus on channel empowerment and driving better opportunities for the channel ecosystem – Lenovo Data Center Group is all set to put spotlight on its innovative offerings in the AI, Big data and Hybrid Cloud space at the upcoming Canalys Channels Forum APAC in Hong Kong.
Sumir Bhatia, President, Asia Pacific Data Center Group, Lenovo speaks with Zia Askari from ChannelDrive.in about the company’s upcoming participation at Canalys Channels Forum APAC in Hong Kong.
What is the key focus of Lenovo DCG participation at Canalys Channels Forum (CCF) APAC 2018?
Being a channel-first company, Lenovo is constantly innovating to create best-of-breed programs and tools to empower our channel partners to do business with ease. At this year’s CCF APAC, our key focus is to share our transformation as a data center company and our new channel transformation strategy.
We are winning in the data center space. To share a few firsts, we are the #1 supercomputer company in the world and we rank #1 in customer satisfaction for servers and server reliability. Via our NetApp partnership, we have expanded our storage portfolio, giving us 93% reach to the market, compared to 15% previously.
Our channel transformation strategy is designed to make it easy for partners to grow with us through co-marketing, co-selling, and enablement. You will hear about co-marketing events and campaigns such as ThinkSummit and Digital Campaign Studio, as well as co-selling and enablement tools that allow our partners to spend more time on selling.
Our strong emphasis on customer centricity translates to us putting the needs of our channel partners at the core of our business, constantly seeking feedback we can act on to improve and deliver greater partner and customer satisfaction.
Why do think this is an important event to participate now?
At Lenovo, we put our channel partners at the heart of our business—with more than 90% of Lenovo’s DCG business coming through our channel partners in Asia Pacific.
CCF is our marquee channel event of the year, and this is an opportunity for us to share with our partners the huge growth potential that the franchise offers. Partners can hear about our tools and investments that makes it easier for them to be successful.
This event also gives us an opportunity to hear from our channels through the various interaction platforms.
What can we expect from Lenovo DCG at the event? Is there any product or solution showcase that’s going to be there?
We are continually improving our infrastructure and processes to promote ease of doing business with channel partners. A few examples include:
Digital Campaign Studio “The Power of Zero”
Lenovo DCG’s self-service digital marketing tool offers our channel partners access to solutions campaigns and co-marketing assets for their marketing efforts on our single platform Lenovo Partner Portal (LPP), in turn enhancing operational efficiency. Together, Lenovo and our partners can create and benefit from the best co-branded lead-generating campaigns, while helping partner speed up their go-to-market activities with customers.
Lenovo Bid Portal (launching early 2019)
This enhanced tool will contain useful pricing, quotations and deal registration information all on a single platform, minimising pricing turnaround time (e.g. generates quotes in less than 4 hours) while delivering channel partners a more streamlined and seamless experience.
Lenovo Maestro (launching April 2019)
Lenovo DCG is launching a mobile app platform for our partner audiences—to reward, inform and perform. Providing simple, transparent and measurable metrics across Sales, Presales, Marketing and more will enable channel partners to chart their growth better and reap greater rewards.
Is Lenovo DCG going to speak on any particular topic during the event?
I will be giving a keynote “Accelerate your business in the age of intelligent transformation.”
We are also running two panel sessions focused on AI & Big Data and Hybrid Cloud. Additionally, two workshops – “How to address 93% of the storage market” and “Enabling partners to win in the age of digital transformation”.
The demands of artificial intelligence (AI) are pushing the boundaries of technology, and this new wave of data, cloud computing and machine learning is creating an intense appetite for compute and storage. Therefore, some of our focus topics at CCF APAC 2018 includes sharing insights on tapping AI, Big Data, machine learning and hybrid-cloud opportunities as businesses embark on their digital transformation journeys.
Can we expect any major announcements to be made during the event?
Some key announcements will include our NetApp partnership and enhanced programmes and tools designed specially for our channel partners, ranging from incentives, streamlined operations, to co-marketing.
Lenovo DCG is innovating on the solutions it brings to market, highlighted by the strong growth of its Hyperscale and Software-Defined Infrastructure (SDI) business segments. We will continue to bring those technologies to market—by strengthening our global channel, reseller, and system integrator partnerships.
