Mature markets in pink, emerging in blue - Image courtesy Wikipedia

Lenovo recently discussed their plans for focusing on the emerging Indian market and how their market leadership in China would support that growth.

The latest restructuring at Lenovo left the company organized around emerging and mature markets, with teams dedicated to each segment. Near as we can tell, the company figured that if they wanted to focus on emerging markets and capitalize there, that should be the core organization for the business. Emerging markets present an opportunity for Lenovo to capitalize on transactional business, or direct purchases by individuals and small business, which it is lacking in pretty much every market except for China. Even in India Lenovo has a relatively strong relationship business, which are regular, bulk purchases by large entities like corporations and governments.

Yang Yaunqing, Lenovo’s CEO, stressed the importance of their recent restructuring, efficient business model in China, and “history of innovation” with industry leading products as reasons why Lenovo is poised to succeed in the Indian market. However, one could argue that those are the same reasons why Lenovo was poised to succeed in North America or Europe not long after the merger took place. Indeed, the big difference here is that India is fresh territory, not yet quite dominated by one brand or another. In the “mature” markets, Lenovo’s brand recognition pales in comparison to HP or Dell, even that of its own ThinkPad product. In India, it has a chance to show these “emerging” customers what they are all about.

Mr. Yang went on to say:

“You could never afford to miss this market. But if we want to win in this market, we must have a stable leadership team which we now have. We need to focus not only on short term results but also on building core competence. A culture of commitment and ownership and not of only professional or management culture is needed.”

Frankly, I’m not getting much actual facts or actions out of that statement. While insisting they only now have a stable leadership team, their last leadership team seemed perfectly stable. The only catch is that they were made up of ex-Dell and IBM’ers who were trying to run a company that was supposed to benefit from the Chinese business model. With the “unstable” leadership removed, what else is it that Lenovo needs to win in India? Short term results…core competence…culture of commitment…bla bla bla.

The bottom line is that Lenovo actually has a decent product lineup, but they need to deliver on marketing, product fulfillment, and service (the end-to-end experience, as it were) in order to “win” in India. Being price competitive wouldn’t hurt either, something that is largely going to waste in the U.S. The effectiveness of their marketing elsewhere in the world is debatable, product fulfillment is very hit or miss, but the service experience seems mostly positive. Hopefully they can learn from the mistakes made in the “mature” markets that have inhibited their growth, and show India some ThinkPad love.

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