Ken Wong interview: ‘Lenovo was a PC company… we are beyond it now’

In 2019, Lenovo had a revenue of over $51 billion with more than 55,000 employees spread over 60 countries and serving customers in more than 160 countries.

Three pillar of change

“Our belief is we are the most ready and suitable company to bring smarter technology for all the people around us… to help them lead in this intelligent transformation.”

Wong knows the next question will be on how Lenovo will go about achieving this. “There are three things that we are focusing on. First is Smart IoT, this is the PC, the phone, the head mount device, the smart hub… all the endpoint devices which have not only network connectivity, but also intelligence and understand you better and can perform better without human intervention.”

The second is Smart Infrastructure. “This is coming out from the acquisition of the Intel-based server business from IBM six years ago. So that will have computing power coming out from the server, networking product and storage essential for cloud computing,” Wong explains.

Changing the product portfolios helped Lenovo improve its gaming segment growth (Express Photo: Nandagopal Rajan)

“Now, when you add smart devices together with smart infrastructure, with algorithms, then you can come up with something called Smart Solution or smart industry solution. For example, last year we helped one of the largest oil refinery companies on the planet to install sensors and deploy AI and deep learning to help them improve their oil refinery process. This saved them millions of US dollar,” he adds.

Wong also sees the role of the chief information officer in companies transform as his business changes. “A few years ago, most people will say CIO is more a supporting role. In the past two years or three years, people look at it as one of the most important roles in the corporation. Because, any business today, if they’re not able to leverage technology, if they are not able to leverage artificial intelligence and deep learning and big data analytics, there will be a lot of headwind for their competitiveness.”

Still growing in PCs

But is this transformation necessitated by the pressures on the PC industry in most parts of the world? “The driving force for our new strategy is coming from what the customer wants,” he says, adding how this is more about equipping customers for the fourth industrial revolution that is on the anvil. “Even in the PC segment, there are pockets of growth in Asia, especially India.” In India, Wong explains, the implementation of GST has led to some kind of automation and technology in SMB segment. “That also created a lot of demand in the market. The second pocket of growth is actually gaming,” he says, adding how a revamp in the lineup has propelled Lenovo to the second slot in this segment in countries like India.