Lenovo talks up channel "revitalisation"

Milko van Duijl (MvD), president of mature markets at Lenovo tells CRN about Lenovo's plan to revive its channel program.

CRN: Can you give our readers an idea of what your role is at Lenovo?

MvD: I am responsible for driving business growth at an international level. I lead a multi-market team in serving the high concentration of global commercial, large enterprise and premium SMB customers within a developed markets organisation across North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia/New Zealand, Israel, and Global Accounts.

CRN: When did you take up this role?

MvD: In March 2009 following the redesign of the company's business into two go-to-market organisations.

CRN: Why is there two go-to-market organisations?

MvD: One is focused on developed markets and the other is focused on emerging markets. The world is no longer defined by traditional geographic and political borders. Rather, the PC industry is more effectively viewed in terms of the types of customers, market dynamics and expectations that transcend geography, language and traditional economic definitions.

CRN: What are Lenovo's channel plans?

MvD: Our global initiative is to revitalise our engagement with the channel. Locally this sees investment in a Sydney based sales support team covering the Australia and New Zealand region, as well a demand generation team focused on the creation of leads which we will work with channel partners to secure.

CRN: How does the program work?

MvD: Our strategy is to draw on the scope of channel coverage that is such an important part of the Australia market. The key here is around combining our products, with our channels coverage and expertise.

CRN: Why the changes?

MvD: Our commitment extends to where we want to focus our own resources, as well as way in which we engage with the channel. The changes are about giving the channel the confidence that we need this alliance to be a strong one, giving them as many opportunities as possible to provide end-to-end solutions to a variety of customer bases.

CRN: What do you hope to achieve with the program?

MvD: The ultimate end result is about channel revitalisation and we want our channel partners to have the confidence in Lenovo's investment in their business.

CRN: How many local resellers do you have on board now?

MvD: While I can't tell you the exact number of resellers we have on board, what I can tell you is our channel partner base is strong across both A/NZ.