Q: Lenovo has offices worldwide including headquarters in Beijing and Raleigh, North Carolina. How has this decentralized system of management made Lenovo more competitive?
A: This allows us to utilize skills and use ideas from any part of the world and apply them to the business in another part of the world. We no longer just have marketing concepts for the U.S. business coming from U.S. employees. A perfect example of this is something Lenovo did last year. We centralized all of our creative marketing out of Bangalore, India, together with our marketing partner, Ogilvy and Mather. New ideas, plus rapid execution equals winning for Lenovo.
Q: Where (geographically) do you see Lenovo growing the most in the next five years?
A: China will continue to grow rapidly, along with Russia, Brazil and Eastern Europe.
Q: What measures is Lenovo taking to penetrate and harness emerging markets?
A: I think one of the biggest things we're doing in the emerging markets is more sports marketing. Along with that, we've also begun to establish more "store fronts" as we have in China, so our customers have the ability to physically see our products.
Q: How has the state of the U.S. economy affected the way Lenovo does business in China, India and the rest of the world?
A: I can't really say this has affected the way Lenovo does business anywhere outside of the US.
Q: What challenges you the most in your job?
A: Communication. I previously worked for IBM and spent a lot of time working with people all over the world, but at the end of the day, the majority of the people I worked with were in the U.S. Now, I spend 75 percent of my time here in China and the rest of the time between India and a couple of other places. Communication is so much more important now. And, I don't mean just the language barriers (that is a major challenge though). Having clear communication and empowering the teams to make decisions is very important. It's a new thing for most people here.
Q: Will you be attending any Olympic events?
A: I hope so! As of now, I have one ticket to beach volleyball (every Lenovo employee in Beijing receives at least one ticket to an event). My younger brother will be in Beijing for most of the games, he wants to get some tickets to some of the weight lifting events, so have to try to get some of those. I'd also like to catch a few baseball games.
Q: What role have you played as an employee to help out with Lenovo's Olympic efforts?
A: My teams in Bangalore and Beijing have done a few things to help out with Lenovo's Olympic Websites. I'm managing the IT for our International Hospitality program during the Olympics.
(China.org.cn, June 26, 2008)