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Lenovo CEO William Amelio talks about investments in channel sales, Linux on the desktop, and Vista adoption in an exclusive interview. Here are edited excerpts.
ChannelWeb: So where do you think you're biggest growth opportunity is in regard to the channel?
Amelio: I think we have a good [opportunity] with the transaction model. I think that's all channel. Essentially bring on as many partners as we can, duplicating what we've learned in China that's been so successful for us and we've now rolled out in every major market around the world. We've still got a lot of spots where it hasn't been rolled out and it's going to be a source of great growth. In the markets where it has rolled out, the idea is to bring on even more partners.
ChannelWeb: Are there specific areas where you need partners more than in others?
Amelio: As I said, the transaction part of the business, which is the highest growth part of our business, is all partners.
ChannelWeb: How about in certain technologies or vertical markets?
Amelio: Well we're more horizontal, so anywhere we can get a vertical market with a set of partners is fantastic, whether it's financial, medical, insurance, you name it. Everyone of them is helpful. Because our [goal] as a company is not to put a vertical management system in place. Large accounts, we have account executives calling on end users making sure we build relationships up and we'll do it that way.
ChannelWeb: Along those lines, over the last year and a half since you've been on board, have you increased your channel resources, your channel-facing resources and what's the roadmap looking forward, looking at North America, for the transaction model?
Amelio: We clearly put more emphasis on the channel in the last year because we went to the transaction model. Previously we were more a large account business. Some of that is direct, some of that is indirect. But as you move into transaction, that's all indirect. In fact we've gone forward in places where you would consider there would be some normal channel conflict. That's what our web activities, which you're probably familiar with, we've actually installed BTO capability to allow the channel to use our own public web at a discount. That's gone over extremely well with the channel and that's the kind of thing you can expect from us. There will always be some channel conflict with that level of direct and a lot of indirect. We're going to work very very hard to make sure we minimize that.
NEXT: Competing with Dell, and that Packard Bell rumor
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