Abstract

Lenovo Group Limited had its origins at Legend in mainland China, starting as a personal computer (PC) importer in 1984. After becoming China’s largest PC manufacturer, it purchased IBM’s PC business in 2005. It successfully evolved into a multinational corporation and a global leader in the PC market. In 2021, it held about 24% of the global PC market share. Despite its success in the PC market, in late 2019, Lenovo prepared for a reshape of its digital and IT service-led transformation. The company began prioritizing growth in IT solutions and services for their higher profit margins, and thus began the move forward into a global digital transformation. 

In April 2021, a new business segment, Solutions and Services Group (SSG) was strategically formed after a series of reorganization to include all of Lenovo’s businesses that were not directly related to selling hardware directly to customers, and its data center services. One of SSG’s services called Managed Services aimed at combining Lenovo’s hardware, with software and IT services for clients, generating revenue from clients on a subscription basis. Ken Wong was appointed as President of Lenovo SSG to spearhead this transformation and oversee large growth targets. In mid-2021, Lenovo Chairman and CEO, Yang Yuanqing (YY), set a target for Ken to lead SSG to spearhead the company’s growth and double the company’s net profit margin in three years’ time

In 2021, approximately 90% of Lenovo’s revenue was generated from smart devices and hardware. The competition among IT solutions and services providers was intense with incumbents such as Microsoft, IBM Cloud solutions and Accenture dominating the market. How could Ken and his team transform the largest PC and laptop maker in the world to the next generation of IT solutions provider, and maintain a strong profit growth for the company at the same time as meeting the targets set for him by YY, his direct boss?

Learning Objectives

1.       Learn about the complications of reorganizing a global company with multiple locations and cross-cultural groups; and the leadership skills needed to succeed.

2.       Distinguish the strategies and solutions to transform a sizable company to suit the changing needs of its customers.

3.       Identify challenges faced by global leaders during the COVID-19 pandemic, methods used to face business disruptions, and to retrain staff on different technologies and skill sets.

4.       Learn about difficulties faced by a Chinese global company in the globalization awareness and functioning in a nationalistic transitioning world.