It’s Day 3 of company visits in Beijing and so much has happened; we’ve been whisked from one company to another, meeting entrepreneurs and industry leaders from start-ups and established companies, and learning so much along the way!~ ^.^

On Monday, the first company we visited was Lenovo and our host was Mr. Cory Grenier, the General Manager of Global Desktop PC. It so happened that while allocating the 24 companies to each person in our group based on their top 3 choices of companies, no one chose Lenovo. All the other companies were chosen by at least one person but none for Lenovo, hence I “adopted” Lenovo as the company to conduct research on and present to the rest of the group before the trip.

When we reached Lenovo’s office early on Monday morning, we were greeted by Adrian who was our guide for the Lenovo tour. He got Prof. Kau to kick-start the tour by throwing a paper plane into a round opening in the wall. As the paper plane flew into the hole, an animation video was launched on the wall, showing a paper plane that flew towards the entrance of the exhibition hall where we were to embark on the tour. The entire Lenovo tour was spectacular with videos, exhibits that lighted up when the specific products were introduced in the video presentations and Lenovo technologies on display that intrigued all of us in the group.

Some of Lenovo’s technologies on display are the wireless desktop with the wireless keyboard and wireless speakers, the high definition video reader, and a computerised basketball game using motion-sensing technology among others. We also saw the 2008 Beijing Olympics torch which was designed by Lenovo and some of us began taking pictures with it. =)

I simply loved the entire Lenovo presentation-exhibition tour and even before it ended, I was already sold on the Lenovo brand!~ =) To think that no one chose to research on Lenovo; even I myself did not consider Lenovo in the beginning… However, I am so glad I had the opportunity to research on it and to meet our host, Mr. Cory Grenier. Cory began his presentation on China’s internet industry, his experience working in Lenovo and some of the exciting new developments at Lenovo in the months to come.

Some of the key points I learnt are:
1) Leaders must regularly communicate with team members.
2) The company must seek out and listen to customers’ and employees’ suggestions and feedback.
3) As a brand, show that you are the best in the industry.
4) Keep up with emerging trends such as green technology, clean energy etc.
5) When working in a global company, understand the cultural differences and various working styles.
6) Focus on making your product according to customer needs.
7) Find out what your customer is willing to pay for and develop your product accordingly.

I also learnt that having the right company branding strategy is crucial especially now that brands are crafted by consumer opinions, rather than by what the company says about its own brand. Cory shared with us that Lenovo is branded as a global company although it is a Chinese company. People in countries like the USA may have misconceptions that Chinese branded products are of inferior quality, but the company has to show that it is not true. Lenovo does this by ensuring that its products cater to consumer needs and that they are of competent quality. One example is the IdeaPad for the consumer market that prefers nice colours and designs with larger hard disk space, and the other example is the ThinkPad for the enterprise market which prefers simple designs and functional units at lower costs.

The Lenovo company visit was really an enjoyable and enriching experience for me, and I hope to apply what I’ve learnt from this China study mission when I set up my own business in future.

Cheers,
Natasha ^.^

“Learn as much as you can while you are young, since life becomes too busy later.” - Dana Stewart Scott

More about Cory Grenier
> Presentation Innovation
> Chinavation

Tags: Beijing, IT, Lenovo, PC

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 11:44 am and is filed under Beijing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.