LAS VEGAS, NV, March 14, 2006 — Lenovo, the world’s third largest PC company, today announced its new business partner program — the Lenovo Partner Network, an end-to-end channel program featuring tools and offerings tailored to the specific needs of PC resellers. The new program, which comes less than a year after Lenovo purchased IBM’s PC division, covers the entire lifecycle of the partner relationship, including recruitment, education, training, sales and marketing tools and service and support. It features a simplified program framework with two levels of membership — the Lenovo Business Partner level and the Premium level — and simplified criteria for achieving the top level. The new program also positions solution providers as the primary route to market for Lenovo for small to medium-sized businesses worldwide, with the company tripling its SMB spend on demand generation to drive additional business to the solution providers.
The Lenovo Partner Network offers new and redesigned offerings with improved sales tools for faster and easier price quotes; new demand generation tools with building blocks and more aggressive product and solution messaging; an enhanced Technology Access Program; and a broader product portfolio of industry-leading PC technology that partners can rely on to grow their customer base. The company plans to address the unique, dynamic and flexible requirements of serving the SMB market with the worldwide introduction of the transactional business model. This new way of doing business will compliment Lenovo’s proven relationship model, which effectively serves larger customers with the innovative Think family of products.
“We’ve incorporated feedback from more than 100 of our channel partners around the world, industry influencers and members of the analyst community to build a channel program that will grow our partners’ business along with our own,” said William Amelio, chief executive officer for Lenovo. “We’re specifying business partners as the primary route to market for small business offerings. Together, we will bring customers a larger selection of products and services that fit their business and personal computing environments as well as their budget.” Two-Tiered Model, Simplified Approach Under the new program, solution providers are divided into two categories: the Lenovo Business Partner level and the Premium level. The Business Partner level is for partners selling Lenovo products, including the recently announced Lenovo-branded desktop and notebook models targeted at small businesses. The Premium level is for partners who invest in developing their skills and growing their Lenovo revenue. Premium level partners are eligible for incremental rewards as well as additional sales opportunities, lead generation, enhanced demo discounts or co-marketing dollars. Both levels benefit from Lenovo’s expanded product line targeted to small businesses and enhanced ThinkVantage Technologies, which enable partners to offer expanded services and more solutions for new and existing customers.
Channel partners will benefit from the simplicity of the Lenovo Partner Network, which scales back the former three-tier system to two tiers and replaces the old model’’s complex points table with two criteria — skills and revenue growth — that determine Lenovo Premium Business Partner status.
Selling Small Business The new transactional model will help solution providers deliver the right PCs at the right price points to the fastest growing segment of the market, small business, which Lenovo defines as companies with 1-99 employees. Product innovation, time-to-market and delivering value to the end user are critical. The Lenovo Partner Network will be flexible to address fast-changing market dynamics with highly efficient and end-to-end business processes.
As part of this effort, Lenovo is changing the name globally of its popular Think Express program to TopSeller™, which is now even better with the addition of new Lenovo 3000 offerings. TopSeller is at the core of the Lenovo transaction business model, providing a variety of notebook and desktop offerings tailored to the needs of very small, small and medium business customers. Business Partners will benefit from consistently profitable front-end margins with competitive pricing on all models and targeted demand generation and incentives. Quick product availability from Lenovo as well as simpler transactions with no special bid complexity are just a few of the ways doing business with Lenovo will be easier.
Four Pillars Support Worldwide Growth The Lenovo Partner Network offers a superior value proposition to its channel partners based on four pillars of support for worldwide growth, including:
Current Lenovo solution providers will automatically be part of the Lenovo Partner Network program. Business Partners will also continue to have access to the benefits earned under the IBM PartnerWorld program through their IBM relationship. To learn more about the program or to enroll, please visit: www.lenovo.com/partner .
About Lenovo Group Ltd. Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is dedicated to building the world’s most innovative personal computers. Lenovo’s business model is built on innovation, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction as well as a focus on investment in emerging markets. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable high-quality, secure, and easy-to-use technology products and services worldwide. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information, see www.lenovo.com .