Straight Talk: Fiona O'Brien, Lenovo Ireland

17-07-2006

by Deirdre McArdle

As Lenovo moves into its second year of operations in Ireland, Deirdre McArdle catches up with the firm's general manager, Fiona O'Brien, to see how the past year has been and what the future holds.

ENN: The Lenovo brand is not particularly well known in Ireland. Has that been a challenge for you here since you've launched? How do you hope to change that?

O'Brien: Absolutely, it's been the most critical challenge we've had to face in Ireland. The joy of coming from a company like IBM was that you never had to explain who you were and, positive or negative, people have an opinion about the company. Effectively, Lenovo was an unknown quantity outside of the Asian market. It's strange for the Lenovo people who come from the Asian side of the business, because they are so well-known, they are absolutely dominant. The fact that we are an unknown quantity is a challenge for them and for us, but the thing is that it's not something you can change in a day, or even a year. You have to have a long-term strategy to get people to understand what the brand stands for, what kind of company we are, what we offer that's different from what they already have.

Considering though that we've only been in existence for a year and a month, it's been a phenomenally successful launch. We have a very high profile in the SMB market; you're not going to see it in the consumer market but in the markets that we're targeting we've been quite successful at building the brand. It's going to be an exercise that will continue though for many, many years.

ENN: Lenovo is purely aimed at the business market. Do you have any plans to focus on the consumer market in the future?

O'Brien: Well if you look at where we came from and the heritage we have, Lenovo in China is a hugely successful organisation in the SMB and retail space and with IBM in the business sector too. With the combining of the two businesses we have the wherewithal to play the spectrum. Our aim at Lenovo in Europe and across the world is to build up our business penetration so that our market share in the corporate space increases. That's not just for large companies, we are very much focused on SMBs -- small businesses and very small businesses. The structures we have in Europe and the US came from the IBM corporation so we're not geared up to do consumer trading, we don't have the wherewithal that we would like. So it really isn't a focus for us; the focus is to gain market share in the business sector.

ENN: Speaking of SMEs, we've seen in recent times smaller businesses becoming more and more aware of technology, with their spending on IT increasing as a result. Is that a trend you think is going to continue?

O'Brien: I think it's absolutely crucial; I don't think they can exist in a business environment without some level of reliance on IT -- that's how you receive all your communication these days. People don't even pick up the phone anymore; all communication is done via e-mail, so for a small company, now, more than ever, it's become absolutely critical for them. The key issue for smaller firms is that they get value for money and they get something they can rely on.

In large companies you have the dedicated IT department with its helpdesk and technicians et cetera, whereas smaller firms don't have that, so the key for that market -- and this is something Lenovo is working on -- is to put a whole package together for SMBs so they have access to a total IT solution, which would include communications and technology. This is something we're working on at the moment with a number of partners.

ENN: Dell is the undisputed leader of the PC market in Ireland, and the world really. Do you think Lenovo will ever challenge Dell's dominance?

O'Brien: There's no disputing that Dell are absolutely dominant, they're dominant in a number of the markets that they play in. But there's always room for choice. Nobody wants a monopoly situation, and the focus that we have is on the extra pieces, such as the reliability of the machines, on the helpdesk and the all-in-one solution. Nowadays a lot of what matters is the overall cost of the machine, like how much it'll cost to keep it running, so there's no question that we can challenge anyone in that market.

ENN: What are Lenovo's targets for the Irish market?

O'Brien: Well, as I've said we were in an unusual scenario when we launched in Ireland, being a new business in some ways, and having been a business the day before, so we were an unusual business in some ways. Looking ahead, we have very aggressive targets across the world, we want to be as successful in all our markets as we are in Asia, where they are number one and absolutely dominant.

Of course each market will be different, like for example, Ireland is very SMB-orientated. When I'm talking to my team on a Monday morning, the message I give them is "let's get out there and get after that SMB space."

ENN: It's been said that the number of households in Ireland that have a PC is surprisingly low. What do you think should be done to change that?

O'Brien: For a relatively high knowledge country it's extremely low. Personally I would put it down to a lack of exposure in the education system. Unless you're lucky and you're in a school that has a very active parent association that's managed to get together and put some funding in and get some machines in there, then you just don't get the exposure. So that needs to change.

Up until recently, it wasn't cost-effective to have a PC in the home, but that's obviously changing now as prices fall. Increasingly as you see more and more people buying PCs and becoming more comfortable with them, I think you will see the penetration levels grow.

ENN: Mobile working is becoming a bigger and bigger part of Irish work life; indeed a recent survey by Vodafone claimed that 24 percent of people were already regularly working outside of the office. Do you think this is a trend that's going to continue, and if so what's Lenovo's plans for that?

O'Brien: I think the trend of remote workers is going to continue for a number of reasons, particularly when you look at the Dublin market. It's becoming more and more difficult to get around, and the price of property in the city is prohibitive so more people are buying way outside of the city. So these two things are pushing the adoption of remote working, and remote working works well, provided you have the right gear.

And this is where connectivity is so important and why we were delighted to do the deal with Vodafone, and I think the deal has signalled to the market that this is the right way to go.

The other elements around the mobility factor is that the devices are getting smaller and smaller, and everybody wants everything built in. People want as much functionality in one device as they can possibly get. In the long term I would see a lot more convergence in that space; I don't see it right now but it is certainly an area that we will be investing a lot in product development going forward.

ENN: We've noticed in the quarterly PC shipment figures that laptops are the driving force behind the continuing growth of the market. Do you think in the future that laptops will be favoured over PCs?

Ireland is a strange one because up until very, very recently the desktop was still growing at a phenomenal rate. That's started to change now and I think we're going to increasingly see devices getting smaller and lighter.

ENN: Looking ahead then to the next few years of Lenovo in Ireland, what can we expect?

Well, world domination [laughs]. We are very clear -- we are number three in the market, and we're not happy being number three. There's a huge requirement in Ireland for a reliable PC provider and we think we can fill that gap.