We spoke to Lenovo Singapore General Manager Ronnie Lee in September last year about the new Work-from-Home paradigm, and he mentioned that the digital transformation to remote workforces was already in progress, and accelerated with the pandemic. While the ‘exit’ to the pandemic is still some time away, have you seen the demand for Lenovo’s products and services for remote work accelerating?
We had a very good 2020 – the pandemic has accelerated the purchase of our products. If we look at platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, the SLS (Student Learning Space) that the Ministry of Education uses as well as Google workspace, they have enabled Home-Based Learning, Work-from-Home and other means of telecommunication from anywhere, which are adopted by education institutions and businesses now. This development has driven the demand for our devices. On top of that, we (Lenovo) have also observed a few trends from our performance in the last few years.
Managed Services: Most businesses are moving towards cloud computing, and we have also started to see the rise of ‘anything-as-a-service’ (XaaS), where cloud computing is adopted for a work-from-anywhere model.
Consumption upgrade: Customers are spending more time than ever on their screens and devices, and they are also upgrading their devices more recently and regularly.
Application upgrade: As more companies embark on an intelligent transformation, as well as adopting A.I., more powerful, more recent devices will be required.
These factors have contributed to a continued strong demand for Lenovo. In fact, we have introduced a new vertical for our new financial year (started in April 2021) – the Solutions and Services Group, to explore growth and potential areas that we can tap with these three emerging trends.
It seems a little strange, but the Work-from-Home shift has refocused user experience on the humble notebook webcam, which is still 720p. With the massive usage shift to online video meetings and conferencing, will Lenovo bring its top-end Full-HD webcam and Unified Communication systems to more mainstream devices?
Good question! At this moment, we will need to do a bit of a trade-off in terms of the laptop functionality, size and quality of camera. As consumers want thinner, lighter and bezel-less laptops, the quality and capabilities of the camera will be compromised, in favour of the form factor. However, if you follow Lenovo’s 2021 MWC announcement, we have launched our ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 which is equipped with a 1080p camera, and this is only the beginning. More suites of products will be coming up in this line in the near future. We also have a suite of ThinkSmart collaboration solutions which leverage Microsoft Teams and Zoom platforms, enhancing our Unified Communication offerings.
Can you speak about some of the new Lenovo Go accessories, such as the Go Wireless Multi- Device Mouse, and the ThinkVision MC50 monitor webcam?
We are very excited with the new offerings from our Lenovo Go accessory series. We have the multi device or wireless mouse that will actually allow you to connect to three devices, plus it’s chargeable and has the side button that’s programmable. We also launched several wireless charging devices and mobile devices, and I was particularly excited about the laptop wireless charging pad (the Go Wireless Charging Kit) that uses Power by Contact charging. This mat allows you to charge your thirteen-inch to fourteen-inch laptops on the go. We also have a mobile wireless charging power bank which comes with the Qi technology so you can do wireless charging as well as your usual USB Type-C charging. On top of that, there’s a new 20,000 mAh power bank for you to charge a 65 watt laptop at the same time you charge your multiple devices on the go.
The ThinkVision MC50 is developed specifically to pair with our ThinkVision P and T series monitors, and it comes with a tilt and swivel function so that you just need to tilt the camera to get the best angle for your use. On top of that, it comes with a noise cancellation function which interestingly has a ‘traffic light’ to signal to your family members, employees or colleagues that when the light is on, it means that you are in a conference call.
About 99% of Singapore’s enterprises are small businesses. How does Lenovo help a small company with their data security and administrative solutions?
I shared briefly earlier on about the ThinkSmart offerings as a sub brand that we have. To name a few, we have our ThinkSmart Hub, ThinkSmart View, ThinkSmart Edition Tiny, ThinkSmart Camera, and the ThinkSmart Bar, which is a speaker. These form a suite of smart collaborative solutions that we have that particularly and specifically work with Microsoft Teams, as well as Zoom.
In terms of security, if you look at our ThinkPad devices, they are incorporated with a ThinkShield umbrella solution – a customised solution that secures the platform, the device, the end-point as well as the security management. With all the conversations around ransomware and end-user security, we have exclusively partnered with brands like Sentinal One and Bufferzone that will help us address the security concerns and issues of the SMBs, who may have limited resources in terms of IT manager, IT personnel or financial resources. Both these offerings come together to allow us to offer the best to our SMB customers.
So why has Lenovo decided to open its new Bugis store that’s aimed towards SMBs?
SMEs form about 99% of the enterprises in Singapore, which actually contributes to 65% of the workforce and 48% of our GDP, making up a big piece of the Singapore economy. Therefore, the SMB sector is a key focus for the Lenovo business.
Online-to-Offline (O2O) is part of Lenovo’s multi-channel strategy. We believe that with this physical store, it will be a space for the employees as well as the employers to gain first-hand user experience on all our devices and it’s a platform where we showcase all our latest devices. With the emphasis on SMB, we have developed a sub brand called ThinkBook, a product of research and analysis done by the team.
The ThinkBook family particularly targets the prosumer audience who enjoy our enterprise commercial class security and hardware platforms, but seek a consumer-inspired design and look, as compared to the traditional black or carbon-fibre chassis of our ThinkBooks. This summarises the evolution of our Think products nicely, and this store is for all our customers to find out more about Think offerings, and is definitely a go-to place for all Singapore customers to come and check out the latest offerings from Lenovo.
