Lenovo Group Limited - Organizational & Industry Analysis

ORGANIZATIONAL & INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

YEHUANG (ERIC) ZHANG

BUS 548A-SP15 STRATEGY & DECISION MAKING

PROFESSOR: KEYES

2015-04-23

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, CALIFORNIA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY

CONTACT: yehuang.zhang@calbaptist.edu

        Lenovo (Lenovo Group Limited) is a technology company with headquarters in Beijing, China, and Morrisville, North Carolina, United States. It designs, develops, manufactures and sells personal computers, tablet computers, smartphones, servers, electronic storage devices, IT management software and smart televisions. Lenovo is a $30 billion electronics company and the world’s second-largest PC vendor. It employs 30,000 people, operates in more than 60 countries and serves customers in more than 160 countries. Lenovo has been the fastest growing major PC company for more than 3 years. Lenovo’s target groups are small and medium size enterprises, public sector divisions, students and homemakers who need systems for their daily work.

        In 2014, Lenovo was the world's largest personal computer vendor by unit sales. It markets the ThinkPad line of notebook computers and the ThinkCentre line of desktops. The main competitors are Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, Toshiba, and Dell.

        The comprehensive analysis on Lenovo below will discuss Lenovo in details from different points of view and conducting certain analytical tools to demonstrate to analysis.

Internal Analysis

Mission & Vision

        Lenovo’s mission is to innovate for customers, where innovation is the core value. And the whole corporation shares the same goal, that is, to build the best, most innovative products in the world. To use world-class economics to put new and better technology in the hands of more people, by innovating on cost the same way we innovate on technology.

        The vision for Lenovo is that Lenovo will create personal devices more people are inspired to own, a culture more people aspire to join and an enduring, trusted business that is well respected around the world. This vision guides us in pursuit of our mission to become one of the world's great personal technology companies.

Goals & Objectives

        The goal and objective for Lenovo are as simple as become one of the world’s great personal technology companies. And Lenovo will exhaust effort to achieve this goal by leading in three key areas: in PC area and generates respects for Lenovo’s product innovation and quality; in convergence, which means to lead the industry with an ecosystem of devices, services, applications and content for people to seamlessly connect to people and web content; and through building organizational culture of becoming recognized as one of the best, most trusted and most well-respected companies to work for and do business with.

Current Strategy & Structure

Culture

        Lenovo believes that the culture defines the corporation. Thus, the culture is Lenovo’s DNA that all “Lenovoers” call it the Lenovo Way and it's the values they share and the business practices they deploy. It's how Lenovo addresses its day-to-day commitments. The Lenovo Way also drives how people work in Lenovo every day, utilizing what Lenovoers call the 5 P's: We PLAN before we pledge; We PERFORM as we promise; We PRIORITIZE the company first; We PRACTICE improving every day; We PIONEER new ideas.

        Thus, it is the culture that has enabled the whole corporation to consistently raise the bar on delivering break-through innovations, award-winning designs and strong financial performance.

Leadership

        Lenovo’s advanced leadership is the decisive factor that made become one of the most successful IT companies in the world. The leadership of Lenovo broke the restrictions of traditional Chinese management style when CEO Yang Yuan Qing chose Silicon Valley’s model to create the performance-oriented culture in the early development stage. Then the innovative culture led the leadership to focus on passion, innovation, creativity, freedom and personality that many young employees got promoted and stubborn, anti-change employees get expelled for failing to complete the performance and tasks.

        As for now, Lenovo’s leadership has been affected a lot by western thought and globalization. The leadership still honors freedom and innovation, while also focusing on forming a multi-national, cultural diversified leadership team. Thus, Lenovo’s leadership condition today is healthy and appropriate because it has experienced, professional managers in charge of the overall operation, performance, strategy making and implementation. And young, passionate managers in charge of basic levels’ works. Also, the international leadership team brought in many ideas, worldviews, and advices, which make Lenovo competitive in global market. (See Appendix 1.1)

Current Strategy

        Lenovo’s current core strategy fits its “going global” ambition. In 2009, CEO Yang announced Lenovo’s “protect and attack” strategy that encapsulated how the company would build on its strong base in the Chinese PC market and in the corporate and education sectors in the United States – thanks to IBM’s ThinkPad, while going after new geographies and new product areas, such as smartphones and related devices. The “protect and attack” strategy successfully got all 30,000 employees on the same page, which maximized the working efficiency and communication accuracy. The strategy also contributed to break down silos within Lenovo and build a consistent methodology around the world. The strategy also requires having critical capabilities in three major areas that can be decisive for all international or multi-national corporations: supply chain management, technology development, and marketing. Thus, Lenovo is definitely on the right track for the strategy relies on the supply chain a lot, and Lenovo actually occupies the best supply chain in the competitive market compared to competitors within the industry.