'Lenovo needs to be like a beast in a hungry state in overseas markets. We must go from a state of starvation to a beast-like development model in order to maximize our potential to conquer the market and challenge the limits'.
A few days ago, Yang Yuanqing, Chairman and CEO of Lenovo Group, started the journey of “swearing a swearing swearing.” In 54 days, he had to fly tens of thousands of kilometers in 54 days. He gave speeches in four cities on three continents and gave lectures to employees of different colors and different nationalities. In the past, we also established the development goals for the new fiscal year. He proposed that Lenovo should fight for the fourth battle in the new fiscal year: PCs continue to maintain leading profitability; mobile business actively strives for progress; and data centers achieve sustainable profitability Growth; artificial intelligence creates new competitiveness.
In fact, in the past few years, Lenovo Group had encountered difficulties. In the past two years, Yang Yuanqing led Lenovo to initiate transformation and transformation.
In February of this year, Lenovo released its financial report for the third quarter of fiscal year 2017/2018. The financial report showed that Lenovo’s pretax profit reached US$150 million, a 48% increase compared to the same period last year. This is the first time since Lenovo’s implementation of the tax for the first time in five quarters. The year-on-year growth of profit over the year.
This year is the second fiscal year since Lenovo announced the implementation of the 'All in AI' strategy. Under multiple pressures, will Yang Yuanqing’s focus on four games win? Can the association of the betting AI strategy be successful in transformation? With doubt, Sina Technology interviewed Yang Yuanqing.
Lenovo's foreign staff sent a message: It was unexpectedly discovered at work that the boss was eating instant noodles before explaining the strategy.
No time difference executives:
'Flying 350,000 kilometers last year, there is no jet lag'
At the stage of the American Raleigh Sworn Conference, Yang Yuanqing, dressed in a suit, smiled and shook hands with the front-line foreign executives. In this 5,000-seat auditorium, he passionately told everyone about his past performance and strategic direction. From time to time to applause.
Just after lunch time, Yang Yuanqing walked into the interview room on the basement floor and he greeted: “How is it? Is it not the same as (at home)?”
The reason why the first meeting of the swearing congress was selected in Raleigh was because it is one of Lenovo's three largest global headquarters. According to statistics, Lenovo has carried out business in more than 160 countries and has more than 52,000 employees. , With about 10,000 engineers, of which the United States accounted for about 30%.
In Yang Yuanqing's view, Chinese companies need to be bigger and stronger, either diversifying their layout first, or internationalizing the advanced military. Last year, he made his way across China, the United States, Japan and many other countries. He also considered the global market while considering the rapid changes in the Chinese market. Layout.
'I went to Raleigh on Monday, I went to Athens on Tuesday, then I went back to Beijing, I also wanted to fly to Tokyo'. Yang Yuanqing said that he travels almost every week, and he holds a seminar with executives in different cities every month. Sinking into the market to do research, 'There is no jet lag, I can sleep at night, I can't sleep until I start to work. Last year I flew 350,000 kilometers. This is not an exaggeration.'
International replay:
'Consolidation period establishes core competitiveness, diversity is not varied
'If Chinese companies want to become bigger and stronger, they can't escape from the internationalization. The Chinese market is big again, but it is only 20% to 30% of the global market. If it only develops with the local market, it is difficult to compete with global companies. , This association is known earlier.
In the re-enactment of Lenovo's internationalization, Yang Yuanqing laments that the most is 'not easy'. In fact, around 2000, Lenovo had explored international development.
At that time, IBM just happened to be selling PCs. Yang Yuanqing said that in 2001 and 2002, IBM had consulted Lenovo many times. 'At first I thought it was a fantasy.' In 2003, Lenovo wanted to promote the matter. , 'At that time still feel like a snake swallow'.
At that time, Lenovo was a US$3 billion business in China and talked with IBM about a business worth US$10 billion. Yang Yuanqing frankly stated that the most important difficulty in the M&A approach of “snaking elephants” is that the other party is an international brand and enjoys global The ability to operate, and Lenovo is only a local company in China, lack of international operating experience.
"We take the internationalization road this way is actually very difficult," he believes, on the one hand is the lack of visibility of Chinese brands, on the other hand, the overall image of the Chinese manufacturing was still at the low-end level, whether it is independent internationalization, or mergers and acquisitions Internationalization is not an easy way for Lenovo.
This is indeed the case. Since the acquisition of IBM in 2005, Lenovo's performance has not shown much improvement for the remaining four years.
At that time, we were also very aware that we did not have the mature ability to operate internationally. At that time, we invited a foreigner to do the CEO. We spent four years to complete the team integration. The Chinese team headed by me spent four times. In the past, we spent time learning international operations. In the past, we would only swim in Xiaojiang Creek, and later we went to the sea all at once. We still have to adapt for a while,” Yang Yuanqing said.
After several years of international operations and exploration, Yang Yuanqing returned to the CEO. He is determined to implement a combination of defensive and offensive lines. He has used Chinese teams to fight the consumer business market. Since then, Lenovo's business has been advancing rapidly. Until 2013, Lenovo won the crown of the global PC market, turnover rose from 14 billion US dollars to 30 billion US dollars.
It was also at that time that the entire PC industry was close to the ceiling. Yang Yuanqing said that Lenovo started to vigorously develop mobile services and entered enterprise-level services. 'Diversification is still not an easy task'.
He admitted that Lenovo’s mobile phone business and data center business have acquired a very high starting point through mergers and acquisitions. 'But you have to digest them well to truly become your stuff. Not only do you have to understand this business, but also In order to build competitiveness, it is really your business. In the past few years, Lenovo cut back to a similar period from 2005 to 2008, but I think this consolidation period is inevitable, it is valuable', Yang Yuanqing said that in the consolidation period, Lenovo understood the data center business and established its core competitiveness. 'I am very confident and we will also be successful in diversification'.
He emphasized that diversity is not a wide variety. At present, successful IT companies have at most two or three successful businesses, such as Microsoft. Successful businesses include Windows, Office and cloud computing Azure. 'Diversity must be truly successful, every business. At least billions of dollars, and billions of dollars in turnover. If you only develop in China, then each business is worth billions of renminbi, but it is very different on global platforms.
Lenovo engineers explain the world's first server warm water cooling technology
Betting 'Enhanced Intelligence'
'Not only solution providers, hope to be smart empowerers'
At the swearing-up meeting last year, Yang Yuanqing proposed the 'Three Waves Strategy'. At that time, Lenovo was experiencing a painful transformation and a number of businesses needed to change. This meant that in the short term, some of Lenovo’s businesses were facing a decline. At that time, outsiders were against Yang Yuanqing. Whether the strategy succeeds is skeptical.
In the face of doubt, Yang Yuanqing once responded that “If transformation doesn’t happen, it is not called transformation. Lenovo’s financial report is not really good. If Lenovo does not firmly implement the three-wave strategy, it can completely deliver a very beautiful performance”.
In the recently announced earnings report, Lenovo returned to growth.
According to the financial report of Lenovo for the third quarter of fiscal year 2017/2018, the Group’s total revenue was approximately US$13 billion, setting a new single-season high in the past three years and hitting the best level in history; at the same time, the profit before tax for the third quarter reached 150 million US dollars, an increase of 48% year-on-year, which is the year-on-year growth of Lenovo’s first-ever profit before tax for the first time in five quarters.
In the past year, Lenovo has also promoted the transition from 'single-business to diversified business' and 'product-centric to customer-centric' strategic transformation and implemented the 'All in AI' strategy.
'We have to adapt to the new needs of the artificial intelligence era and hope to grasp the pulse of artificial intelligence', Yang Yuanqing believes that the rise of AI is an inevitable trend of the times, leading the pace of Industry 4.0, under the 'smart +' innovation, AI technology You can think of water droplets as penetrating into medical, manufacturing, transportation, and other industries. 'We can't be a provider of smart solutions for every industry, but we want to be an enabler of industry intelligence'.
In his view, the current universal translation of AI is Artificial Intelligence, but better translation should be Augmented Intelligence.
Why did you want to do this? Yang Yuanqing gave a reason to Sina Technology. A couple of years ago, when he was talking about preferences with Lenovo executives, he revealed that he loved skiing. The other person asked him whether the ski resort at Chongli was artificial snow or handmade snow. All of them are artificial snow. 'I didn't even understand the difference between the two words', Yang Yuanqing said, the other told him that the former is fake snow, artificial snow, and the latter is real snow, artificial snow. 'So, if it's Artificial Intelligence, it's synthesizing. This synthesis replaces true intelligence, but if it's Augmented Intelligence, it's better to explain that it's actually human intelligence. , is artificial intelligence'.
He believes that AI will affect every industry, and that Lenovo should become an industry intelligence integrator. Lenovo’s strategy is to revolve around equipment, and how to use AI to make it more intelligent. At the same time, these terminal equipment It may be part of the future industry intelligence solution. He divided Lenovo's business into three waves. The first wave is PC business, the second wave is mobile phone and data center, and the third wave is device + cloud and infrastructure + cloud. 'Probably these are Lenovo's strategic prospects'.