The changes in Lenovo's data center business group in the past year can be described as "replacement of engines in the air".
This means that while the Lenovo Data Center Business Group is undergoing internal changes, it must also achieve stable business growth. The difficulty during this period can be imagined. However, driven by a series of major initiatives and strategic deployments, Lenovo's data center business group not only achieved profitable growth in revenue and profit, but also laid a solid foundation for future digital transformation.
Not only that, Lenovo's data center business group also performed well in market segments. Among them, it has ranked first in China and second in the world in HPC TOP 500 for the fourth time in a row, and has become the fastest growing HPC manufacturer in the world with a growth rate of 17%. First, hyper-converged products increased by 150% year-on-year and became the fastest growing manufacturer in the industry.
In addition, from Lenovo’s pioneering 45°C warm water cooling technology in the Peking University Supercomputing Center, to Lenovo’s collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Mathematics and Systems Science to create a new high-performance cluster project, to Lenovo’s provision of a complete set of high-performance computing for China Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation platform, Lenovo's strong IT infrastructure capabilities and solution capabilities have been fully recognized by many customers.
As Tong Fuyao, Senior Vice President of Lenovo Group and President of Data Center Business Group China, said: "The future vision of Lenovo Data Center Business Group is to help customers achieve digital transformation. Under this premise, returning to the market first is a must for Lenovo. Road, but our goal is more than that, I believe that the data center business group will play a more important role in the future."
Undoubtedly, reading Lenovo's determination and confidence in the transformation of the data center business group also understands Lenovo's ambition and ambition for digital transformation.
A year of transformation for Lenovo's data center business group
As we all know, Lenovo acquired the IBM x86 business in September 2014, and in April 2016, Lenovo announced the establishment of a data center business group. During this period, Lenovo has maintained the number one position in the server market share in China.
In 2017, Lenovo made another structural adjustment, hoping that Lenovo's data center business group will be more focused and focused on the data center market, and at the same time, major changes have been made in its business strategy, that is, the pursuit of healthy growth, Tong Fuyao said: "From a long-term development perspective, only The healthy growth of Lenovo's entire system will benefit partners and customers even more."
Senior Vice President of Lenovo Group, Data Center Business Group
Tong Fuyao, President of China
Based on this, Lenovo's data center business group launched a new round of changes last year, mainly doing three things, namely, focusing on the industry market for restructuring; establishing a dedicated business management system; and training a professional data center business group sales team.
First, focusing on the industry market, optimizing the marketing, industry, region, pre-sales, channels, operations, finance and other teams, forming a complete and independent data center end-to-end organization, making Lenovo Data Center Business Group more focused on data centers business.
Second, focusing on customers, Lenovo Data Center Business Group has built a hierarchical customer management system to achieve hierarchical management of nearly 500,000 customers, and at the same time let the sales team focus on more valuable and more room for growth. on the customer base.
Third, Lenovo's data center business group has built a diverse staff structure. In fiscal 2017, more than 130 new colleagues joined the data center business group, forming a professional and full-time team, which improved the team's combat effectiveness.
In this regard, Tong Fuyao said: "For any company, mergers and acquisitions are easy and difficult to integrate, but there is only one criterion to measure, that is, the healthy operation of the business is particularly important. For any product and any plan, what we look at is always, What value does it ultimately bring to the customer.”
Therefore, the organizational structure of Lenovo's data center business group will always change with business changes. At the same time, Lenovo Data Center Business Group will also encourage the innovation of new models in the process of business transformation, allowing continuous trial and error, so that the team can build an innovative mentality and entrepreneurial spirit.
On this basis, Lenovo Data Center Business Group has put forward its own new strategy and new concept based on the situation of the Chinese market, which is to help customers complete digital transformation, which also means that Lenovo Data Center Business Group cannot only play the role of hardware suppliers. role, but to bring more new products, new solutions and new technologies to customers, and continue to transform into services.
"The strategy of Lenovo's data center business group plays a pivotal role in China, including the entire Lenovo Group strategy. It determines whether Lenovo's future business model will grow in a more healthy and orderly manner, and whether it can occupy a place in the development of a new generation of technology. ." Tong Fuyao said.
It is not difficult to see that after more than a year of internal changes, Lenovo's data center business group has completed its business and has begun to plan a new offensive to the market. At the same time, the new strategic positioning of Lenovo's data center business group further highlights Lenovo's determination and confidence in expanding and strengthening the data center business.
Lenovo's goals don't stop there
In the book Value Reengineering, the author believes that the platformization, digitization, cross-border integration and open ecology in the era of digital transformation have brought the market into a new era of competition. Therefore, only by re-engineering the value can enterprises break through the existing industry competition framework and open up a new broad market.
At this moment, Lenovo's data center business group is undoubtedly at such a juncture. As Tong Fuyao said: "If we look at the future growth of China's IT market, only focusing on the data center market is very narrow, the enterprise market or 2B business, I think this is a vast world. Therefore, Lenovo must do something, Something doesn't work."
In this context, Tong Fuyao believes that the driving direction for the continuous growth of Lenovo's data center business group in the future is mainly due to four new opportunities for growth. Specifically:
First, it is safe and controllable. Data shows that by 2020, the proportion of localized products in China's IT market will exceed 60%. If they do not seize the opportunity of independent control, any domestic manufacturer will have no right to speak or grow in the future enterprise-level business.
Second, is software-defined. The high-efficiency business model in the future will bring revolutionary changes to the development of data centers. In the process, Lenovo will enrich SDDC's product portfolio by vigorously developing software-defined data center capabilities.
Again, is the Internet market. BAT and other Internet companies other than BAT are an important engine driving the growth of the entire x86 server. At present, there are more than 6,200 Internet companies of this size in China, and new companies are still emerging. As the only company with in-house design in the x86 market, Lenovo has the opportunity to win a larger market.
Finally, there is artificial intelligence. It can be said that the realization of digital China must be based on the digital transformation of the industry, and the purpose of digital transformation is to carry out intelligent innovation for various industries. Therefore, new technologies represented by artificial intelligence will become a new driving force for China's industrial upgrading.
It can be seen that in the new era of digitalization, how big, how high, how fast, and how far an enterprise can grow depends on the model selection of value re-engineering, the deep insight into the market, and the vision and pattern of the future.
From this perspective, in addition to the original business of the data center, the core that truly determines Lenovo's future is the "sea of stars" of digital transformation.
Deepen the layout and lead the digital transformation
Of course, today, no one is denying that digital transformation is the next Big Thing, or is already the Big Thing of the moment. Today, almost all ICT companies are deploying digital transformation. It can be said that the "favor" of digital transformation is not only a new choice for ICT giants, but also a new frontier for many startups.
Lenovo Data Center Business Group China
Chief Architect Bi Wei
So, for Lenovo, how can we help customers digitally transform? Bi Wei, chief architect of Lenovo's data center business group in China, believes that this issue can be viewed from a business perspective and a technical perspective.
"From a business point of view, the characteristic of a digital enterprise is that it can digitize all the processes of daily operation, so that data can be concentrated and deposited, so as to give full play to the new value of big data in business; from a technical point of view, it is whether it can make use of new The Internet of Things technology enables the entire chain of enterprises to be connected in series, and on this basis, the value of artificial intelligence can be brought into play, and more intelligent services such as intelligent identification and intelligent prediction can be realized."
This process undoubtedly points out all the businesses and directions that Lenovo needs to do in the future digital transformation. Therefore, around this goal, Lenovo has formed a new model of end-to-end software + services for industry solutions.
To this end, Lenovo continues to strengthen its capabilities in the field of software + services. For example, in terms of infrastructure, Lenovo is continuously enriching the data center infrastructure product portfolio to provide the cornerstone for customers’ digital transformation; in terms of enterprise cloud adoption, Lenovo is planning to promote cloud business and provide enterprise personalized services according to different application scenarios. It provides customers with a complete set of future-oriented cloud services and products.
At the same time, in terms of enabling industries, Lenovo has formed industry-standard solutions and provided implementation delivery capabilities in vertical sub-sectors, such as smart cities and their associated smart healthcare, smart transportation, and smart education. Last year, Lenovo signed a smart city strategic cooperation agreement with the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the People's Government of Fuzhou City.
More importantly, Lenovo has also continued to deepen the channel delivery model to achieve profitable growth for Lenovo and its partners. In fact, Lenovo has always insisted on letting employees sink to the forefront, and is also spreading the "capillaries" of the channel to the larger tier 4 and tier 6 markets.
In this regard, Tong Fuyao finally said: "We hope that through one to two years of efforts, Lenovo's data center business group can truly transform from the role of a hardware supplier to a service provider, bringing a better digital experience to the transformation of enterprises. ."
In general, there is no permanent enterprise, only the era of enterprise. Today, Lenovo Data Center Business Group is embracing digital transformation with a new way of thinking and continuously strengthening technical capabilities. It is believed that Lenovo Data Center Business Group, which is "keep a low profile", is fully prepared for the second half of the sprint.
Shen Yao's Science and Technology Observation was founded by Shen Yao (WeChat: shenyao) , a cross-border technology media person . He has 15 years of media work experience and has experience in self-driving on 100,000 kilometers of highways in China and the United States. Column, dedicated to the observation and thinking of the technology industry, here to understand the technology industry, know the trend, and win the future!