India is a great innovation hotspot for Lenovo: MD Shailendra Katyal

Chinese technology major Lenovo has been reinventing itself in India, moving from screen to solutions every few years. Shailendra Katyal, managing director, Lenovo India, in a video interview with Pranjal Sharma, said India has become an important innovation hub for the company, which is also leveraging the country for exports. Edited excerpts: 

Lenovo has a long history in India. It’s a hardware company, but is now transitioning in some way, can you give us a sense of what Lenovo is today? 

We got incorporated in the country in 2005 with the acquisition of the IBM PC business, which was the iconic ThinkPad brand. Inherited a fairly strong business, which was largely B2B. Over time, we expanded into other segments, and grew really fast in the core area, which is what we are known for, the personal computing space. But as the market was shifting, we also entered other screens. We launched the tablet business, got into the phone business, and acquired Motorola along the way. Over the last 20 years of history, there was one pivotal moment where we said that if we really have to become a technology leader, we need to go beyond screens and also get into infrastructure. So, we got the server business, also from IBM, around 2015-16. At that time, the global strategy which was being executed at a market level was more about, if the world is getting connected, there's infrastructure to run the internet, which is where the server business fits in. 

What are the key trends in the Indian market, both for personal devices and the business solutions you have? 

When you speak about a market like India, which is still evolving, there's always this penetration argument that, does everyone have access to technology? And, that fits in quite well with our global vision. We say smarter technology for all, because, as a global technology leader, we do believe it's a noble purpose to put technology in the hands of the masses, not just in the hands of the elite or in the hands of big companies. But one of our strengths is our engineering and our supply chain. We spend a lot of money on R&D and diversifying our supply chain allows us to have a very wide portfolio… So, we are very excited about the India opportunity and are doing quite well. 

Screen phenomenon is everywhere, it’s almost a commodity. Do you see any unique trends in the way the Indian consumer is behaving, especially in this category? 

Many people feel that the Indian customer is cheap. They're not, they’re very value-conscious. Whether you look at a rural customer, a middle-income customer, or a premium customer, the mindset to have better value and ask for a discount never changes. All of us do that all the time, irrespective of income class, but every customer is aspirational. They don't want bad products. They don't want cheap products…So, the answer lies in the width of a portfolio. Our phones will have a $200 product or one $50 product going up to a $800 product. Similarly, our PCs will have a $300 product going up to a $2,000 product, which is our premium product. 

What kind of tech innovation is happening with Lenovo and Moto in India that has helped you expand, and you see that as investment for the future? 

India has become a very important hub. But it's not the only hub for us to innovate, given our width of solutions. Bengaluru is on the map now for us as a company, it's one of the great innovation hotspots that we build.  

We have similar ones in Beijing, Shanghai, in Japan, the US, and one in Europe. So, if we have six or seven R&D centers, then Bengaluru  has become one of the more important ones. 

Are there any examples of exciting innovations that happened in the Bengaluru centre, which have helped you in the Indian market and other ways as well? 

All the Android engineering work that we do on Motorola happens in Bengaluru. We lit up the world with our torch feature. On the server side, we've just announced a state-of-the-art tech lab. A lot of GPU-based work, which is what the world is interested in now in AI development, is starting to happen out of our Bengaluru centre. 

In the next five to 10 years, where do you want to see Lenovo, or hope that it will be? 

It's always risky to talk with a crystal ball. But from a desire point of view, if we are able to play a meaningful role in India taking center stage in the entire AI revolution that the world is likely to see, not just in terms of selling more AI-powered devices, but more about the fundamental of great solutions coming out of India, which are also then applicable for the rest of the world, that would be a noble thing for Lenovo to pursue. And, the standard point be counted in making India truly digital and powering not just for India, but for the rest of the world. 

  Watch full interview here: