JIM HOLLAND , Regional Director – Africa , Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group , is a Chinese multinational technology company headquartered in Beijing . The Lenovo Group designs , develops , manufactures and sells personal computers , tablet computers , smartphones , workstations , servers , supercomputers , electronic storage devices and IT management software . Holland describes his management attitude as one that empowers and supports his people in order to make quality decisions . He explains to us how one of the world ’ s largest personal computer vendors is developing its channel business in Africa .

Describe your current job role and the parts that are somewhat challenging ?

I look after the Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group ( ISG ) for Africa and reporting into the MEA organisation . This includes managing the sales organisation to ensure profit contribution , market shares and growth for the region . Building relationships with our key alliance partners , customers and channel across the territory is also key and always a priority .

Building a culture of customer first across the business is a big focus and drive for me , because being a channel focused organisation drives the business to support and develop our partners to benefit from the partnership which Lenovo brings . Ensuring that Lenovo ISG remains relevant and growing across our key focus territories is paramount and always a key metric and driver . Pushing the ‘ One Lenovo ’ messaging and aligning with our IDG counterparts enables close collaboration with combined growth across both organisations .

Managing the African business is , of course , always a challenge because there are always so many diverse cultures , economic challenges and political complexities across vast territories . COVID 19 has magnified some of these challenges , but all indications emphasise how the regions is on an upward trend . With that being said , Africa still holds massive opportunities for the IT industry . And for a business like Lenovo , the Digital Transformation journey for a lot of the African regions is in hyper-growth mode due to us being well positioned to support our channel and customers .

Can you explain how your company works with channel partners ?

At Lenovo and with me personally , we live and die by the channel . One hundred percent of our business runs through our channel and we never , ever go direct . We rely on our routes to market , our distribution , our resellers and system integrators who are fundamental to us . In addition , we ’ ve also placed a lot of emphasis on educating that community and ecosystem on new technologies that become available – and even new and evolving technologies before we even release them into the market , because if they ’ re our routes to market then we ’ ve got to make sure they ’ re one step ahead of the curve .

How do you ensure channel partners flourish in a highly competitive market ?

As a vendor , it ’ s our job to ensure our channel partners grow with us and expand their business – because if they flourish , we flourish . That ’ s the nature of the channel and we must respect it . Therefore , we empower them in as far as we can with consistent support , on-going education and making sure we are there for every step along the sales process . Making it as easy as possible for them to sell our products and solutions .

Our end goal is to improve the partner experience – elevating productivity and

Jim Holland , Regional Director – Africa , Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group

INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS Issue 41 61