“Lenovo 360 framework reconfirms our commitment to the channel” – Lenovo’s Alaa Bawab

CNME Editor Mark Forker managed to secure an exclusive interview with Alaa Bawab, General Manager, Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) Middle East & Africa to find out what impact he believes their new Lenovo 360 framework is going to have on the channel ecosystem across the region.

Lenovo has always taken great pride in the fact that it is a channel first company, and they believe the fact that they deliver their business 100% through the channel is a key differentiator for them versus other vendors in the marketplace.

Alaa Bawab is one of the most respected IT leaders in the Middle East, and has enjoyed a distinguished career, one in which has seen him work for some of the world’s leading and IT and technology companies.

In a candid interview with CNME, he spoke in detail of the capabilities and impact he believes the Lenovo 360 framework is going to have in terms of giving their channel partners great flexibility and autonomy to innovate.

According to Bawab, the new Lenovo 360 has been established to deliver the objectives and targets on four business outcomes for their partners.

“The Lenovo 360 Framework is designed to produce solutions that deliver on four business outcomes for our partners. These include enabling greater workforce productivity and collaboration, providing infrastructure flexibility, sustainability improvements, and tailored industry-specific solutions,” said Bawab.

In addition to this, Bawab highlighted how the new channel framework will help their partners resolve and overcome challenges that their customers are facing in the new digital economy, which has defined by transformation.

“The Lenovo 360 unleashes the full power of the Lenovo portfolio across intelligent devices, infrastructure solutions and solutions services to enable easier and more seamless global access through a single point of contact for our partners, so they can effectively solve their customers challenges. The framework also provides a catalogue of resources, and access to Lenovo experts, who specialise in building end-to-end services and support solutions across our three business groups,” said Bawab.  

Bawab said the inspiration behind the Lenovo 360 framework is founded on the three key pillars, which are people, programs, and tools.

“When it comes to people, we have begun to align our channel teams across our business units IBG, ISG and SSG into a single organisation across structures that can provide our partners with a faster and much easier access to our broad and extensive portfolio of products, solutions, and services. As part of Lenovo 360, additional investments will be made over time in technical and product experts across regional channel teams to provide greater partner support,” said Bawab.

According to Bawab, one other key feature when it comes to the Lenovo 360 framework is diversity of programs that it has infused into the platform.

“In terms of programs, when it comes to the Lenovo 360 framework, we have introduced multiple programs such as better together. Better together is a new program that has been designed to provide additional acceleration for partners selling our end-to-end portfolio. For example, for IDG partners classically selling end-user devices, an additional accelerator will kick in when selling datacenter-related solutions and vice-versa. As-a-service rebate accelerator will be introduced for infrastructure-as-a-service, or device as-a-service sales. Finally, in relation to solution-based incentives, an additional accelerator for partners who sell any of the outcome-based channel ready solutions will be granted,” said Bawab.

The Lenovo executive also disclosed that there had been new features and capabilities added to the tools and resources available on their Lenovo Bid platform, and he stressed that this once again would empower the channel to do more with less.

“Looking at tools there will be an evolution of the Lenovo Bid platform, and Lenovo partner hub to support cross portfolio quoting and pricing. Lenovo will also be introducing simple solution builders for each channel-ready solution that we bring to market. The enhancement of these tools will take place throughout the course of 2022. However, processes will be in place to help ensure that our partners are able to deliver on all the solutions that we offer today,” said Bawab.

Bawab concluded an excellent interview, one which provided an in-depth understanding of the broad capabilities of the Lenovo 360 framework, by reinforcing the point that Lenovo is fully committed to their channel ecosystem.

“The Lenovo 360 framework reconfirms our commitment as a channel first company, and we are truly the only vendor in the market that delivers the business 100% through the channel. As we launch the Lenovo 360 framework, we will continue to support our channel ecosystem by giving our partners the opportunity to build and diversify their revenue streams. Lenovo 360 also provides the ability for our partners to offer end-to-end solutions from pocket to cloud. Lenovo 360 seizes the opportunity to equip partners with a portfolio that reflects the full spectrum of customer needs to device, to infrastructure, to services and beyond,” said Bawab.