Almost all companies talk about how they are “consumer-centric.” And yet, academic research shows tremendous variance in the degree to which companies are actually centered on understanding consumers and designing products and services around their needs,
Lenovo recently underwent a significant cultural shift designed to transition their firm from one focused on product first to one focused on the consumer first. To learn more about the impetus and challenges of such a significant change, I talked with David Roman, the CMO of Lenovo. What follows are his insights.
Kimberly Whitler: What was the reason for your strategic shift from product- to customer-centricity?
David Roman: In reality, the entire PC market shifted. Originally, we created the bulk of our PCs for customers in defense, banking, and large institutions. In the past several years, we’ve moved to selling computers to consumers and individual end users. With this shift, we’ve re-evaluated our value model. This shift also has forced us to better understand individual end-user needs: We’ve found these consumers are looking for a complete solution—moreso, a complete experience – and they are willing to pay a premium it.
Whitler: What does a “complete experience” mean for today’s consumer?
Roman: When you sell to institutions, the purchasers focus on a price/feature equation because of the number of computers they’re buying. However, consumers are seeking a different value proposition: They want a product that makes their life simpler, more efficient, and easier. Consumers today have a proliferation of devices (TV, computer, tablet, watch, glass, and even a computer in your car), and one of their biggest challenges involves figuring out how to keep all their different devices connected and integrated to move data between devices.
We’re focused on making the cross-device experience more seamless and intuitive so you can take a photo on your smartphone and then review it on your watch or your TV. We’re also creating back-end cloud services that connect and integrate.
Another example involves the learning curve for consumers: as they move between devices, they don’t want to relearn a new operating system every time they buy a new product. Today, we’re working to provide the services for connecting, integrating, and creating the holistic experience. No matter which device you use, we’re creating a seamless experience with those devices under an open architecture. Some competitors take a different approach designed to motivate consumers to buy only their products with their closed architecture system, prohibiting a seamless system across devices. We take an open architecture approach; we work with many companies to standardize the consumer experience across devices so consumers aren’t forced to only buy one brand of product.
Whitler: How did your past business model impact this shift?
Roman: Two elements impacted the shift. While we’ve grown our business to nearly $50B, we realized our competency centered on supply chain and product innovation We’re fast, effective, and efficient; however, we needed to spend more time building the brand. Building the brand makes us more competitive as a company, able to earn a premium from the consumer by establishing ourselves as a premium value in the minds of consumers.
In addition to our shifting customer base, the second element impacting our business model involves technology itself – the Internet. The Internet gives companies the ability to engage one-on-one with consumers – an impossible opportunity a decade ago. While we have a CEO council, and we meet with them to get feedback, we couldn’t do that with individual consumers. Leveraging the Internet, we are building a community of users who want to engage with us. We regularly communicate with these consumers to help make us decisions that create more value. For example, our fans online influenced our new logo design and ensured we produced the right assets.
Whitler: What did you specifically do in marketing to help drive this shift?
1. Back to Basics. You’ve got to be clear about your target. Two years ago we conducted a segmentation study across eight countries. From this study, we developed eight different segments based on attitudes toward technology. From there, we identified the two segments most likely to be our best users: the Design Trendsetter segment and the Plug & Players. Both have the desire for products that are immediately useful and simple—no steep learning curve or manuals or help lines.
2. Depth of Consumer Insight: After the broad segmentation study, we did a more detailed study to understand how to design the products, evident in the Yoga Tablet 3. We refined the product in ways resulting from user needs. Some of the changes are simple. For example, the Yoga Tablet 3 has a stand for using it like a TV. We found consumers spend most of their time on the Yoga (80%) watching videos, so we put a hole in the stand allowing you to hang it up and watch it at eye level. Users love this new functionality, and only Lenovo can provide it because of the unique product design.
3. Capture the Uniqueness in a Campaign: We launched a campaign on twitter (#GoodWeird) to capture the essence of what we’re trying to accomplish. We’re identifying solutions that are different and unique—but in a good way—harnessing the energy of our brand. And while the campaign helps communicate our brand, we use insights from consumer responses to help fuel innovation. See above for a video that has over one million hits.
4. Use the Power of Crowdsouring in an Efficient Way: When we started to use crowdsourcing (this goes back 10 years ago), we inherently recognized the power in gaining consumer perspective. However, opening product development to external input inevitably slows it down. But now prioritizing the consumer experience, we’re building consumer needs in early in product development versus incremental input at all stages. Marketing can make a big difference here because we have the consumer relationships; R&D has to be focused on designing the products. By weaving consumer insight in up front, we can design better products without slowing the process down.
Interested in more CMO Insight? Check out the following: Deepak Advani (IBM); Duncan Aldred (Buick/GMC); Matthew Boyle (CMO, AAFCPAs); Bill Campbell (CMO, Chatham University); Steve Cook (former CMO, Samsung); Rishi Dave (CMO, Dun & Bradstreet); John Dillon (CMO, Denny’s); Kristin Hambelton (CMO, Evariant); Jeff Jones (CMO, Target); Michele Kessler (CEO, thinkThin), Antonio Lucio (CMO, HP); Tim Mahoney (Global CMO, Global Chevrolet and Global Marketing Operations Leader, GM); Jim McGinnis (Intuit); Jim Melvin (former CEO and current CMO in Tech); C. David Minifie (CMO/EVP Corporate Strategy, Centene Corp); Anne Pritz (CMO, Sbarro); Martine Reardon (CMO, Macy’s); David Roman (CMO, Lenovo); Robin Saitz (CMO, Brainshark); Ajit Sivadasan (Lenovo); Ron Stoupa (CMO, Sports Authority); Ken Thewes (CMO, Regal Entertainment Group); Scott Vaughan (CMO, Integrate); Brent Walker (CMO/Co-Founder, C2B Solutions); and Barry Westrum (EVP, International Dairy Queen).
Interested in more CMO Insight? Check out the following: Deepak Advani (IBM); Duncan Aldred (Buick/GMC); Matthew Boyle (CMO, AAFCPAs); Bill Campbell (CMO, Chatham University); Steve Cook (former CMO, Samsung); Rishi Dave (CMO, Dun & Bradstreet); John Dillon (CMO, Denny’s); Kristin Hambelton (CMO, Evariant); Jeff Jones (CMO, Target); Michele Kessler (CEO, thinkThin), Antonio Lucio (CMO, HP); Tim Mahoney (Global CMO, Global Chevrolet and Global Marketing Operations Leader, GM); Jim McGinnis (Intuit); Jim Melvin (former CEO and current CMO in Tech); C. David Minifie (CMO/EVP Corporate Strategy, Centene Corp); Anne Pritz (CMO, Sbarro); Martine Reardon (CMO, Macy’s); David Roman (CMO, Lenovo); Robin Saitz (CMO, Brainshark); Ajit Sivadasan (Lenovo); Ron Stoupa (CMO, Sports Authority); Ken Thewes (CMO, Regal Entertainment Group); Scott Vaughan (CMO, Integrate); Brent Walker (CMO/Co-Founder, C2B Solutions); and Barry Westrum (EVP, International Dairy Queen).
Join the Discussion: @KimWhitler @Lenovo
