New Delhi | Jagran Technology Desk: In today’s episode of Jagran New Media’s #NayaBharat series, Jagran HiTech editor Siddhartha Sharma was joined by the CMO of Lenovo India, Amit Doshi. During the video session Amit Doshi spoke about the challenges faced by the computer industry and its strategy post the COVID-19 lockdown.
Siddhartha Sharma- What is the impact of Covid-19 on Lenovo in India and the entire computer industry?
Amit Doshi - The situation after Covid-19 lockdown will not be like it was before and it is certain that the way we work, the way we maintain our social relations, the way we work, will going to change completely. In the first few days, we have seen that it has an impact on demand. As stores are opening up a bit, shops are opening, we are getting a lot of consumer requests which we are trying to fulfill on our behalf. Secondly, if we talk about offices, then we really have to bring comfort. Like we are talking to each other from remote working right now, how meetings will take place will going to witness a big difference.We have also seen an increase in demand from the companies where desktops were used as they are now shifting to laptops for their employees to work from home.
Siddhartha Sharma- How business model will change, post Covid-19?
Amit Doshi - People will be more comfortable with online business than before. People would like to connect with stores through digital medium, so if I go then I will plan and go. People will take precaution till at least the first three to four months. The other thing, I am finding it absolutely, that people will try to find at least where the stores are not open or where they are not able to go, can they connect with the help of remote technology, can they select the product. So those are two or three things that we are trying to facilitate. All our stores are listed in Google My Business. We are trying to enable consumers to communicate with our stores through SMS, WhatsApp. Safely where possible, Our sales staff can easily demonstrate through video there. During this time there are also many people who have not bought Lenovo products and need service and their brands are not able to cater their need, then we have opened after sale service for all brands for some limited time so that we can help. So what we have right now is Objective to Fold, one has to understand what is happening, what are the customer's expectations. According to the expectations of our channel partners, we should adapt our strategy and our plans, and secondly we can help the customers at this time and where they need us, we can be with them, this is our goal at this time.
Siddhartha Sharma - Lenovo and all other computer manufacturing companies also play an important part in the SME's and MSME's sectors in India. The government has come out with a relief package for these sectors, so what is your opinion about it?
Amit Doshi - Whatever the relief package is and whatever I have heard so far, it will definitely help revive the sector. If we look from our industry point of view, SME's and MSME's are a very important part of the industry. We will be able to compete and build our enterprise for the future and as far as the future is concerned, you will also agree, we are going towards a digital phase and as much digitization will happen, we are confident that we will help the industry. Our products, our solutions, we are bringing a lot of new offerings. One is our new offering in which we try to manage the IT department completely. Bringing rentals where SME's are not able to buy, then we are looking at all those plans.
Siddhartha Sharma - Lenovo has been a very leading brand in Edutech in the country. During the era of Covid we have seen that Edutech has done a lot of innovation, so Lenovo has done something to help a school-college or Edutech partner?
Amit Doshi - So far our presence has been in EduTech through devices. If you are the leading education providers of India, you take the example of BYJU's, then it has all the ingredients that they run on all Lenovo tablets. Just like we have some other tie-ups where the learning that we have on our tablets has been optimized, the first presence that we had was through it and going forward, we are very confident that we bring a lot of solutions. For the three people who are in this ecosystem, students, teachers and schools and who are education providers. And the footprint that we have, from devices to solutions, we will be able to complete the entire requirement. If we talk about now, we have launched a platform called SmarterAid. This was the plan of our platform, Always had but its requirement increased further in lockdown. The biggest problem in India, if we talk about education, is the shortage of teachers. If you look at the requirement, there is a shortage of about 1 million teachers in India. According to which the supply of teachers is not complete, which is the learning need of the students. So SmarterAid is a smart platform where if you are a student you can register and you can say that I have to study this subject if you are in grade 5 or grade 12. And on the other hand, if there are people who want to teach, want to volunteer, they have passion and they can teach can volunteer. So we announced this some four weeks ago, this platform and its response has been quite fantastic so far. In total we have some 1,300 teachers who have given us their complete details. Those who we have verified and who are on the platform and we are now inviting students to come and register on the platform. They can find the teacher they want to study and all this service is free.
Siddhartha Sharma - My question to you in the end is, how do you see the new India? What message you want to give for the industry.
Amit Doshi - According to me, new India can be seen from two dimensions. First dimension, where it is about health, it has been a big wake-up call for all of us, so I believe that a new India will be where all the people will have awareness about health, about infections, about hygiene and about sanitation. The second dimension is how we can get ahead with digitization and digital technology. We had seen that which was a matter of mobile payment, when demonetisation took place, a lot of people tried at that time. It was not that mobile payments were not there earlier. At that time, many people tried mobile payments and many people connected with it and what I am feeling is that here is the matter of work from home or learn from home or the use of technology in new ways. Yes, many people will try. And the new India will be very aware in terms of technology.
Posted By: Talib Khan
