Deepak Advani , senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Lenovo receives interview from Yong Tang , People's Daily correspondent based in Washington DC.

Deepak Advani (L), senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Lenovo takes a photo with Yong Tang , People's Daily correspondent based in Washington DC .

Lenovo Group Limited today is a household name in China. But it wants more. It has been trying hard to become a household word in the world since after its merge with IBM PC business. As the most global Chinese company, Lenovo already enjoys surprisingly high degree of international visibility. Its management team arrangement is rather unique. William Amelio, a former Dell executive, has been chosen to be Lenovo's new CEO. Among Lenovo top management team members Chinese face could hardly be seen. In addition, the global headquarter of Lenovo is not in Beijing but in Raleigh, the capital city of North Carolina, USA.

At the moment Lenovo is still struggling to improve its profit performance. Lenovo is still a relatively unknown brand for PC consumers in the United States despite the extensive media coverage in recent years. But Deepak Advani, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Lenovo International, said with confidence that Lenovo is well on its way to become a truly global brand just like IBM. During a recent interview in his office with Yong Tang, People's Daily Washington-based correspondent, Advani told a story of how he is doing the job of brand building for Lenovo and how culture shock has changed the way Lenovo operates today.

Yong Tang: You look like having Indian origin?

Advani: Yes, actually I am Indian American. I was born in India. Then I moved to America. I graduated from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Then I became an IBM Vice President. I was in IBM for 13 years being the head of strategy and marketing for IBM PC business. IBM is a very very international and global company. I spent a lot of my time outside the United States, in Brazil, in Japan, in China. Today I have became an executive of a Chinese company.

Thomas Freeman put it well, the world is flat. In the new world there are more and more companies where your nationality or even the place you live is not as important as the power of your ideas. For me, in fact someone put a picture of me on the web and said I was a symbol of the new world: someone who was born in India and lives in the United States but now does marketing for a company in China. That is the reality of the world.

Yong Tang: Where did you work before IBM?

Advani: I worked in a company called NTR after my graduation. It is a very global company too. Everyday you dealt with people from different nationalities and different cultures. What I learnt early on in my career is that there is real power in diversity because the customers you are selling to are diverse. If you can't understand what their needs are and how they think and the importance of cultural differences, you will never be successful on a global scale. So I often try to tap into the power of diversity. On my teams there are always people from different nationalities and different cultures. Some of them are more aggressive and would talk a lot while some are more reserved and they would think more and talk after thinking. In some cultures you talk and think later. As long as you can get ideas out of different people from different cultures, you can then do a better job serving your customers who happen to be heterogeneous.

Yong Tang: When did you know that IBM PC would be merged with Lenovo?

Advani: I was very intimately involved with Lenovo transaction. When I became the head of strategy and marketing for IBM PC business, I quickly realized that as the IBM strategy changed the PC business would not be critical and central. The best way for the IBM PC business to continue to grow would be out of IBM. There were multiple ideas we were exploring. We announced the intent to merge with Lenovo in December 2004.

Yong Tang: How did you feel at that time?

Advani: My initial feeling was that I liked to work at IBM since IBM is a great company. When I engaged more and more with Lenovo executives, I heard of the Lenovo story of how it started in 1984 with 25,000 dollars. It was hard not to fall in love with the company. One day when I was in the airport in the west coast of the United States I unexpectedly ran into Yuanqing Yang and other Lenovo senior executives. They were coming for a meeting. My immediate emotion was that I was very happy to see them. I quickly called my wife and said I really like working at Lenovo. Working at a company there are two things important. The first is the company's story and its strategy. I felt aligned to that. The second is that you have to feel very good like being in a family. Lenovo is a young energetic and fresh company. You have to respect that and you have to get excited about that.

Yong Tang: What is the biggest difference in terms of corporate culture between Lenovo and IBM?

Advani:I think the biggest difference is the speed of execution. Lenovo is very fast moving. At IBM PC division, you are 10 billion dollar revenue in a 90 billion company. IBM has a very strong corporate marketing organization. If I want to do something for PC I have to talk to corporate people through a complicated process, which is necessary for big companies. When I came to Lenovo which is much smaller with 13 billion dollars of revenue. PC is the primary focus of the company. So we can move very quickly.

Yong Tang: How do you feel about working with your Chinese colleagues today?

Advani:We are all united by a common purpose. That purpose is to make Lenovo a great company. I feel very comfortable working together with my Chinese colleagues. Executives of Lenovo I have met are very market driven and everybody understands the importance of marketing and strong brand. We have developed very close personal relationships.

Yong Tang: Have you encountered any culture shock or misunderstanding based on cultural difference?

Advani: For the most part the relations are very good because we spend a lot of time face to face together in US or in Beijing. We will go out for drinks and talk about our families and show pictures. We have built strong trust. And then you can do things via emails.

One time when I came up with a Lenovo branding strategy, we had different opinions. Right now Lenovo is such a strong brand in China that sometimes we are also building sub-brands like Yantian and Tianjiao. But for a global strategy, I told my teams that we should not build products of sub-brands other than ThinkPad. I want to do a master brand, the brand of Lenovo is what I want to build. So the names of the products are less important. I don't want people to say I have got Yantian PC. I want them just to say I have got Lenovo. When people buy a Samsung cell phone they didn't say they buy H256. When people buy Panasonic TV they will not say they bought 43 inch Panasonic with DLP projection. So Samsung and Panasonic and Microsoft and Intel are all master brands. We want to build master brand for Lenovo.

But some Chinese colleagues in Beijing said, no, no, we have to get exciting names for our product lines. But I said, no, we have to focus, we only have so much money and so much energy and so many people, we have to focus everything on one thing. Some Chinese colleagues still insisted that, no, we have Yantian. So we had a face-to-face meeting. I explained the rationale in more detail. They completely understood what I was trying to do and thought it was a right thing. At the very beginning there were just emails. It was not enough to come to agreement. It is also not my style to say, I am the Chief Marketing Officer, I have decided to do something. That doesn't work. People need to understand why and what is your point of view. So when we encounter issues like that, we can resolve it if you have good personal relations and talk about it face to face.

Yong Tang: You once said one time when you visited China you were greeted warmly and being picked up at the airport. Even before coming to the hotel you were given a detailed schedule for your whole trip. But when a Chinese colleague went to America, you failed to pick him up at the airport and there was no schedule for him either.

Advani: The schedule part was not so bad. There were meetings lined up for everything. I am a quick learner. When I make mistakes I learn from it very quickly. When my colleagues come to the United States, say, they come on Monday night and they come to my office in Tuesday morning and we have a nice meeting and then we have lunch and dinner. When I went to China, I was very surprised at the level of care and attention to detail. They have somebody pick you up at the airport, show you someplace and make dinner arrangements. Very nice. I feel very welcome. So next time when my Chinese colleagues came to the United States, I would make sure somebody would pick them up at the airport and send them to the hotel. My Chinese colleagues would also give gifts to me. I have built strong relations with a Chinese colleague whose name is Lu Yan. He gave me the latest cell phone and music player. He even sent a desktop computer to my home. So next time when I meet Lu Yan I would give him a nice ThinkPad computer.

Yong Tang: I know Lenovo has decided to cut down its size of employees by 5%. It is about 1000 people. It also moved its global corporate headquarter from New York to Raleigh, the capital city of North Carolina.

Advani: You just look at the number of employees. We have a significant number of employees in Raleigh, NC. It is always a difficult thing for executives to make layoffs. I joined IBM in 1992 and since then I have seen tens of thousands of people being laid off. It is really difficult especially for IBM which is known for lifetime employment.

In the international part of Lenovo, we are still structured very much like IBM. We needed to restructure and reorganize ourselves so that we could be limber and closer to our customers and be more responsive and fast moving. We had multiple layers between the customers and CEO. We reduced it quite a bit. We have a huge presence and huge market share in China. You have to spend a lot of time back and forth flying. By consolidating everything together you can be more efficient. You have to be very efficient in order to survive.

Yong Tang: But many people would be surprised to know Lenovo's global headquarter is not in Beijing, but in USA. So Lenovo has become an American company?

Advani: Lenovo is a global company. What is the perception they have when consumers buy a Sony or Toyota or BMW? They are not thinking it is a Japanese or German or English company. It is a just great TV or a great car. They have transcended national borders and become global brands everybody loves. Right now Lenovo is a Chinese company. But more and more it will be perceived by the world as a global and international company. More and more companies will come to the world stage where they will be known because of the value they deliver to the customers, not because of the location of the company.

There is a term Global Integrated Enterprise. As The World is Flat put it, the national boundary will not be critical because the Internet is creating a global virtual community for us. In Lenovo, we get the best ideas from any part of the world and bring them to the rest of the world. We have credible R&D and design capability.

Yong Tang: According to the agreement signed between Lenovo and IBM, the logo of IBM will stay on ThinkPad computers for up to five years.

Advani: Right now there is only one logo on the product, that is IBM. Our market research tells us that before people know Lenovo and start feeling comfortable with Lenovo, having the IBM logo on the product gives them a sense of security and a sense of confidence.

Yong Tang: When will the Lenovo logo appear on your product?

Advani: The Lenovo logo will appear toward the end of this year in addition to IBM logo. Since then there will be two logos on our products, IBM and Lenovo.

Yong Tang: Which logo will be bigger in size?

Advani: The ThinkPad logo will be bigger. Lenovo logo will be smaller. Why? Because ThinkPad is a strong brand. I want the equity to go from IBM ThinkPad to ThinkPad. ThinkPad stands for the premier business tool and it is a strong brand. What we want to do is to want people ten years from now to continue to desire ThinkPad. Great brands could be destroyed if you move away from its core essence. Companies usually take a brand and stretch it too much. Therefore the Lenovo logo will be smaller and the ThinkPad logo will be bigger. That is only for laptop computers. On desktop computers, the Lenovo logo will be bigger. Because we want to build a master brand like Toyota.

Yong Tang: What is the biggest obstacle for Lenovo brand building? Lenovo has been wrongly attacked in the United States for the fact it is a state-owned company and it may endanger American national security. American Department of State recently just decided not to use Lenovo computers for their classified tasks as a result of the criticism from Capitol Hill.

Advani: We are trying to inform the government officials and our customers that Lenovo is a market driven company. The Chinese government doesn't make decisions in Lenovo. Lenovo makes decisions like any free market enterprise. The issue also gives us an opportunity to tell people what Lenovo stands for. Lenovo is all of those innovative products, high quality products, and excellent customer service. For us, communicating this message to the press and the customers and influential people is our strategy. There are now people who are standing up for us. Some analysts are writing very positive and supportive articles about us.

Yong Tang: But some Americans may not buy Lenovo products due to the above -mentioned reasons?

Advani: Every smart person knows that any PC they buy is being made in China anyway. I know there are a lot of conversations that are taking place in the press. They are saying: What is the big deal? If you look at HP, you look at Dell, you look at all those PC companies, they are all making PCs in China today. You take any PC and turn it over on the backside, it says "Made in China". When you look at American companies and European companies, they are very much aligned with China. They don't regard Chin as an adversary; they regard China as a huge market opportunity, just like India. Over 2 billion people in the rapidly growing middle class with incredible purchasing power. That is one angle.

The second approach is the natural resources in India and China. Because of the flat world and the Internet technology we can all be a part of virtual community. I think increasingly countries have alignment with each other. When we ask our customers "Is China an important region for you", not one customer said NO. Then I would say, do you want to know how we get 40% of market share in China? We can help you with that. Customers get excited. Dell would take their customers to see its supply chains and manufacturing chains. That is to show customers how efficient they are. We can do that too for our customers.

Yong Tang: I know you have an important strategy for 2008 Olympic Games. Why does Lenovo want to be associated with that event?

Advani: For the same reason we linked to 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Italy. What do Olympic Games stand for? It is the most international sports event. Olympic Games stand for international goodwill and pursuit of excellence. These are all values Lenovo has. So being affiliated with Olympic Games along with other partners like Coca Cola and Samsung is one good thing. We can provide IT equipment to the International Olympic Committee.

In Italy we had 10,000 Lenovo PCs and we had 200 events. 60 events are for sub zero in the mountain. We show we are able to run as complex as the Olympic IT infrastructure. By participating in that event Lenovo has achieved tremendous credibility. I was so proud when I was in Torino, Italy and I saw how much hard work the Lenovo employees put into. Our employees came from China, US and many other countries. Everything went smoothly without a single issue. The Olympic Games are uniting Lenovo employees around the world. Everyone had a common vision.

Yong Tang: How do you communicate with other Lenovo senior executives including Chairman and CEO on a daily basis?

Advani: As I said before, at one of our first meetings, Yuanqing Yang, Lenovo Chairman, said trust and respect and compromise are three important words. Whenever we come together as a team, we should trust each other and respect each other and compromise with each other.

Yong Tang: Do you need to report to Yuanqing Yang to make marketing decisions?

Advani: No. I have been making decisions every day. We are a fast moving entrepreneurial company.

Of course I spend a lot of time with Yuanqing Yang on the strategy. We discuss and we debate and we argue. Chairman and CEO cannot get involved with all the decisions that are made on a daily basis. One of the reasons I believe Lenovo will be successful is that the senior leadership is very strong. Once everyone is in agreement with the overall strategy, people execute.

Yong Tang: Is IBM PC business and Lenovo complimentary?

Advani: Yes. If you look at the marriage between HP and Compaq, they have overlapping product lines, overlapping customer services, overlapping in the countries where they operate. Say, I am a sales guy in Chicago and another guy came to me and say, we are in the same company now, who is going to serve these customers? Is me or you? We don't have the same problems with the new Lenovo.

Yong Tang: To what extent the culture difference may affect the growth of the new company after two companies from different countries merge?

Advani: COUNTRY culture is not as important as the COMPANY culture. IBM has a corporate culture that stands for customer service, innovation and trustworthiness and integrity. Lenovo also believes the same values. Since we have commonality in corporate culture, that is much more important than country culture. If our corporate culture were not aligned, we would have much more difficulty and much more conflict. The number one reason of why merger and acquisitions don't work and don't deliver expected benefit is that company cultures are very very different. That is why you would have a lot of conflict.

Yong Tang: Do you have any suggestions for Chinese companies who are looking forward to merging with American companies?

Advani: They should buy Lenovo PC, that is the first message. (Laugh) It takes a lot of wisdom and maturity to know what it may take from different sides. You have to go into this with a very open mind. I may have to do differently to grow in the United States or in Japan or in Germany. Having that awareness and making sure you clearly understand what are the skillsets we bring to the table and what are some of the additional skills I need to acquire. As long as people go into that with an open mind then as the world is getting flat I would expect more similar deals to happen in the future. There are a lot of lessons to be learned by observing what Lenovo is doing and what we are going to do. Lenovo can be a very good teacher.

Yong Tang: So far Dell is the number one PC producer and HP is the number two and Lenovo is the number three. How do you compete with Dell and HP?

Advani: Each of these companies has different business model. We are very focused on customers that we serve. There are some companies which focus just on efficiency like Dell and Acer. They are efficient and will not do R&D so their price is very low. Other companies like Apple and Sony said I am going to innovate. Lenovo came to the table saying we can do both. We innovate and we are efficient too. We want to put more innovation in the hands of more people. The positioning is what people think of you in their mind. It is very believable and credible that Lenovo is innovative and efficient. China side gives us the benefit of efficiency. IBM side gives us the benefit of innovation. So the way we compete with Dell and HP and everybody else is to bring together a unique proportion of innovation and efficiency to our customers. Our biggest disadvantage is our economy of scale because our competitors are much larger in volumes. But we can overcome that by targeting on innovation and efficiency.

Yong Tang: Do you envision a day when Lenovo becomes a global brand and even more famous than IBM?

Advani: IBM is a very strong brand. We are trying everyday to make Lenovo a global brand. Our goal is, not only people here but also people around the world know us. They will have an emotional connection with Lenovo. Becoming a name is one thing but having a deep emotional connection with the company is quite another. That is what our aspirations are: to become a brand that people around the world love. (END)

Bio:

Deepak Advani is senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Lenovo. Previously, he was the vice president of marketing for IBM's Personal Computing Division. His experience includes a strong blend of technology and business. With IBM for 12 years, Mr. Advani was part of the team that built a $1 billion supercomputer business in four years; and, as the vice president of Strategy and Market Development, he crafted IBM's early strategies around Linux. He was the general manager for the high-end Intel server business, where, under his leadership, IBM went from third in market share to first in two years.

Mr. Advani has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a master's degree in Computer Engineering, as well as an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is on the advisory board at Michigan State University. He has lectured at several universities on the topics of business strategy, brand management, and personal leadership. (END)

By Yong Tang, People's Daily correspondent based in Washington DC.