Lenovo changed its bid, but what surfaced was just the tip of the iceberg, and behind it was the transformation of Lenovo Group, a huge thing. This IT company, which has experienced 19 years of wind and rain, has experienced a complicated process from Legend to Lenovo to brand transformation and promotion of "as long as you want", which can be regarded as a vivid case of MBA course. Lenovo, repackaged by Lenovo, finally found the feeling of a middle-aged man with "taste, stability, care and strategic vision".
the fatigue of legend
"legend association" has to be changed. Although this is a logo that is deeply rooted in people's hearts in China, it has also been deeply touched by thousands of Lenovo employees.
Lenovo President and CEO Yang Yuanqing used this sentence to express Lenovo's determination to change its brand.
tracing the origin of this logo has become a hot topic for brand researchers. On November 1, 1984, 2, yuan, 11 people started the dream of "Lenovo", which was then named "New Technology Development Company of Institute of Technology of China Academy of Sciences". In 1985, with the launch of Lenovo Hanka, the first Hanka product with Lenovo function, Lenovo brand was born. In 1988, Lenovo opened in Hong Kong and adopted the English name Legend. Lenovo became the company name for the first time.
Liu Chuanzhi said that when Lenovo was founded and named Legend, Lenovo was still in the stage of making a living, and the issue of "internationalization" was completely ignored.
However, with the development of the company, "internationalization" has become the dream of Lenovo for two generations, and the price of changing the bid is bound to be paid. Yang Yuanqing's explanation for "international brand" is that within three to five years, 25%-3% of Lenovo's sales will come from overseas markets, but today only 5% of Lenovo's revenue comes from overseas. To achieve this goal, Lenovo first needs to eliminate brand barriers. Legend has been registered too much in overseas markets, and Lenovo's development abroad must have a trademark that can be legally protected and legally sold.
? The dilemma of transformation
In fact, Lenovo executives have known since 21 that the brand logo must be changed. In May 22, the brand switching group was established, with Yang Yuanqing as the team leader. Five sets of alternative switching schemes have been provided internally, but in subsequent inquiries, it is found that four of them are registered in different countries. The logo finally fell on the word ——Lenovo that I created. Lenovo consists of Le and novo-le takes the prefix Legend, and novo means innovation in Latin. Yang Yuanqing hopes that Lenovo will launch its own name around the world.
With the switching of brand identity, in Yang Yuanqing's eyes, today's Lenovo is stepping onto the third step. He combed the context of Lenovo's development like this: "Take the trade-oriented route before the 199s; From 199 to 2, we made great efforts to create our own brands and fought our way out in the contest with international brands. The company's 1-year goal from 21 to 21 is to reach the scale of 1 billion US dollars. " With a little heavy glory given by the outside world, today's Lenovo has once again reached the crossroads of transformation.
yang yuanqing emphasized: "if you are one of the top 5 companies in the world, IT is obviously not enough to do only PC business, and you must diversify in the it field. We divide our business scope into three big circles-information terminal products, background products that provide infrastructure for the network and IT services. " Obviously, Lenovo needs a wider runway to accommodate its complex products and services, which is a more reasonable brand structure.
through years of accumulation, although Lenovo has achieved more than 9% popularity in the China market, there has been a strange phenomenon in recent years. The marketing expenses are increasing year by year, but in the eyes of customers, Lenovo's image is actually messy.
in order to get out of the "brand dilemma", Lenovo entrusted FutureBrand, a brand management consulting company in Hong Kong, to conduct in-depth research on brand issues for more than two years. The brand management consulting company interviewed 2,8 consumers and more than 7 corporate customers, and conducted 6 interviews in 5 overseas countries. Li Lan, general manager and assistant president of Lenovo's brand promotion department, said: "The survey found that Lenovo's past brand connotation was not clear enough and its image was not unified enough. For example, when you ask what Lenovo's brand stands for, you get many answers; Secondly, there is a lack of unified brand strategy guidance, and marketing resources are not used efficiently; Third, the structure is chaotic. Lenovo has more than 4 brands, and there is a lack of overall structure. "
In this regard, Lenovo commissioned a research company to select a set of features according to a rule to see which features are closer to Lenovo people or consumers' views on Lenovo. Then, according to a complicated calculation such as a ranking score, the four top characteristics of Lenovo brand-quality professional service, honor, integrity and innovation are obtained.
it's not enough to clarify the connotation of the brand. In order to solve the problem of chaotic brand structure, Yang Yuanqing finally decided to adopt a single brand structure among various alternatives. First of all, there must be a main brand Lenovo, with different business groups to support the main brand, and some technologies and services will adopt sub-brands, so under the sub-brands, the product sequence and product name will be used, and what kind of specifications will be adopted at each level will be more efficient, avoiding many meetings in order to make a decision.
in the next seven years, Lenovo will shoulder a heavy responsibility. Lenovo still has a long way to go from the ranks of the world's top 5 enterprises. In the future, Lenovo's road to going overseas is also full of unknown risks. Yang Yuanqing said, "I have never understood the meaning of transcendence as profoundly as I do today. We have to carry out the expansion of so many businesses, even in the business category with a very large span. It is very difficult. It is not something you can do if you want to do it. It is not something that a few people want to do. It even needs to change the genes of the whole enterprise in some aspects. "
it's only the first step to have a legitimate brand to enter overseas. Until today, Lenovo executives have not given the outside world a clear timetable and specific steps. Financial obstacles and marketing obstacles all need to be settled by Yang Yuanqing. Both Liu Chuanzhi and Yang Yuanqing agree that Lenovo's core competitiveness lies in management. Although PC products and technologies have international competitiveness, they have not yet become the core competitiveness of the company.
with the promotion of Lenovo, the company's main slogan "as long as you want" in the next two years has also been exposed recently. "'As long as you want' will become the slogan of Lenovo's promotion in the next two years. In the past, internal employees complained that they were constrained by creativity, but now it is' as long as you want', you can continue to innovate. " In the past, every promotion language of Lenovo had to be discussed several times by the president's meeting, but only the idea of "as long as you want" was passed at one time. Yang Yuanqing made a decision on the spot and decided to invest in this promotion for two years.
looking back at the brand logo, you will find it is not simple. "Without the support of business and products and the dribs and drabs of all employees, the brand actually means nothing. Brand is a logo plus reputation, not a simple logo. " Yang Jie, marketing manager of Lenovo Consumer IT Group, made this judgment: "When people think of McDonald's, they think of happiness and family sharing, not a hamburger and a logo. How to undertake the company's brand strategy in business is very important. "
Behind the wave of collective bid-changing
In the process of transferring the world manufacturing center to China, a phenomenon can't be ignored, and enterprises in China are accelerating the pace of entering overseas. From the dazzling overseas expansion of Haier, a home appliance giant, to the relatively cautious exploration of IT manufacturers such as Lenovo and Jinshan, a wave of going international will reach a peak in the near future.
the two are bound to collide. In order to reduce costs, foreign enterprises will move to factories in China, which will bring advanced management experience and production lines to China. When domestic enterprises go abroad, they will also challenge their limits in stormy waves. Living water is a rare wealth when it comes out and enters, which will accelerate the docking of the two.
the enterprises that go abroad change their trademarks, only a coat. Lenovo changed its bid and Huaqi information changed its bid. In fact, after many enterprises changed their bids, there are still more things to face. Our enterprises should quickly integrate with the international market in brand concept. The discussion on brand in the book Profit Model is quite enlightening. The book says that decades ago, the superiority of a brand meant quality and reliability. The emergence of government regulation, better commercial organizations, global competition and total quality control makes reliability what consumers deserve. Today, as companies introduce brands to the world, expand to different product lines, and extend from manufacturing process to production service mixed mode, they are also shifting from emphasizing brand significance to relying less on the special performance of products and providing customers with more internal benefits of self-confirmation value. Benetton is not only a better shirt, but also represents the wearer with a better attitude towards the world. Nike is not only a shoe that helps you run faster in the morning, but also represents the courage to stand up, meet challenges and control things.
this kind of intangibility may attract more attention from enterprises.