We have decoded genuine discomfort points of SMBs: Shailendra Katyal, managing director, Lenovo India

According to IDC, customer tech spending in the very first quarter of 2021, a complete year into the pandemic, grew 6.3% quarter-on-quarter. With expanding tech spends, organisations have had to scale and provide versatile services at a substantially more quickly pace. This has led enterprise as effectively as SMB segments to seek options that allow them to much better navigate IT challenges, manage device damages and mitigate safety dangers at home. Shailendra Katyal, managing director, Lenovo India, talks to Sudhir Chowdhary on the require to reimagine IT services to cater to new enterprise and SMB use situations that had been accelerated through the pandemic .Excerpts:

What are some of the challenges SMBs have faced through the pandemic?
Some of the challenges that we saw SMBs face in the last two years had been:

Revenue shock: SMBs in numerous sectors had demand challenges as the pandemic reshaped consumption patterns, F&ampB and travel getting a couple of of them. The other effect was even if demand existed in numerous categories, fulfilling it offline was complicated through lockdowns. So SMBs which did not have an on the web technique of engagement and delivery suffered more.

Cost inflation: Extended lockdowns place stress on the provide chains and we did see commodity and other input expenses go up. People expenses also went up with labour shortages in some periods along with healthcare and security expenses growing.

Working capital shortage: Longer payment cycles and larger expenses led to numerous SMBs facing shortage of working capital. Credit availability became a challenge with lenders taking a more cautionary view with payment dangers going up.

In terms of pure operations, we saw SMBs getting challenged in attempting to handle remote working and discovering digital channels of promoting as numerous of them had been nevertheless in a standard offline mode with not sufficient investments in digitisation.

How is Lenovo meeting the IT service needs of SMBs?
Lenovo has made considerable efforts in decoding genuine discomfort points of SMBs in this period and immediately evolved options to help their remote working and digitisation efforts. We give them a wide variety of merchandise ideal from a smartphone or tablet to a datacentre or cloud option beneath one umbrella. Given their capital constraints, we have evolved a DaaS model for them to spend as they go.

We have a host of managed services for IT which aid SMBs keep away from the expense of developing in-property IT teams. Some of these are Smart Fleet management for remote sources, quite a few safety offerings and onsite aid desks, and so forth. We have a devoted go-to-market place engine of LenovoPro hosted on Lenovo.com that can aid shoppers and partners discover the ideal options for SMBs.

What are some of the new service offerings introduced due to the pandemic?
Lenovo announced the launch of Lenovo Device Intelligence and the enhanced version with Lenovo Device Intelligence Plus. The Lenovo Device Intelligence is a cloud-based application-as-a-service (SaaS) device overall health management tool in India capable of assisting in not only diagnosing Computer challenges but also in predicting prospective program failures ahead of they happen.

Security has been a essential situation with organizations working from home, how has Lenovo helped mitigate these dangers?
A resilient finish-to-finish provide chain is essential that consists of a organizing and development state intentionally made with safety in thoughts. Our offerings provide technical help, backup and repair services to retain devices performing at peak efficiency, and secure from cybersecurity threats.

Our Premier Support gives a 24×7 helpdesk and a technical account manager who is accountable for trouble resolution. Sentinel One is the next-generation antivirus application that proactively identifies and blocks malicious activity from infecting the endpoint, cloud, and Internet of Things (IoT). Lenovo ThinkShield, on the other hand, is a custom option that secures most important information and organization technologies with complete finish-to-finish protection.

How does the evolution of IT services inside Lenovo’s offerings set it apart from its competitors?
We have been steadily adding to our services portfolio more than quite a few years and service-led transformation was articulated as a main corporate priority in early 2020. Lenovo’s options and services portfolio are multi-faceted, complementing diverse segments and groups. This is bucketed into 3 segments.

First, our Attached Services &amp Software, which are sold with the device and cover almost everything required to retain the solution operating across its lifecycle, such as extended help and access to Office 365.

Second, our Managed Services and Device-as-a-Service (DaaS). Customers outsource their infrastructure management to us. We provide standardised help and upkeep as effectively as general device management. Combining hardware, application, and service options, assists shoppers reduced expenses and save time.

Finally, we have Complex Solutions that bring almost everything collectively on a strategic level with proprietary Lenovo Smart Solutions.

Originally appeared on: TheSpuzz