Lenovo and Tech Data partnership soaring to greater heights

“We are now depending on Tech Data to spread out the hardware portfolio of the business and also pull us to the network of partners, especially the second-tier partners that are there. That is a critical part for us,” Nigel Lee, Country General Manager for Lenovo in Singapore.

The PC refresh cycle continues to drive laptop sales around the world. According to Nigel Lee, Country General Manager for Lenovo in Singapore, despite the slow start to laptop sales earlier in the year, the numbers have since picked up a lot as more organizations begin to realize the importance of the PC refresh cycle.

For Lee, driving the refresh cycle is not just the phasing out of Windows 10 by Microsoft. While that is a strong reason to renew devices, the reality is most companies are also reaching the lifecycle limit of their office devices.

“If you look at things, most of the notebooks were bought during the COVID-19 period. That was the big growth that we experienced back in 2020 to 2022. Now. we're coming in 2025, 2026 and it's almost at that phase where companies will look to device refresh because of end-of-life cycles,” said Lee.

While Lee acknowledges that AI PCs are also experiencing growth, the more conventional laptops continue to see increased sales. For example, in Singapore, Lee said the public sector is still focused on traditional laptops because of the requirements they need.

For the public sector to use AI PCs, Lee explained that it needs to go through many tests, especially with the number of apps built in because of the data. It’s not just that the public sector can just freely use AI as they don’t want to have data compromised.

“They have to be careful. There's also the security aspect they need to test through. So, for that, the government sector is going to take a bit more time until they really test out all the brands, all the models of the machines, and then they put them back. Meanwhile, if you look at commercials, there are two sectors in commercial. One is the SMB segment while the other is the large account segment. If you look at SMB, it's still mainly leaders that use it because they want to have a try, with the price not an issue. So, we see that a huge portion of C-level for SMB getting AI PCs,” explained Lee.

At the same time, he also pointed out that there have been a lot of enquiries in the corporate sector and the numbers are increasing.

“There’s the price differentiator between a conventional and AI PC. However, as the volume grows, the price differentiator is just going to close the gap, and it's going to be a 3-digit piece. The AIPC is going to be mainstream eventually. It might not be this year; it might be next year. The volume will just increase. The supply chain will just depreciate the price, and it will normalize the entire market,” said Lee.

While the laptop segment still represents a huge market for Lenovo, its enterprise portfolio of products has also been gaining traction. According to Lee, the main bulk of the enterprise business comes from GPUs in data centers.

“A lot of customers are now looking, especially with AI, they are looking for on-prem, and the edge. We do very well on the edge devices because of IoT, automation, robotics. And these days, Lenovo Singapore is moving into the decade of spinning off into automation and robotics. So, we do smart warehousing, smart manufacturing, smart retail, and those kinds of solutions need edge computing. For on-premises infrastructure, we wrap the solutions around the enterprise hardware,” said Lee.

Partnership with Tech Data

Lenovo has a strong channel ecosystem in Singapore with Tech Data being one of its biggest partners in the country. With a relationship going back to the pre-pandemic era, Lee said Tech Data in Singapore is now a critical part for Lenovo’s growth in Singapore.

“The partnership started with them distributing our hardware products. We made devices, PC notebooks, and also our infra products. We then started adding more into the portfolio, especially in the solutions space to build the relationship. We are now depending on Tech Data to spread out the hardware portfolio of the business and also pull us to the network of partners, especially the second-tier partners that are there. That is a critical part for us,” said Lee.

For Lee, the tier two partners with Tech Data connect them to provides the market network desired to grow. With sales in Singapore being driven by the channel for more than 95%, Lee believes distributors like Tech Data is critical to bring in the network of business partners and alliances to bridge the gaps Lenovo doesn’t have.

“For example, today when we deliver solutions, we look at the front end. We look at automation and at robotics as well as the execution system and the AI. But in the back end, we don’t have some components like network. We don't have a network business. How do we reach out? And you know that automation is all about networking. So, we have to collaborate. Who are the network providers that can help us to marry up in a total solution where we enter into the customer's area? That's where Tech Data will come in and really bridge the gap for us,” explained Lee.

Meanwhile, Lynn Toh, Senior Director - Advanced Solutions at Tech Data APAC believes that the partnership with Lenovo is all about bringing more partners to them, especially for its wide range of portfolio from devices to solutions.

“It’s very competitive. How do we work together with Lenovo to make sure that we give the most suitable solution to the partners, to the end users, so that they can achieve the best outcome from a business angle? From our side, we have been working with Lenovo for a very long while, whether it's from the PC notebook devices portion to the enterprises portion. We are also coupling up with AI solutions. So today, we are working with them on their AI solutions, together also with some of our AI ISVs that can work with x86 servers, or even PC notebooks. So that is also what we are bringing back to Lenovo as a partnership,” said Toh.

Toh also hopes that Tech Data and Lenovo brainstorm together for certain solutions to be able to work on some of the devices and some of the service storage. For example, in the manufacturing industry, Lenovo has got many very successful use cases which can be worked on in other industries as well.

Echoing Toh sentiments, Lee also believes that this is critical especially as Lenovo grows the business and transforms in Singapore.

“We can't ignore them, and we will never ignore them. The journey is for the two companies to come together. It's not about us. It's about the whole ecosystem. And the success of Lenovo is with all the channel partners that we have. It’s going to be a long journey. We're just starting. It's an infancy for us. But I think the road ahead is going to be very fun,” concluded Lee.