Diversity helps Lenovo understand customers better

EMPLOYEE DIVERSITY  LENOVO 

Singapore - A diverse employee base that comprises of both old and young employees is important from a business perspective as it helps companies understand customers better, says Howie Lau, general manager and ASEAN executive director at Lenovo.

Lau was speaking at last week's Human Capital Insights Forum, organised by Kelly Services, NUS Business School and NUS Business School Alumni Association.

Lau says selling to sell to the consumer market now is very different from when he was selling to corporate clients back in IBM, as consumers look at PCs "very differently". "We need Gen Y [staff] to market to Gen Y," Lau says.

Citing an example, Lau says the marketing team in Thailand recent came up with a marketing promotion that tied the sales of the Lenovo PCs with a teddy bear that had no eyes. However, Lau says he did not understand the rationale behind the promotion and wanted to package the sale with Disney-related toys instead.

The two promotions later ran simultaneously to see which one would fare better. "Unfortunately the bear with no eyes made it," Lau says. Lau says he later admitted that the marketing team knew what they were doing, and told them: "You tell me what you need and I would provide the infrastructure."

However, with the push for integenerational diversity, one audience member asked if this means companies and leaders would soon belittle the value of experience, to which Lau said both experience and inexperience could work well together.

Lau says in Lenovo's research and design labs in China, the company always makes sure the labs are staffed with a good mix of senior engineers and young engineers. But Lau says if experienced engineers were asked to say what the next hot new colour for a PC will be, the answer will always be black. However, Lau says the senior engineers' experience in designing and building PCs cannot be replaced.

"But you need the younger guys to say the latest trend is this fabric, particular feel and this particular curve. And it's a nice combination where experience and inexperience does count, because certain things can't be built overnight." says Lau. 

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