Running a Global Ecommerce Platform & Staying Relevant with Ajit Sivadasan, the VP of eCommerce at Lenovo.com

There are more than eight million dynamic pages that run on Lenovo.com, where the majority of shoppers go to buy their products. It is a massive Ecommerce platform that has to work for more than one billion website visitors per year. Ajit Sivadasan is the Vice President and General Manager of Lenovo, and even though managing those pages is part of his job, what he’s more interested in is making sure that those pages are offering relevant content and an efficient experience to a new generation driving Ecommerce growth. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Ajit explains why figuring out what content is relevant to Gen Z will be the driving factor in how successful your Ecommerce platform will be.

3 Takeaways:

• There is a massive demographic shift happening in the consumer market, so rather than focusing on producing more and more content, companies need to focus on producing content that is relevant to this new audience of digitally-native consumers
• Customer irritants are data points that matter and constantly change. Constantly addressing those irritants – from delivery time to language on the credit card processing screen – has an impact on consumer satisfaction and your NPS
• Behavioral economics states that humans are predictable and predictably irrational. Therefore, you have to take this behavior into account in everything from website design to offering comparisons of products as a counterbalance for the fact that humans will deviate to the path of least resistance more often than not

For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.

---

Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce

---

Stephanie:

Hey everyone. This is Stephanie Postles, your host of Up Next In Commerce. Ajit, how's it going?

Ajit:

Good. Thank you for getting me on the show, Stephanie.

Stephanie:

Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. So I'd love to hear a little bit about your background at Lenovo. You've been there 15 years, right?

Ajit:

Close to, yeah. This is my 15th year.

Stephanie:

So I'm sure a lot has changed since you joined the company back then.

Ajit:

Yeah. I joined Lenovo in 2006, and came to Lenovo to build a consumer brand online. And obviously, when I joined, we didn't have much of a infrastructure or even sales. We were in a very limited set of countries. We were actually in four countries and we probably had a very small amount of revenue. Since then, obviously, we have scaled the business about 10X on revenues, and profits have grown about 10X. And we have scaled from four countries to 35 countries. And in the process, we have seen several acquisitions. We acquired the Motorola brand. We acquired the System X brand. So we have had to integrate all of those businesses. So Lenovo has gone from a company that's sold PCs, to being a company that basically is trying to drive intelligent transformation for its enterprise customers, and for its consumers around the world. Obviously, we have a footprint in more than 165 countries. So it's exciting.

Ajit:

When I joined the company, we were number six in the world. Obviously, we've been number one for a number of years now, and have a significant market share in the PC space, and we continue to make progress in the data center space, which we acquired from IBM. And the Motorola phones, you might have seen some of the latest phones that we introduced. We were the first ones with the foldable phone, that was a take on the Razr phone, the iconic Razr phone. So, yeah, it's been very exciting. We have obviously enjoyed our ride. I'm very excited because we get to interact with a number of customers on Lenovo.com and really bring the technology to life, and the brand to life, using the platform we have. So yeah, it's been a good ride.

Stephanie:

That's awesome. And what does your day-to-day look like at Lenovo?

Ajit:

I manage the platform for Lenovo, which is basically Lenovo.com. And since it serves all of our stakeholders, we have the Lenovo.com footprint in more than 90 countries. So I have to manage both the sales side, which is primarily a combination of B2C and SMB. And then I have to manage the enterprise side of the customer. So mostly B2B customers that buy from us using a procurement type of strategy, where we actually service them one-on-one. So I have the sales part, which is basically running the whole end-to-end business, all the way from marketing, CRM, UX/UI design, sales and marketing, phone sales, to really even trying to help with the supply chain piece, working closely with our supply chain organization.

Ajit:

But then the other side is really trying to figure out how to position Lenovo.com to become a brand voice, and figure out how we bring to life all of the innovation, and the products, and the enterprise strategy we have, for the stakeholders that come to Lenovo.com around the world. We get over a billion people coming to the website any given year. So it is a pretty substantial property. And so we have a ton of work that we need to do to manage all of those aspects that take care of basically all of the customer needs we have.

Stephanie:

Wow. What are some of the key learnings when it comes to moving globally? So it started out, I think in 1985, and it was just a reseller in China, right? And then, now it's a global company. What has that transition been like, and what have you learned in the process as you open up new countries and start selling there?

Ajit:

When I joined, obviously, my journey beyond Lenovo, was at Gateway. I was at Gateway for five years. So I've been in the PC space for about 20 years. And what you have to really understand is, all the transitions that have happened in the business model. When I started, internet was relatively new, and people used it as a very siloed organization that was doing just the phone and the web. So it was very limited. But today, as you know, 70% of the traffic that comes to the website is mobile traffic. The patterns have shifted quite a bit. So the business model transformation that has happened over the last 15 years has been interesting.

Ajit:

And what you see is, initially when we started, a lot of our colleagues around the world were maybe a little apprehensive. They were worried about things like conflict. They were worried about issues like pricing and things like that. And what you notice as things have evolved is, what you find is that, that is a very complimentary system. A number of our customers that are very sophisticated, technology-focused, innovation-focused, want to buy online. They want to be able to customize their products, they want a full breadth of products. And then there is a bunch of customers who would like to go to retail stores, look at our products, touch, understand it a little bit better before they actually make a purchase. So what we have found out is, thought we had a lot of skepticism, maybe even like six, seven years ago, that has changed into, people now trying to figure out how to leverage the business models, including connecting retail and the offline presence we have. How do we get our enterprise customers the best experience possible? How do we make sure the supply chain is responsive? How do we get them more capabilities that love them to buy products on credit, allow them to buy using a subscription type of service, give customized services that add them for SMB customers.

Ajit:

So, if you really think about it, the evolution has been quite interesting. And look, day-to-day, there's tons of things that you need to do because it's a fast-pace, technology-driven, very innovation-focused space. And people like Amazon and others, they're really driving the paradigm as far as online commerce is concerned. So it's not sufficient for us to just look at our traditional competitors. We also have to understand that the customers are getting sophisticated, and their expectations are much, much higher than what they used to be. So in many ways, the decision to go into a country now, is much more driven by the customers, than it is even proven by our direct stakeholders. And when I say stakeholders, internal folks, because customers really demand that you actually have an online presence. And they really want to transact with you online. So the transition has been interesting, but I think it's accelerating and the business models getting very complex. And our ability to actually react to them fast is going to be critical, as we move to the future.

Stephanie:

Yeah. I completely agree. So I heard that you have eight million dynamic and other pages, on lenovo.com. Maybe it's more at this point, compared to when I heard that stat'. How do you keep up with all the pages that you have, behind the scenes, being custom, depending on who's coming, depending on what country they're coming from? How do you make sure that it doesn't turn into a black box? like an algorithm when it starts getting too much stuff in it, you're like, "I don't even know what's happening behind the scenes anymore." How do you keep up with the pace?

Ajit:

A lot of this is automated. If you really think of our bulk of the products... I'll give you an example. So we sell thousands and thousands of third party products, accessories. Whether it is hard drives, whether it is even headphones and monitors and lots of things that are serviced and provided by other companies. And those are all managed automatically. So it's in a database. It's a data-driven process. So you don't have to worry about it. But if you multiply those into the number of countries, suddenly the numbers look staggeringly big. Now, having said that, it still is a pretty big number of pages. And clearly, there is a process for us to manage level one, level two, level three type of page, home page, right? If we look at the efficacy that is periodic checks on usage of the pages, there's teams basically managing content across the site, across the countries. Obviously, there is a strategy for how many layers of product pages we want to have. We look at data to understand who is using it, how often are they using it, and things that are not being used. Obviously they get [inaudible] as time goes by.

Ajit:

But more and more, it is clear to us that we need a very cohesive data strategy for formality content. So the formats customers prefer for content is changing. A lot more focused on videos, a lot more focused on how to do things, through a short-form video. Even content that you provide in terms of words are very succinct, and to the point. So you let customers pull the data, pull the content, as opposed to publishing everything and letting the customer go through stuff. Clearly it takes a lot of time and effort. And the key is to make sure that your systems, from the product management, all the way to what the customer actually sees on the glass, all managed in a way that makes sense. And that clearly is a challenge, because you've got a lot of legacy systems. And what somebody puts in as they're designing a product, may be marketed different from the marketing content that somebody needs to see in order to make a decision on a sale.

Ajit:

So you really have to figure out the process, streamline it. You need to make sure, periodically, you look for paradigm shifts. You need to understand demographics. 70% of the population that's going to be in the workforce is going to be millennials. And I can tell you that they are not really interested in reading a lot of stuff. They prefer much short-form formats, and they like videos and things like that. So if you're not connecting with them, and your engagement is not right, I think you're going to have a problem in the long run. So, I think the page count is less of a problem, than relevance. And I think that what we really are trying to do is to figure out how to be relevant, and drive content that truly drives engagement with our audiences.

Stephanie:

That completely makes sense. Are there certain trends that you see coming that Lenovo is preparing for, when it comes to, like you said, videos, preparing for millennials? What things are on your radar right now that you're preparing for the future?

Ajit:

So I'd say a couple of things on that. We are definitely seeing a pretty significant shift in demographics. Though we see a bimodal distribution. And by that, we see a lot more older people, and we see a lot more younger people. And the number of people in between actually is very low. So you would see very young people. 60%-70% of the population will be in the 20-30 age group, going forward. Which means that, these are native millennials. These are generation Z, Gen Zs, who basically are native digitally. And therefore, their expectations and how they consume data, and how they consume information is very, very different. So we have to really worry. I think everybody needs to worry, if you're online, as to how they are going to be part of your community, how you're going to get engaged with them, how are you going to keep their interest in the products that you have?

Ajit:

Part of the challenge is that they are so sophisticated, and are pretty much, in my mind, no nonsense, in terms of technology, that it's highly unlikely that they are going to support anything that is cumbersome, or verbose, or anything that basically takes away from efficiency, in terms of how they deal with online content. And so, I think the big challenge is for companies to truly make that shift of saying, "Look, this was the audience in the past. They had a very different predisposition to how they looked at data, and how they analyzed things. And then there's this new generation that truly is looking at content differently."

Ajit:

Now, the key points will be when they start truly having money in their pockets, and they're going to be in positions where they're going to be making decisions for companies, in terms of purchasing, technology decisions. And many of them already are making those decisions. And then if you are not able to engage with them appropriately, I think that you have a challenge. So truly trying to figure out how to build that relationship with the gen Z, millennial audience, I think is key. We are definitely looking at a couple of segments where we believe that that's an area that we need to really get good at, which is, gamers who are basically a big part of the online ecosystem. They are very sophisticated. They know exactly what they want. They are very community-driven. They're very content-driven.

Ajit:

And so, the proxy for us, at least in my mind is, "Look, you now have to figure it out how to engage these people online." Because you will learn from that set of experiences, that if you are, as a brand, not able to work that in your favor, it becomes increasingly challenging, I think, for the brand to have relevance in the future. And so, we are really focused on gamers. We believe that we have to cater to them end-to-end. From content, from products, online experiences, capabilities, giving them access to a broader set of products and portfolio, game titles, being able to give them subscription services and other things.

Ajit:

And the second audience that's really, really important are students. So a big part of students are going to be online, and quite frankly, this Covid crisis brings out the issue much more readily, where you see high schoolers, pretty much all schoolers, including colleges, basically offering courses online. And everybody's online study. I can tell you that it looked like a big deal when it happened, but we have been thinking about this thing for several years now. And this crisis obviously has accelerated that thinking even more. But the reality is that this is going to be the new norm. And, what is interesting is that a lot of people that aren't online students, because of the fact that for 1,000 years we have always told students that they need to go to a school, and be an apprentice, and study and learn because they can find a job.

Ajit:

And now, companies have come out and said, "Look, you don't really need a college degree to get a job. All you need is knowledge. And if you're good at something, then we'll figure out a way to test you, and you'll be fine. You don't need a formal degree." And we think that that trend will accelerate in the coming years. And I think that universities and colleges and institutions will figure out how to deal with it. And then at the same time, people like us, brands, we'll have to figure out how to engage this audience. Because, they're looking for information, they're looking for technology, they're looking for solutions. And the question is, "Can we provide them solutions and technologies that make learning online easier for students?" So that is the audience. Obviously, we make PCs, and we make phones, and we made monitors and all these things that really are part of the technology solution that enables people to learn online. And therefore, we believe that we should figure out how to engage with this audience who are basically online, and in a direct way, so that we understand their needs much more concretely. So those are two segments that are key. Stephanie, you had a question?

Stephanie:

Yeah, that makes sense. When it comes to thinking about this new generation, and they're, like you said, no nonsense. They want things quick. The website better be super quick. They better be able to buy fast. They have, I'd say, a higher risk tolerance when it comes to ordering online, as long as there's a good return policy. They're probably okay with just buying right away and hoping for the best. How are you thinking about your retail strategy? Because like you said, a lot of people in the past have been used to going into stores, and trying things out. Do you see that being something in the future? Especially with Covid, it seems like a good forcing function, where it's pushing more people online, and to just try it instead of having to experience it in person. Are you all shifting your thoughts around that area?

Ajit:

Well, I think Covid clearly will be an outlier. It will accelerate the digital transformation. But I still think that retail will have a pretty important place and role to play in the long run, but it will get redefined. And for our part, we are doing a couple of things. We are trying to figure out how to help our resellers, how to help our retail partners, and quite frankly trying to connect offline and online in a meaningful way. So where we own stores like in China and India and other places, we are trying to figure out how to connect the online experience with the offline experience, so that people can buy products online. They can go to the shop and order it online there. So really trying to figure out how to manage the customer experience a little bit more readily.

Ajit:

Now, having said that, I think the interesting transformation that's happening is really trying to connect the social, the retail, and online together. And if we can, at some point, get the mobile piece to work, then it becomes a very, very interesting value proposition for the customer because you truly have the customer for the whole cycle. So if they are outside, we know where they are, and therefore we can give them recommendations if they're interested in looking at our product. If they're online, obviously they can do things online. But if they do stuff on their phone, we can actually translate some of those things meaningfully to their desktop, and therefore we make it very, very easy, experientially for them to experience a good a brand experience. So we don't have to act surprised when the same person is in two different places, or as two different ways they connect to the brand. We just need to figure out how we connect those pieces.

Ajit:

And I think that these are the types of business model shifts that we will see accelerated as we go through this crisis and beyond. I think that people are finally trying to figure it out, "How are we going to connect this?" Look, Amazon has already done some of this with what they have done with Whole Foods and the Prime. So they've figured out how to connect the store to Prime users, and the online stuff. So the blueprint is there, and I think that most companies are doing some stuff. But I think that you're right. It's going to get accelerated as this crisis progresses.

Stephanie:

Yeah. I think connecting those platforms is key to making sure you understand the customers and can deliver value to them wherever they're at. Are there any technologies that you guys are experimenting with, to try and connect that online, to offline, to social, and mobile?

Ajit:

Yeah. It depends from place to place, and it depends on the companies footprint, right? In China, obviously, I think we are the most progressed in terms of the technology piece. We have a substantial online, merged with offline footprint, which connects WeChat, and online cloud, and our application layers, which allows our customers to actually be connected fully with the brand. And it actually connects all the retailers also to the brand in a very, very meaningful way. So that is, I think, the aspirational model for everybody. We have a very different model in Japan, as an example, where we are connected in kiosks, in the retail store, that's connected to the online world. In Taiwan as an example, we have an offline store that we are connected to. In India, it's the same thing. It's an offline-online model.

Ajit:

So yeah, the business model is different from different country to country. But it also depends on who is innovating more, and what's the landscape look like in the country? So it's not one size fits all. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that privacy, as an example, is a key consideration in some countries, and some countries they're more relaxed. So it just depends, also, on some of the privacy laws that enable customers to share information more freely versus some others where you can't.

Ajit:

But my sense is that depending on the country, and depending on the business, you will see hybrid models emerge. They already are emerging. And some will have much more traction than others. But I would see a lot of partnerships being formed between online companies and offline retailers, to really manage the customer experience to be much smoother, and much more productive, going forward.

Stephanie:

Got it. And I saw that Lenovo is leaning more into focusing on the consumer and their needs, and becoming a more consumer-first company. Is there certain data points that you all are using to meet your consumer better than you were before? Or were in that end-to-end consumer journey do you see the most room for growth or improvement?

Ajit:

Yeah. Lenovo's history and its heritage has always been a product company. We have some of the best brands in the world, whether it's Thinkpad, Yoga, Moto, System x, these are all brands that are at the top of their game when it comes to their specific categories.

Stephanie:

I used a ThinkPad at Google. I love my ThinkPad.

Ajit:

There you go. And nine out of 10 people that I speak to in the business will tell me the same thing. I used to use a ThinkPad before I worked for Lenovo long, long time ago, as well as a consultant for Deloitte. And there's plenty of people who actually use ThinkPad because it's an iconic brand. So we always have been a company of engineers, historically. But as we move into the internet era, and as digital becomes more mainstay, it is absolutely critical for us to really understand what our end users look like, what they are doing with our products, how do we collect feedback that's more direct? And truly, really understand and have a pulse on what the customer sentiment is for our brands.

Ajit:

It becomes extremely difficult for us to get feedback more directly, as from an indirect channel, because of the fact that we don't really talk to the customer directly. We have to remain and collect information in an indirect fashion. And depending on the privacy laws and other things, it becomes very, very complicated for us to collect information. Having said that, three or four years ago, as a company, we decided that it was such an existential reason for us to really start thinking customers first, and truly trying to figure out how to connect with them, and drive digital transformation, that we decided to start measuring all of our customer segments, whether it's direct or indirect, in either use proxies or direct measures. But mostly, the entire company has been on a Net Promoter Score basis, and trying to understand how customers value our products and our services, and what they actually think about the brand.

Ajit:

So our employees and our executives get paid based on a customer satisfaction metric. At one point, it was actually imperative, in terms of how they got paid. So we take this very, very seriously. And the transformation is clearly much more evolved than what it was three years ago. And now, pretty much every group in the company has a customer-focused metric. Whether it's product development and supply chain, eCommerce, or our global accounts customers. So everybody is measured on a customer-centric metric, which allows us to then drive the focus that's stated. And it's one of the top priorities for our COO, our CEO, my boss who basically runs all of the PC plus the IDC group. It's a key focus for him. So clearly, it's something that we take very, very seriously, and we are all trying to evolve with this one metric that we can look at and say, "Are we making absolute progress as a company, or not?"

Stephanie:

Got it. So a lot of times, metrics can actually have unintended consequences where maybe someone's trying to meet that metric and they're not doing the best thing to meet that. Did you see that when you guys were thinking about creating that customer metric? Did you see anything go wrong where you're like, "Oh, that's actually not a good one to rely on?" Any learnings throughout that process?

Ajit:

Yeah, look, e-commerce, we have been measuring customer satisfaction for the last, I don't know, 13 years or so. So as soon as I joined the company, two years into it, I figured out that, "Look, we need some form of getting feedback from our customers." So we have a very robust and mature process for eCommerce that we've been collecting roughly 20,000 customer feedback from a survey that we do online. So we have had a model for a long time, that uses the feedback. The biggest challenge, always, I think, is trying to figure out correlation of what factors will drive it. I think that's been the big controversy. So is it delivery metrics? Is it quality metrics? Is it product design? Is it the call center experience? So, I think there is a ton of data, and we have requested data to find out the top factors. And those factors keep changing. So-

Stephanie:

What are the top factors right now, that you see?

Ajit:

So what we see is product quality is undeniably the number one thing that the customers actually value. Hybrid customers truly value delivery. So delivery times and making sure that you're keeping your commitment in terms of products. They definitely value help in the call center as a metric. So there's probably a list of about 20, that we track. And the big ones really are product quality, delivery, out-of-the-box experience, those kinds of things. Service, as an example, right? We do surveys of customers on their service. That's a pretty important part of their feedback. But the purchase survey that we do is more around the purchasing experience. And customers are not shy, and they give you exactly you know what is important to them. And the one thing that we find is that some of the metrics that are difficult to move. Like product quality, as an example, Lenovo's product quality is very high. So it's always in the 90% range. And for us to move a percentage point on product quality is very, very difficult.

Ajit:

But there are several others where, like delivery and other metrics that float a lot more in this, there's ability for us to go change that, if you are focused on trying to drive certain changes. So the key for us is to say, "Which are the metrics that we can influence, that the team can actually take actions? Whether it's on the website, whether it's on trying to do training, or whether it's really trying to figure out how we message things to the customer differently, do proactive phone calls." One of the things that we do. But the key is to really identify those things that truly can be moved meaningfully, and we can put energy behind it, and then keep going.

Ajit:

Last year, we moved our CSAT score, or our NPS score by almost 35%. So that's a pretty substantially good jump, in terms of effectiveness. And that's because we identified a few things that we thought compelling. We had a business management system around it, we made IT changes. So all those things configured into us focusing and moving things in a certain direction. So I think that's the key. When it comes to customer-centricity, the challenge is that the customers are not standing still. Their expectations are going up every single day. So you have to do a lot more, to make meaningful progress. So you can't just stop. You have to continually change and continually improve the processes.

Ajit:

And that's always tricky because you have to really be at it, and you've got to use data to really understand what's changed, what's moving, what's the new irritant? You have to do social listening, you have to really start scanning your data that you get from your customers to figure out what's the new irritant, and how are you going to manage them. So it is certainly not an easy process. It's a very challenging process. But it is also something, I think, that is very, very important, if you, as a brand, need to keep your customers happy.

Stephanie:

Yeah, I completely agree. If you were to point to, the larger theme of being able to improve your customer satisfaction score, what was the largest thing that you changed, or adjusted, that made it so you could improve that score, by, I think you said 35%?

Ajit:

Yeah. So the one big thing that we changed was, we always had a very high amount of customization on the website. So ThinkPads, as you know, can be customized. And obviously, a customized product takes a longer time than if you had something in stare. So we have traditionally had a lot of our ThinkPads customized. And we made a conscious choice to really figure out how to keep stock of some of our high-flying products, or the fast-selling products. And so, that is a pretty significant shift, because when you have to ship something centrally from one warehouse, versus, you have to ship products from a warehouse or a manufacturing facility to a distribution center, and manage inventory, it obviously is not as efficient as trying to run something directly from the factory.

Ajit:

But we made the choice to move some other products to local distribution, to speed up delivery of our products. And that definitely helped. And we had some issues with supply. We're having some industry-wide constraints on some of the supply. And therefore, this whole process of managing inventory locally really helped us manage customer expectations a little bit better than what we're used to. So that is one example of what we did, that really helped.

Ajit:

Now, we also made a number of changes on the website, from messaging, whether it's a credit card processing screen, or whether it's a product page, or whether it's a configurator design. Any number of things that we feel are irritating customers, we have it list of maybe 500 items that we work through at any given time. And everybody is going through those things and fixing it. And then that incrementally adds a little bit of help. But the big ticket items are always around supply, product quality, call center management, pricing, promotion challenges. Some customers see discounts that are different, and I.e. managing those correctly... So it really is those big buckets that we want to make sure that we are focused on, we're fixing. And ultimately, the customer feels like we are being responsive to their needs.

Stephanie:

That's really fun, haring how you're able to drill in on a few of those things, and shift customer perception and happiness so much. Are there certain metrics that you use when it comes to, like you said, looking at what's irritating the customers, or where the website is maybe failing in certain areas? Is there a set of metrics that you look at, maybe bi-weekly or weekly with your team, to see how things are doing? And if so, what are those metrics?

Ajit:

Yeah. So when you talk about metrics, we have a website, a technical side of looking at metrics for the website, which is the IT organization that basically looks at all the technology stuff. It is, "What does the response time look like? What is your mobile performance? What's the page performance? 404 errors, page not found, the timeout errors on your checkout page, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there's probably like 100 things that somebody looks at every single day and then we manage those by exception. So we know what the numbers are. There's somebody constantly looking at those.

Ajit:

Then that is the website feedback mechanism, which is, when a customer comes online, something like our opinion lab, or a survey mechanism that basically allows customers to give you a feedback. So we randomly select customers that are on the website. We actually give them the opportunity to respond to the experience. We collect experience on their research process, their buying process, the website complexity, blah, blah, blah. So we get a ton of feedback from our customers on that particular thing. And then like I mentioned to you, we have this thing called the online ordering experience, and the purchase experience. So we get 20,000 or so responses every two weeks from all these countries, which we analyze.

Ajit:

Then, we obviously have social listening, where we actually listen to what the customers say. And then that is a common section where customers give us comments, and we use some form of AI stuff, to actually binge through all that stuff, to really get the sentiment analysis, and big ticket items that are coming back. And we take all of these things into a composite score that then allows us to go look at and say, "Where are we falling short? What are the benchmarks? What's the threshold? What's the competitive benchmark that we should be looking at for each of these categories? Best in class." And then we benchmark ourselves and figure out what actions we need to take, based on why this mentions the regression analysis to say, "Okay, these things actually have a meaningful impact through the customer experience. And therefore, we got to go figure out how to remove people who are giving us ones twos and threes. How do we increase our nines and tens? And then everybody in between, how do we move them up," to basically minimize the customer irritations that we have in the system.

Ajit:

So it's a very systematic process. There is a team that basically looks at it. There's a supply chain element that's very real. There is a services element. There is a phone sales element. There is a chat sales element. So it's a very complex set of metrics that basically transcends all of the functional groups that have a small stake in that experience, as the customer goes from the website research, to buying the product, getting it serviced, talking to a customer rep'. So we take the end-to-end customer with journey and figure out all the points, if they touch something, and figure out how to measure them, so that we have an accurate understanding of where the irritant is, and what we need to do to make it better.

Stephanie:

Got it. So I know when it comes to getting feedback, I go on websites all the time and it's asking me to do a survey, give feedback, and at least for me, I don't normally do it. I just X-off, and I try and find what I want. How are you incentivizing these potential buyers or buyers to give you the feedback, and take these surveys, and get them to do what you want?

Ajit:

It's tricky. You have to do it in a way that doesn't bias the sample. And that's what I'm most worried about, is that I don't want to incite people to do the wrong thing. So what we do is, we have a... What I've noticed is that the core customers, they are actually always very vocal, especially if they are a brand loyalist. So we get a steady stream of feedback on brands loyals, which is great because I think they are finicky, and they are brand zealots, and they really take pride in making sure that they're providing feedback on things that they like and things that don't like. And quite frankly, it shapes perception and product strategy in many ways because it's a big group of customers.

Ajit:

The tricky part is the random customer, or the customer that truly hasn't built a relationship with us but just bought something. Those folks, we have to figure out how to drive the subscription into the process a little bit more meaningfully. We periodically a 5% off coupon. We periodically send out emails to people who have bought product. We always send out emails to people buy products for us, saying, "Give us feedback. Tell us what is it that we have done well, and what are the things that we haven't done well." On the phone, obviously, we have more success because we get a chance to talk to people. But it's a combination of things. In the past, I remember like five, six years ago we would run contest that basically gave prizes for people to actually participate. And then we reduce that a little bit, because it may tend to bias the sample a little bit.

Ajit:

Look, online reviews is the other one. We have a very robust online review process that we have on the website. So we get a ton of online reviews of our particular products also. So we use that, sometimes, to also incent people to give us more feedback. So there isn't a one size fits all answer for others. It just depends. Again, in some countries we get local feedback, and some others... And so, countries where we don't get as much feedback, we try to figure out what's the right way? Can we leverage our community? Can we leverage our brand? And other things. Can we gamify it? So there's lots of strategies depending on which country and which part of the world you're in, to incentivize the customer to actually engage more readily. In some countries it's a challenge. Just because it is challenging in countries like Europe, where trying to get around some of the privacy laws can be tricky. So it's a balance. But we have tried discounts, newsletters, contests, reviews, and rating, promoting them.

Ajit:

Having said all that, I do believe that building a community and trying to nurture that community is probably the easiest way for us to get more and more feedback, which is what we are trying to do, is to try and figure out how to engage these customers more meaningfully over a longer period of time, beyond the purchasing. But we're connecting them with the brand. And then, I think that that solves some of the feedback issues, because I think we can get a much higher response rate when that happens.

Stephanie:

Yeah. I've heard a lot of brands leaning towards that community aspect, at least from the people that we've had on the show. What are some of the initiatives that you guys are doing, to create that community?

Ajit:

Well, I won't give away all the secrets, but-

Stephanie:

Just give us a couple. Come on.

Ajit:

So the big communities that we are focused on, obviously one is SMB. SMB, we fundamentally believe are underserved. And I think that there's going to be a lot more SMBs in the workplace, going forward. Because I think a lot of them are millennials and Gen-Zs are very entrepreneurial. With the advent of technology progressing the way it's progressing, and digital technologies becoming more ubiquitous, but with the online space, I do believe that we will see a lot of internet businesses springing up. It's no longer really difficult for somebody to actually open a business or start a business if they have a good idea. So you will see a significant number of people actually coming online in the SMB space. And we are obviously very aware that we need to provide them an experience, a community, and a set of resources that make them productive and useful. Useful in the sense that, we give them something that is useful for them to be more productive.

Ajit:

So part of our challenge is to try figure out what is really important for them. So we definitely think community is important. But the work, I think, is very, very important. And the question is, "How do we drive relevance? What is really important for the SMB customer as they are online, beyond the products that they buy from us? How do we get them more out of technology? How do we get the more out of their work, their productivity, and how do we make sure that they are ultimately successful as they are part of our ecosystem?"

Ajit:

So I'll give you an example. Maybe they can hear from other SMB customers who are probably struggling with similar challenges. Maybe the ability to belong to a community that has other people doing similar things, or at least dealing with broad themes that they're dealing with, money, resources, training, those things become important. So the question is, "Can we provide some of those things to our SMB customers that make their lives a little bit easier, and therefore their affinity for our brand a little bit higher?" So that's one thing that we are definitely doing for SMBs. A lot of work to be done. We are just at the very, very early stages. But we do believe that a well thought out, longterm strategy will definitely help our ecosystem and our customers. Likewise, we will be thinking about students and gamers, and trying to figure out what we can do meaningfully to nurture the relationship we have with them.

Stephanie:

Got it. Have you shifted your strategy around online learning, students, gamers, since Covid started? Did you guys have to go into a quick pivot mode to start doing something different or planning for a different future than what you were maybe planning for six months ago?

Ajit:

Well, we started this strategy two years ago. Haven't changed much. So therefore, we do have a leg up because we have been thinking this for a little while. Covid just made it a little bit more easier to sell, and get traction. But the strategy we are on has basically been in place for a while, because we have been building IT capabilities and some of those things that we need to service our customers. This is not something you can just spin up in a day. These take much, much more longer-term. And there's plenty of partnerships and relationships that are [inaudible 00:42:24]. So it's not, certainly, something that you can just copy, or you can just do. It is capital-intensive. You need to put money into it. You need to do a lot of development. Do you need to really start thinking about the strategy much more clearly? So it's certainly not something that's the thought about yesterday. But I think that there's a lot more that we need to do to be relevant and to drive this to a scale.

Stephanie:

Cool. So I've heard that you like behavioral economics. I was wondering-

Ajit:

Yes.

Stephanie:

Yeah. I watched a few videos. I'm like, "Oh, me too." What principles have been useful, or how have they shaped the digital experiences that you build at Lenovo?

Ajit:

Yeah. Look, pretty much everything that you do on a website, or you do on business lends itself to some of the principles from behavioral economics. And some of them that are really interesting... I became a fan of behavioral economics with Dan Ariely, who basically is local here at Duke. And we had Dan come to campus and speak to our people a couple of times. This was like maybe seven, eight years ago. So I've been a big follower of it. And clearly, what I understand from it is that people are predictable, and they can be predictably irrational in how they make decisions. So sometimes, common sense is probably overrated, believe it or not, when it comes to some of the design principles and some of the things that we do from a merchandising and marketing standpoint.

Ajit:

So big couple of things for me is, look, people want to compare things, right? And they freeze when they're not able to compare things that are similar. If you give them these similar things and ask them to compare it, they always rationalize it to something that is a common denominator. So as an example, you don't have to bet an apple to an orange. Obviously, they are very different fruits. And to ask them to really say which one you like more becomes a preference issue, more than a rational exercise. And so, if you're truly asked them to assign value to it, more likely, they are going to say an apple cost $1 and an orange costs 50 cents. So maybe the apple is 2X better than the orange. That would be the natural way of thinking.

Ajit:

Now, when you tell them to compare a PC of one kind to a PC of a completely different kind, they are likely to be completely lost because they just are not able to understand the fundamental differences between them. Or, it would take them an inordinate amount of time for them to actually compare the products, disparate products. And so what they do is they start thinking about price. And price is not necessarily the best way to make a decision on something that basically is going to be your technology partner for a few years, and going to make you productive in the kinds of things that you need to do.

Ajit:

So I've realized that look, you have to really enable a comparison of products in a much more meaningful way. So make sure that the customers don't have to really go out of their way to think about how to compare products. And obviously, it's challenging when we have so many products coming out at this breakneck speed, that some of the technology cannot keep up. But to me, comparing things is an important paradigm, in my opinion.

Stephanie:

It brings back the memories when I used to open up a bunch of tabs to compare products before the company started shifting to that comparison model. But I do still think there's a long way to go when it comes to, especially comparing tech. Because when I'm looking at a computer and it's saying, "Here's all the specs of this computer." A lot of those things, I don't even know, why would I want to upgrade? Whereas if it said, "Well this means that you'll be able to store this many pictures versus this." Or, "You'll have a much faster internet speed," or, "Remember how your computer's working really slowly when you try and open up Photoshop? It won't do that anymore." It would be nice to start seeing a more consumer perspective of, "What does this do for me?" Instead of just being like, "It's this many terabytes," and all the technical specs to it. Are you all thinking about that kind of shift, or how are you incorporating them?

Ajit:

Definitely, comparison of products is a big thing. Search, how you do search comparison is a big thing. So we are absolutely focused on it. And to make things worse, the mobile form factor doesn't facilitate very readily, comparison of complex things. So we have to figure out more elegant and meaningful ways in which we can have people compare products on a small form factor like a phone. So yeah, clearly very, very important, on top of our list. Always challenging, always evolving. So yeah, we have to go figure out how to do that.

Ajit:

One other thing that I would tell you when it comes to behavioral economics and behavioral science is, bias, the role of bias. And I think that this is a big one because I think people will generally, when they're making decisions, executives like me included, we make decisions based on anecdotal evidence, based on what we have done. And we take that size, and of one, and we try to generalize, hypothesize our theory based on a bad experience or a good experience. And we extrapolate that to the population and end up driving everybody crazy and not looking at numbers the right way, and ignoring numbers, and making decisions that are suboptimal.

Ajit:

So, the work by Kahneman and some of the work that the Israelis have done, especially because it seems like that's where all of the cool stuff is coming from on behavioral economics, from the Hebrew University, the work is really, really telling us not to be biased, and to suspend judgment, and to really focus on what the data tells us, and to pay attention to not fall into the trap of the bias. So, it takes a while, and it takes a lot of effort, but I think it's a good reminder for us to really focus on managing and minimizing our biases, so that we can make optimal decisions that affect our customers in a very positive way.

Stephanie:

Completely agree. Do you all do trainings at Lenovo? Whether it's for the executives, or the employees, when it comes to how to create surveys and look at the data in a non-biased way, and collect data from certain people, where it's not biased. Do you do anything around that to teach those principles?

Ajit:

I also teach, sometimes. So I have been pushing this very heavy and hard with my teams. And obviously, a lot of the executives read these books, so it's not lost on them. But look, because we have such a huge direct customer-facing interface, the focus on the online space has to be much inordinately higher, because I think the impact is much, much higher on the direct interface. So we are definitely driving this. A lot of our people are classically trained. They all go to classic UX/UI trading. But more and more, I also have started relying on quantitative data at scale, for making decisions, rather than opinion. So I am not, and my team hates me for this. But I'm not a big fan of qualitative information. I would much rather not ask people anything and just look at the data and interpret the data and start making decisions.

Ajit:

Because people say one thing, and they do another. And it's not a new notion. I think a lot of people know this. And at scale, when you're talking about tens of millions of records, I think the data doesn't lie. In fact, if the data says that, then that's what we should do because it services a majority of our customers positively. So that's the other principle that I use is, "Don't ask, just look at the data and try and make decisions based on the data. Try to understand the data, and then design your tests and your experiments based on what you see, rather than asking a bunch of people in a panel, and they'll tell you some stuff." And I'm sure it goes in some places, but I am always skeptical when that happens because I'm worried about bias.

Stephanie:

Do you think, from your experience, a lot of companies are still focusing on that qualitative data and it's actually leading them down the wrong path, or they're creating either new products or new website experiences that are probably going to fail because they're using that qualitative data?

Ajit:

I am sure people are. But I think people also... They all read these same things. But I think there is probably enough anecdotal evidence that suggests that there's lot of people who still use those principles. So I don't know the exact number, and any guess that I would venture would be wrong, so I would not venture it. But my sense is that yeah, it requires activism, like for some of the people and the executives, to actually read the books, get interested, get excited, and then drive everybody to get to follow it and understand it. It's a field that's still evolving. So it takes effort. Right? And then the infrastructure that's needed to do at-scale testing, and A/B testing, they're not cheap. It's expensive.

Ajit:

So, I think the question is, how many people are driving digital transformation? How many people are digitally savvy? How many companies are? And my sense is that that's a very small number. I think everybody's talking about digital transformation now, because of all the issues that are around them. But I can tell you that the number of companies that are digitally savvy after you take out some of the tech companies and the internet companies, is very small companies. There are a few who companies have a pretty big gap. So my sense is that they're not, probably, using it as much.

Stephanie:

Yeah. I completely agree. So, zoom out a bit for the last couple of minutes. In the world of e-commerce, are there any big disruptions you see coming or what do you see in the future, that you guys are planning for?

Ajit:

Well, I think this whole transformation, this whole crisis actually points to the fact that the digital transition will be much faster. I think that people have realized a couple of things. One, travel, may be overrated. People have realized that education, going to school, sitting in classrooms, may be overrated. People are going to realize that working from home is not such a big deal. And so, I think the workforce productivity, the online education, travel as a paradigm, and how companies operate, all of that will, I think, become ripe for disruption. So you will see, increasingly, technology solutions practices that's going to upend a lot of the work practices, and the educational practices. So that's happening. That's going to happen, and it's going to accelerate.

Ajit:

Clearly, I think that this will also boost some of the technology things like AR, VR, IOT, both from home and from work. I think it'll accelerate some of those things because it'll be a natural extension of some of the things that people are doing. I think the move to cloud is going to get accelerated, because I think everybody wants access to everything. As 5G comes, I think a lot of these things that are laborious today might experience a complete revival, and complete transformation when it comes to speed, and feel, and what's possible. So I think that the time is right for us to get much more digitally-connected.

Ajit:

The last one is mobile, in terms of what's going on with mobile and how mobile is going to get a face, or as 5G comes on. So it'll be interesting to see how retail, how millennials and gen-Zs, how SMBs, all of these groups of people that make up a pretty significant part of the population... I think students, gamers and SMB is probably at about 40% of the world's population. So you'll see that there's going to be a significant shift, quite rapidly, in the next three to five years. And there's going to be a considerable amount of disruption that'll happen as a result of this.

Ajit:

You will see winners and losers. This will be probably a long list of people we're going to go out of business if they're not able to adapt quickly to some of the changes that are happening. The companies that get it naturally will have much bigger gains, which will make them much more competitive, and difficult to beat. So you will see a lot of winners and losers emerging out of this whole crisis, and as the digital evolution continues in a significant way.

Stephanie:

Yeah. I love that answer. So before we move on to the lightning round, which is where we ask a question and you have one minute or less to answer, are there any other high-level thoughts or words of wisdom that you want to drop in the podcast?

Ajit:

No. Well, I just tell the people who are in this space, the eCommerce space, that their time has come, finally. So they should just buckle up and help their companies and see where the ride goes.

Stephanie:

I love that. All right. So the lightning round, like I said, brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud, is where I will ask a question and you have one minute or less to answer it. Are you ready Ajit?

Ajit:

Okay.

Stephanie:

All right. What's up next in your travel destinations, after we're allowed to travel?

Ajit:

I would like to go to Cuba because I'm running very low on my cigars.

Stephanie:

Wow, that sounds cool. All right. What's up next on your Netflix queue?

Ajit:

I just finished Ozark. And I'm trying to figure it out how to watch The Last Dance. But it's not on Netflix, unfortunately.

Stephanie:

Maybe Hulu?

Ajit:

I've been watching Heist. So maybe I'll keep watching that.

Stephanie:

Cool. What's up next for... Is it lunchtime there? I guess a little bit past lunch. What's that next for dinner?

Ajit:

Dinner, I had cooked on the weekend, some lamb curry and some roti. So I'm going to just reheat that and eat it.

Stephanie:

Yum. What's up next on your podcast list or your reading list?

Ajit:

Ah, reading. I'm reading The Billion Dollar Whale.

Stephanie:

What's that one about?

Ajit:

It's about this dude, Wall Streeter, who basically flees a billion dollars right under the nose of Wall Street and big finance people and everybody else in the world. So it's like DiCaprio movie.

Stephanie:

Oh, which one is that? The Wolf of Wall Street?

Ajit:

The Wolf of Wall Street. So it's loosely a character like that. So I'm just a quarter into it. It's unbelievably engaging and interesting.

Stephanie:

I have to look into that.

Ajit:

Yeah, you should. It's pretty cool.

Stephanie:

You have a few, you said? A few more books that you're working on?

Ajit:

I still haven't finished Homo Sapiens, and some of the books that he had written. So I'm still trying to figure it out when I can finish those, with things slow.

Stephanie:

All right. What's your favorite tool or technology that you're either learning right now or you're thinking about implementing in the future? Or it could be a skill?

Ajit:

I don't know about skill. I don't know very many skills. Technology. We are constantly thinking about technology. And the big technology that we are thinking about is how to drive the subscriptions business. So it really is trying to figure out how to give customers the convenience of buying something as they pay-for-use concept. Because I think it's becoming very, very clear that the reason why people like Netflix and Adobe and some of our other customers and clients are successful, is because people are able to pay. And in [inaudible 00:58:45], I think that business model is very appropriate. People don't want to spend a lot of money upfront. So trying to figure out how to make their lives a little easier.

Stephanie:

Awesome. Yeah, I definitely-

Ajit:

Hello.

Stephanie:

Subscription business. All right, the last big one. So it sounds like you guys are doing a great job of staying ahead of expectation, and your competition. So in your opinion, what's up next for e-commerce professionals?

Ajit:

Well, I think it will become a key priority for most organizations. I think the digital transformation plus e-commerce, if they are in a business that does e-commerce, will become a major priority. The key will be to try and figure out how to build out that strategy in a meaningful way. If they are global, I think they have to figure out how to make it more global. If they are not global, they have to figure out how to get more local. Either way, you really have to figure out what that business model will look like. And it's not going to be easy because you have to deal with legacy systems, and you have to deal with legacy operating processes, and you have to deal with the legacy sales force and the legacy set of go-to-market strategies. So trying to figure out how to meaningfully make sense of it. There's a bunch of companies that are doing well. But there's going to be a bunch of companies that will have to figure this thing out. So they will be busy, and they will be in demand.

Stephanie:

Awesome. Love it. Any final plugs before we hop off the podcast?

Ajit:

No. I just want to say that if you have good people that work for you, you should try and figure out how to hold on to them, because it's going to get a mad rush to get to good people.

Stephanie:

Oh yeah. I completely agree with that one. All right. Ajit, it's been a blast. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Ajit:

Thank you so much, Stephanie. I enjoyed our conversation.