Do a good job of solving major problems in different fields.
Text: "Chinese Entrepreneur" reporter Yan Junwen
Editor|Li Wei
Header image source: Respondents
Since joining Lenovo Group in 1990, Qiao Jian has been known as a generalist, and she seems to have a "golden finger" to solve major problems in different fields.
In 2004, Lenovo Group spent $1.25 billion to acquire IBM's PC business, thus starting the road to internationalization. But before Lenovo Group officially became the world's largest PC maker in 2013, management invested heavily in integrating the acquired business into Lenovo. Among them, Qiao Jian is one of the leaders in the important work of building an international company management system.
Transitioning from a familiar market position to human resources, and suddenly having to be responsible for global personnel integration, salary integration, organizational integration, etc., was "particularly challenging" for Qiao Jian during that time.
"I learned English from scratch, learned to negotiate with foreigners, and learned to understand their culture. Qiao Jian recalled. With no previous experience, with super perseverance, learning ability and communication skills, she has successfully cracked the hard bone of international company management.
Now, Qiao Jian has ushered in a new wave of industrial revolution driven by generative artificial intelligence and large model technology. As Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Lenovo Group, she needs to see faster and farther than others: "The so-called leader is to dare to stand up when the enterprise and organization face changes and challenges, lead the team, take responsibility, formulate strategies, and lead the change. ”
Source: China Attempt Library
For Lenovo Group, this change was initiated many years ago. In 2018, as soon as he became the head of strategy of the group, Qiao Jian led the team to put forward the "3S strategy" of intelligent transformation, making efforts from the three dimensions of intelligent Internet of Things, intelligent infrastructure and industry intelligence, promoting intelligent transformation in the company, and accumulating strategic vision and resources for the tide of AI.
On April 18, Lenovo released a new species of AI - AI PC series products with built-in personal agent "Lenovo Xiaotian", which went on sale on May 20, standing at the forefront of the wave of artificial intelligence revolution.
"Crossing the cycle" again
Every business is within the cycle, and Lenovo Group is no exception.
According to IDC, shipments of PCs (desktops, laptops, and workstations) in the Asia-Pacific region (including China and Japan) fell by 16.1% to 97.4 million units in 2023.
However, as the leader of the global PC market, Lenovo Group successfully achieved year-on-year revenue growth in the third quarter of fiscal year 2023/2024 ending in December 2023, and its profitability also improved quarter-on-quarter for the second consecutive quarter. Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo Group, attributed this achievement to "the high resilience of the core business and the continuous effectiveness of intelligent transformation" in an email to all employees.
Qiao Jian introduced that after years of technology and resource accumulation, Lenovo has now formed a panoramic artificial intelligence business ecology including artificial intelligence-oriented, artificial intelligence optimization, artificial intelligence-enabled terminals, infrastructure and solution services.
In terms of smart terminals, Lenovo has established a diversified portfolio of smart IoT terminals, including PCs, mobile phones, tablets, AR/VR, workstations, etc., and has continuously enhanced the computing power of terminals and innovated device forms.
In terms of intelligent infrastructure, Lenovo has become the world's third largest AI infrastructure, server supplier and storage equipment manufacturer, with products covering various computing scenarios such as data centers, public clouds, private clouds, and edge computing, providing strong support for the training and inference needs of AI large models.
In addition, Lenovo Group is also customizing intelligent solutions and services for customers in different industries to empower their transformation.
"Through the strategic guidance of intelligent transformation, the company's various business units have embraced artificial intelligence in an all-round way, and Lenovo has embarked on a path of AI-driven sustainable development and entered a new development cycle. Qiao Jian said.
"It's an opportunity, but it's also a responsibility"
Entering a new development cycle, the first to bear the brunt is Lenovo's AI PC.
Qiao Jian said that the creativity boom sparked by generative AI is making more people shift from mobile phones to multi-device applications, using PCs to challenge more imaginative and creative work, and AI PCs will also become the mainstream of the market.
Market analysis confirms this assumption: Canalys predicts that by 2026, more than half of all PCs will be AI-capable.
Lenovo was the first technology company to propose the concept of AI PC and the first to demonstrate the prototype of AI PC. Qiao Jian believes: "This is the opportunity and responsibility that Lenovo has been given. We hope that AI PCs can help customers and enterprises at the same time, so that artificial intelligence can be truly implemented, can be universalized, and let science and technology promote the development and progress of society. ”
Source: Visual China
Lenovo has clearly defined the five characteristics of AI PC: the first is to have an agent that embeds a large personal model and interacts naturally with the user, the second is to run a compressed large model, and each person can have their own personal knowledge base, the third is the local heterogeneous AI computing power including CPU, GPU and NPU, the fourth is to have an open AI ecosystem, and the fifth is to have a certain security mechanism and privacy protection mechanism.
"And Lenovo is not satisfied with just integrating other people's innovative technologies or components, we will make our own unique capabilities in each of these five areas. Qiao Jian said.
Life is limitless, career is endless
When she was in her 20s, Qiao Jian read a book about "success", the author and the content of the book were vague, but a sentence on the title page left a deep impression on her - the difference between people is very small, but the difference between people and results is very large.
The small difference is positive or negative, and the big difference is success or failure. "When we face anything, just a little bit of a change, look at it in a positive light, and in a few decades you will find that it is actually that positive view of the world that makes a person successful. Qiao Jian said.
This sentence has also become Qiao Jian's motto for many years. She shares this quote every year with young employees who are new to Lenovo. In the past two years of new employee training activities, Qiao Jian clearly felt that more and more young people are beginning to worry about whether they will be replaced by AI.
Whenever this question is asked, Qiao Jian will answer like this - we face different challenges every day, each era has its own AIGC moment, as long as we continue to learn and improve, we will definitely become better. "We need to make AI our co-pilot, or even auto-pilot, to help us unleash more potential and create more miracles. ”
Wholeheartedly, without regrets
Lenovo was founded in 1984, and it has been 40 years since then. Qiao Jian said that in the past 40 years, Lenovo has taken a step forward every 10 years, from the first 10 years of its establishment and agency distribution, to the second 10 years of building its own brand to win the Chinese PC market, to the third 10 years of the merger and acquisition of IBM PC on the world stage and gradually topping the global PC, and then to the past 10 years, firmly implementing the "3S strategy" of intelligent transformation and creating a diversified development engine.
On April 1, at Lenovo Group's new fiscal year pledge meeting, Yang Yuanqing announced Lenovo's new mission for the new 10 years - "leading the transformation of artificial intelligence", and "wholeheartedly, no regrets" was established as the slogan of Lenovo's 40th anniversary celebrations.
Qiao Jian said: "Lenovo's 40 years are like a tree, starting from a seed, taking root and sprouting, and under the watering of everyone, it has grown into such a towering tree today. Looking forward to the future, we will grow into an evergreen tree, attracting everyone to water at the same time, but also able to shelter more people, in the era of artificial intelligence change, together with our employees, customers, and partners, no regrets, wholeheartedly, hand in hand. ”
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