Watch: Lenovo India CEO Rahul Agarwal on surviving the pandemic and growth strategies

Beijing headquartered Lenovo, which designs, develops, manufactures and sells products such as personal computers and smartphones, says it has had little difficulty adapting to a remote working setup amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

According to Lenovo India CEO and managing director Rahul Agarwal, the existence of a flexible working arrangement at the company made the switch easier. 

Agarwal told TechCircle about Lenovo’s journey through the pandemic, including its cross-geography strategies and commercial-to-individual market analysis.  

The firm witnessed good sales in the April-June quarter, he said, as the Covid-19 lockdown was announced without much warning. This resulted in companies having to facilitate work from home setups on short notice.

“But we have to watch what happens from July. I already see fresh demand dipping,” he said. 

“Now, when I see outside India, (market intelligence firm) IDC says that the personal computer demand may go down about 8-10% compared to the April-March period. So that will affect all vendors. If you look at it holistically, we have to be prepared for a slowdown in the second half of the year,” he added. 

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Agarwal has been a part of Lenovo for 15 years. He has also worked at Armonk headquartered technology giant IBM.