ABSTRACT
Lenovo Group is one of the leading IT companies in China and the second-largest PC provider in the world. Founded in 1984 by 11 computer scientists in Beijing, as the New Technology Developer Inc., it was soon renamed as Legend and started a new era of consumer PCs in China. In 2004, aspiring to expand its business globally with a more global-like brand, the company changed the brand name “Legend” to “Lenovo,” taking “Le” from Legend, and adding “novo” the Latin word for “new,” to reflect the spirit of innovation at the core of the company. The current CEO, Yang Yuanqing, joined Lenovo in 1989 as a salesman, and rose rapidly through its ranks to CEO in 2005. In less than three decades, with his predecessor, Liu Chuanzhi, Yang Yuanquing has spearheaded Lenovo’s ascent to its current position (Kirkland and Orr, 2013). We will try to answer the question how Lenovo has achieved such a prominent success in less than three decades. In this chapter we draw on the concepts of entrepreneurship and capability accumulation to explain the competitive strategies adopted in the growth path of Lenovo.
