Towards the end of 2001, a US headquartered PC manufacturing company invited four consultants from four different companies to a resort hotel in Penang. I was one of them. Two others were from strategy consulting firms and one of them was a technology analyst.
After breakfast, we were sworn to secrecy. We signed a non-disclosure agreement about the strategy of the company and the data we were about to see. Then the strategy of the company was presented to us. The data was shared with us including projections. I was expecting to see a movie that I have watched many times before in “war rooms” and “strategy sessions”. The CEO usually declares a path to become the absolute leader in the business usually in a year distant enough to ensure that he is not around. It is followed by thunders of claps from sycophants in the room.
In this meeting nothing like that happened. The CEO asked the following question: predict which of my competitors are doing things right and who has the best chance of destroying my business. The partner of strategy firm A had come prepared. He presented a SWOT analysis of the company, described the changing technology landscape, the consolidation taking place and predicted a winner. Not only did he predict the winner (which was of course not the company that invited us) but he explained why. The second strategy firm partner disagreed with the first and said that if our host CEO did certain things right he would emerge as the undisputed leader. The techie guy came on next and much of what he said I did not understand. He was not exactly incoherent. He was talked about semi-conductors, advanced chip design, monitor resolution and lean manufacturing using plenty of technical jargons.
Then came my turn. I told the CEO that his country manager had briefed me as follows: I was to comment on some thinking of the company about its future-I had no canned presentation or ready-mix solutions. But why had I agreed to come? To tell a story about our mythology. A story that struck me when I was a child and has stayed with me. It is story worth remembering when designing a business strategy.
It is the story of King Kansa. King Kansa was told in a divine prophecy that the eighth child of his sister Devaki would be his terminator. Kansa flew in rage. He could not kill his sister. Therefore, he held Devaki and her husband Vasudeva captive. He murdered, one by one, the seven children of Devaki.
Enter Lord Vishnu. He ordered Yogamaya (the goddess of illusion) to step in. She created a trance. The prison guards of Kansa slept. (The Strategy Planners).The babies were switched. When Kansa came to kill what he believed to be the eighth child of Devaki, the child sprang to the sky (it was Yogamaya in disguise) in her fearsome form repeating the divine oracle: “He who will destroy you is growing up in Gokula.”Thinking of his nemesis, Kansa trembled in panic. The eighth baby, foster-parented by a cowherd couple in Gokula, was none other than Lord Krishna who fulfilled the divine prediction by slaying Kansa.
The CEO politely nodded as if to say: nice story buddy but what has it got to do with my company? So I went straight to the point: show me the Little Krishna who is not on your chart. By global market share –the gurus in the room said- we have everyone on the chart! No you do not. Who is the cheapest cost producer? Or someone who is a leader in a specific geography, however small? Or who is growing the fastest? Someone who is growing in Gokula and you cannot find him. Tell me who is the dark one – the future Krishna.
After much prodding the strategy officer said there is one company in China called Legend. But they produce shoddy computers for the local market. They are growing only because they have a mandarin advantage. Their brand is poor. They do not have a strong North American presence. How will they hire top talent? How will they develop R&D? I had to respond. I said, “They can do all that with money-often other peoples’ money”.
Many businesses ignore a growing competitor to their peril. I had a gut feel that this company was falling into that trap. I must confess that back in 2001, I did a notion of what was about to happen. In April 2003, Legend publicly announced its new name, “Lenovo” a portmanteu of “Le-” (from Legend) and “novo”, Latin for “new”. By the end of 2003, Lenovo had spent a total of 200 million RMB on rebranding. Lenovo acquired IBM’s personal computer business in 2005 and agreed to acquire its Intel-based server business in 2014. Lenovo entered the smartphone market in 2012 and as of 2014 is the largest vendor of smartphones in Mainland China. In January 2014, Lenovo agreed to acquire the mobile phone handset maker Motorola Mobility from Google.
In the mobile market the ruling Kings are Samsung and Apple. But there are challengers. The company Xiaomi (known as the Chinese Apple) was founded in June 2010. It means a little grain of rice. The founder has picked the name from the Chinese saying, “a single grain of rice of a Buddhist is as great as a mountain.” Little rice is busy disrupting the mobile business just as Dell had done in PCs. It sells on-line and has a superb supply chain.
Indian brands Micromax, Karbonn and Lava are out-selling Samsung. Lumia Windows phones from Microsoft are the new kids on the block. Will the leaders re-invent themselves? Or will they be disrupted by new players in the game? Will they make the Kansa blunder or prepare for the arrival of the new dark lord who might be their slayer?”
Postscript: Written on 4th November, 2025
The company’s name I can reveal now: Dell. When I went to complete my Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in the Spring of 2007, the COO of Lenovo was my classmate. He was a former Red Guard. His name was Chen Shaopeng (陈绍鹏).
One Saturday a muscular bald American came to teach the Lenovo case study. He was the Global CEO of Lenovo. His name was William Amelio. I asked him : Have I not met you before in India?
He said: Roopen, we did meet in Bangalore, then I used to work for Dell.
