Lenovo’s two Taylors on simplifying the channel, the services shift, and life after Accelerate

Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last sixteen years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor at ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show. You want to understand how a global technology vendor thinks about its partner program, not the press release version, but the actual mechanics of how design decisions get made and how they land in markets like Canada. Today’s conversation is a fairly rare opportunity. We have at the same time the global architect of the Lenovo partner ecosystem and the Canadian channel chief.

Jeff Taylor is executive director of global partner ecosystem and operations for Lenovo, responsible for the Lenovo 360 framework that governs how the company works with partners worldwide and for the new consolidated partner ecosystems and program structure for the international markets that Lenovo unveiled earlier this year. Craig Taylor is senior director and Canada channel chief at Lenovo, a 2026 CRN channel chief and the person responsible for translating all that global framework into real outcomes for Canadian partners on the ground.

We recorded this conversation just after Lenovo 360 Accelerate, the company’s annual North American partner event wrapped up in Austin, Texas. So this is about as fresh a read on the state of the Lenovo partner ecosystems you’re gonna get. We covered the dramatic simplification of Lenovo’s incentive structure, the push towards services-led selling and recurring revenue, how AI is reshaping both the partner conversation with customers and Lenovo’s own approach to enablement, and how Canadian partners should be thinking about a volatile period in hardware pricing.

And yes, they’re both named Taylor. We had asked some questions. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Jeff Taylor and Craig Taylor. [Music]

Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time.

Jeff Taylor: Hey Robert, how are you?

Robert Dutt: Very well, thank you.

Craig Taylor: Excellent. Good afternoon, Robert.

Robert Dutt: Interesting situation, one of those channel journalist dream situations, chatting with both the global architect of the partner program and the Canadian channel chief at the same time. And as fate would have it, you’re both just coming back from Austin. Jeff, for people who weren’t there in the room for Accelerate this year, the event was themed “unified as one” — pretty deliberate choice of words, I dare say. What were you trying to signal with that framing?

Jeff Taylor: Yeah, well, I mean, obviously one with our partners is probably the first and foremost thing, but also to represent Lenovo holistically. From Motorola all the way through our devices, tablets, PCs, etc. and then into the data center. So we are one company and as an extension of that, one company includes our partners and the whole intent of the event was to bring everybody together and unify. Feedback has been really, really positive and it’s, you know, it’s only been a week, but lots of really good discourse and wonderful event.

Robert Dutt: Craig, from a Canadian perspective, what did the Canadian attendance look like and what did Austin feel like compared to previous Accelerate events from a Canadian partner point of view?

Craig Taylor: Yeah, our Canadian partners had very positive feedback to Jeff’s point. We’re always very well represented in these types of North American based events. We always punch above our weight class, I’d like to say. So all of the key strategic partners across our ecosystem were there in present and actively participating in our discussions as to how we’re going to strategize for our next fiscal year.

Robert Dutt: Jeff, one thing that stood out for me from Austin was the choice of putting Jay McBain, Steve Brazier and Tiffany Bova on stage together, three analysts who ostensibly compete against each other in the market. Curious what the goal was in putting them together and what came out of that conversation that you think partners should take away.

Jeff Taylor: Yeah, I think a couple of things. First of all, the moderator of that panel was with Alex Smith. So we had four great analysts all on the stage at the same time. I think if you take a step back and just look at the theme overall, what we’re trying to accomplish at Accelerate, it was really about industry topics. So we had representatives from the US Department of Energy as an example, talking about power and what’s happening at a governmental level. And part of that was to get these four analysts together who, as you say, they mix in a lot of the same circles, but they’d never been on the stage at the same time. And the idea was to propagate a little bit. And in some cases, they were aligned in a lot of their messages to the channel. In some cases, they differed. And it was a really lively and engaging conversation. And folks at Lenovo, we engage with these folks all the time, but having them all together, kind of representing their unique perspectives on the market right now was super valuable and engaging.

Robert Dutt: So to dig into what you guys have been doing on the partner side of things, back in March, you announced the new consolidated partner ecosystem and programs, International Markets Organization. Now that Accelerate’s happened, partners have had a chance to hear it explained in person. What’s the clearest way to explain what operationally changed and what didn’t? Because from the outside, centralize where it makes sense can go a lot of different directions.

Jeff Taylor: Yeah, look, I think the easiest way to explain it is we now have a single common framework across the globe. That framework is a guidepost, very intentionally set up as a framework, because execution has to remain local. And the input, the guidance, the feedback that we receive from our Canadian partners, from Craig, representing the viewpoints of those Canadian partners is absolutely critical to what we’re doing. And so by, you know, over time, as we had a lot of different markets and a lot of different geographies kind of expand over time as the company grew, there was similar objectives happening in multiple markets. And maybe the execution model was slightly different. And we thought by kind of bringing some of that together, we could simplify and we could gain efficiencies for our partners. But it’s really important to understand that the execution happens locally, sales happens locally, channel partners happen locally. And so it’s one really about standardizing the framework and not centralizing execution.

Robert Dutt: How has that landed here in Canada, both with Canadian partners and in terms of how things operate for you, Craig?

Craig Taylor: Yeah, the feedback has been really positive, Rob. You know, from a Canadian perspective, it’s all about leveraging our local teams and our local relationships, which haven’t changed. And feedback from our partner community is we are often best in class when it comes to how we represent our organization in front of the partner ecosystem. What I think is what more exciting for me now is we’re elevating those relationships to be consistent as to how we’re going to market with our partners. Consistency in the programs, consistency in the incentives, and also how quickly we can execute. What that means is our partner facing team can spend more time in market with our partners trying to win opportunities together with our mutual customers.

Jeff Taylor: And if I could add, Rob, real quick, I mean, this was a very thoughtful process. This wasn’t something that happened kind of quick and without a lot of forethought. We have been working on this for years through the introduction of Lenovo 360 as that kind of framework itself. And then over time, as we’ve built some meat on the skeleton, the timing was just really right for us to go do this. But again, that premise of local execution is probably the most important thing.

Robert Dutt: Well, I know that internally you guys have kind of had the mantra of “global might, local fight” internally for a while now, kind of being applied to the partner org, it seems here. I guess I’m still a little curious where there is a certain tension between global consistency and local relevance. You’ve kind of unpacked it, but where does that actually land in terms of which side takes the lead?

Jeff Taylor: Yeah. So let me give you some real tangible numbers and examples. Three years ago in market across the globe, we had 2,300 active incentives in the market. I’m going to repeat that. We had 2,300 active incentives in the market. So if you think of your investment pool as a pizza, right, and you divide that 2,300 ways, the relative impact of those individual slices can be quite small. Now, what we found in talking to markets was that there was absolutely a consistency and intent. And maybe that intent was new customer acquisition, or maybe it was growth targets, or maybe it was something else. There was consistency in intent, but the execution was different, and that created operational complexity. It created our ability to report seamlessly and consistently over time more of a challenge than simplification. So in just the last two years, we’ve gone from that 2,300 partner incentives to about 200. So almost a 92% reduction without any change in investments, any negative change in investments, because the intent was still there, right? The intent was consistent across the globe. So that’s one where we centrally can look at the forest through the trees. We can see an opportunity for simplification. Then we can bring that to the markets while still driving that strategic intent that we want to accomplish with our partners. So that’s just one example.

Craig Taylor: Yeah, well said. Just to add to that, Rob, one of the things that was very important was to make sure we had local input to the global framework that was being created at Jeff’s level. So we had many conversations as to what our market needs and demands were, and make sure that we shaped it to be properly represented within the framework. That worked out very, very well. We also are allowed to have some nuances in this organization as well. And so what we’re allowed to do is perhaps if a certain pathway doesn’t make sense to the Canadian market, for example, being more of an SMB-based market, we’re going to pivot and we’re going to make those changes to make sure that we service our partners the best that we should. And kind of beef up that SMB-facing side of things.

Robert Dutt: Yeah, that makes sense.

Jeff Taylor: It’s really interesting. It’s interesting, Robert. From day one, we called Lenovo 360 a framework and not a program from day one. And the whole idea was that we wanted to ask three basic questions like, how do you best engage with your partners? How do you best connect with your partners and how do you best grow with your partners? But depending on the conversation, the answers to those three questions might be different. So as an example, if you’re talking to a traditional hardware solution provider, you have answers for those three questions. If you’re talking to a GSI or an MSP or an MSSP, same questions may be very different answers. And so the whole idea with this framework was to be able to flex accordingly. And that went down all the way to the market level. So Craig mentioned that Canadian being more oriented towards an SMB type of approach, the framework has to flex to be able to support that. Whereas in other markets, it may flex a slightly different way, but it’s still all about engaging, connecting and growing.

Robert Dutt: OK, back to your pizza point, Jeff, and one of my favorite, probably apocryphal Yogi Berra quotes, “cut my pizza in four slices, please, I can’t eat eight.” Curious, though, for a partner who looks at it and says, “all right, well, I used to have three incentives applied to my business and now there’s only really the one. The math doesn’t work for me.” What’s sort of the answer for them? Because the earning power says we didn’t take away the earning power.

Jeff Taylor: So again, it’s the intent stays the same. The earning power stayed the same. The whole idea now is operationally, it should be easier for… the intent was that it would be easier for the partners to have a path towards that earning power. So instead of Jenga or a very complicated jigsaw puzzle, the intent here was to simplify that. So it’s a clear path to that earning potential with the same intent around growth, acquisition, those types of things.

Craig Taylor: Yeah. And Robert, one of the things our partners have been asking us for is to provide more direction, focus as to where they want us to go win together in the market. And I think by simplifying these programs, it’s also allowed us to provide more focus to our partner community in the ecosystem to make sure that we’re winning together in the areas that we want to win.

Jeff Taylor: And Robert, it goes beyond just traditional incentives programs, too. So we’ve simplified things like our certification programs. I’m going to get this number slightly wrong, but in the ballpark, in the last two years, we’ve driven 80,000 new certifications globally through some of the simplified changes that we’ve made. So all of these things, it’s look at the globe and then apply it locally. And again, with the full intent of making it as easy as possible for the partner.

Robert Dutt: As with most partner programs slash framework changes, updates, you’ve acknowledged that some partners will land at a different tier under the new structure. How are you managing the transition and what should a partner do if they feel the new placement doesn’t reflect where they’re actually at in the relationship with Lenovo?

Jeff Taylor: We’re very conscious about that. And I think, Robert, you know, any time there’s even a small change in some type of construct within the program, there’s some unfortunate circumstances associated with that. But we really tried to minimize it. And I’ll just give another example to hit a tier level. We have a volume requirement. OK, that’s the framework. But what that volume requirement is, it’s going to differ by market. So, you know, it might be very different in the U.S. than it is in France, than it is in Canada, than it is in Indonesia, as an example. And the whole intent there was through our analysis was to kind of minimize those impacts as much as possible while still creating the right type of incentive and the right value associated with each of those tier levels.

Craig Taylor: And to that point, Robert, it was very thoughtful in Canada as to what the thresholds should be in order to properly reflect our market. And what’s happened as a result of that is over 90 percent of the partners have either maintained or actually improved their tier status as a result of the simplification and restructuring. What we’re doing with that remaining 10 or less than 10 percent is getting out in front of our foot, making sure that we have those discussions, working together through joint business plans to determine how we’re going to get them not only to the next threshold, but have a future plan to get us to the one after that and up-tier them as we continue our relationships with them.

Robert Dutt: The services shift. Jeff, you put out a specific target there in recent interviews. 15 to 20 percent of partner revenue mix coming from services and solutions over the next year or two. The services business, as I understand it, has grown in the channel for the last five years or so with channel growth outpacing overall growth. That’s certainly real numbers and real growth. What’s driving customers towards the as-a-service and TruScale model specifically right now?

Jeff Taylor: Yeah, I think it’s one word. It’s complementary. Our strategic approach is to have complementary services to those of our partners. We want to be able to ensure that our mutual end users are getting the best possible experience that they can get. In many cases, those services are provided 100 percent by the partner themselves. But in other cases where they don’t have those capabilities, our job is to complement those with the service capabilities that we have. The idea is that, first of all, I think you know Robert, the services space, like the TAM, is massive. There’s so much opportunity really for everybody to play in a meaningful way. You just have to be smart about it. I think that’s the first thing. The second thing is communicate. If there is an instance in which maybe there’s a perception of competing for services revenue, we’re going to communicate. We’re going to talk. We’re going to figure out what the best solution is for that end user and then move forward that way.

Craig Taylor: Yeah, the other thing I would add and maybe another word for thought is flexibility as well. Feedback from our Canadian partners is that the Lenovo TruScale offering is much more flexible than other competitive offerings in market. Because we understand that not all customers look and feel the same. So this allows our partners to scale with us during their journey as they create more of a services-led go-to-market motion for their customers.

Jeff Taylor: One of the conversations, Robert, that came out, you mentioned the Accelerate event last week in Austin. Obviously, a lot of discussions around AI and a lot of discussions around how do we best build an AI practice to go serve customers, whether they’re small businesses or large enterprises. And that’s a really scary thing for a lot of solution providers right now because they see that market exploding and they want to get it right. And this is a great example of where Lenovo can come in and partner with our partners on developing an AI practice that includes not just hardware and software, but also services.

Robert Dutt: Craig, for a Canadian partner to whom Lenovo still means primarily ThinkPads and infrastructure hardware, what’s the first move usually looked like for a partner who wants to shift towards services with you guys and where are most partners sitting today against that 15-20% target?

Craig Taylor: Yeah, great question. I think Jeff mentioned it earlier. It’s about communication. Often, it’s a miss when we don’t understand the partner services capabilities. We are a channel-led organization. We’ll continue to be with our services engagement in order to scale and address the Canadian customers. We need the channel and we will continue to work with the channel in order to win in services, but we have to understand what it is they can offer. So our team is working very closely with our partner community through this joint business partner plan in order to understand and make sure that we’re aligning their services capabilities with the needs of those customers. That’s first. Second of all is internally, we’re making sure that we have a motto of sell with, sell for, and sell through the channel. And so our Lenovo customer-facing sales teams understand the importance and the value that our partners are bringing to our mutual customers. And together, we’re winning more than we ever have before.

Jeff Taylor: Hey Robert, there’s almost like a macroeconomic driver here as well. So partners are, and we’re seeing this globally, that there’s a realization that to maximize the value, to increase the multiple on their valuation, a move towards MRR or ARR models is extremely important, right? And those are services-led models. And so we are seeing a lot of these traditional partners who are very accustomed as us being a PC or an infrastructure provider, really needing our help in moving towards this recurring revenue model that’s going to increase their valuation and their multiples. So we’re seeing that trend everywhere right now, probably more so in North America than anywhere else, but it’s definitely happening globally.

Robert Dutt: To that point where I wanted to go next was the MSP pathway. 3,000 partners signed up globally, 150 million or so last year for you guys, real proof point. You’re expanding to new geographies. What can you tell me about where that pathway is at in Canada? And as you’ve expanded geographically, are there any new developments on the Canadian front, either announced at Accelerate or along the way?

Jeff Taylor: Why don’t I take kind of the big picture and then Craig can go deeper into Canada? Again, this move towards recurring revenue models is happening everywhere. And so not only has Lenovo’s growth in that space been even better than expected, dare I say, we’re seeing it, the growth of MSPs just in pure numbers globally is growing very, very rapidly. And again, I think it’s this financial macroeconomic driver that’s making that happen. To go back to our framework around engaging, connecting and growing, those answers are so different with an MSP than they are with maybe a traditional Lenovo partner. And so we spent the first year developing this program by listening, literally going to conferences, setting up a booth. We had MSPs coming up to us saying, “What are you doing here?” And we would be like, “We’re just listening. We just want to hear what motivates you and what is your business driver.” And so that was the genesis of creating this program because we wanted it to be bespoke specifically for those MSPs that are just operating in a kind of a different way than traditional VARs or traditional service providers. And now I’ll hand it over to Craig.

Craig Taylor: Yeah, no well said. And you’ll see that the way that we’ve set up the Lenovo 360 for MSP pathway is the solutions hub within our online support and the way that we work with those partners looks different. The incentive stack is aligned to the needs, as per Jeff’s saying, and we have dedicated campaigns and road shows and community engagements in order to make sure that we’re addressing the needs of those MSP partners. What’s most exciting in Canada is it’s actually opened up a new route to market for us and new partner relationships where we haven’t had them before. You know, I would say that until this pathway was created, we were probably under penetrated from a Lenovo Canada perspective within the MSP community. Now the opportunity is vast. The partners, those MSP related partners are interested in working with Lenovo more than ever. And I think together we’re going to go win in the market.

Robert Dutt: Are we still in the early innings of operationalizing that and realizing that or is that something that’s sort of matured with the program being out there?

Craig Taylor: I think we already had a head start. And so, you know, some of the relationships with the key MSP partners in the Canadian ecosystem, those relationships already existed. I think this is now an opportunity just to extend our reach and better support the masses of MSP partners that are in the Canadian marketplace. So we’re well down the path, but no pun intended. But I think this framework actually allows us to go even deeper and have more intimate relationships with this set of partners.

Jeff Taylor: I think globally, if I could interject here, we’re probably in the second inning of a nine inning game. There’s so much more we can and we’ll be doing with this MSP community. And at the same time, there’s tens of thousands of MSPs out there. So the opportunity is huge and our interest and our investment kind of matches that opportunity. But we still have many innings to play here. So we’re excited about it.

Robert Dutt: I don’t know if you guys have noticed over the last few months, but memory costs have been a little bit volatile. You guys, you know, Ryan McCurdy was out in front of that publicly and the Top Choice Express model guidance for pricing some of the ISG deals. Real things that partners are navigating. How do you counsel a partner who’s trying to manage customer conversations when prices can shift before product ships? And what specific tools or protections do partners have inside Lenovo right now that they need to know about?

Jeff Taylor: Yeah, again, I’ll just kind of take the big picture here. Lenovo culturally within our partner community has always been one based on trust and communication always. And we’ve navigated tough waters before, whether that was the pandemic or this situation that’s affecting the entire industry. And our approach is complete candor, open communication. We don’t hide behind any potential downside or any risk. We’re very communicative up front as we get information, we share that information. That can at times be frustrating for partners, but at the same time, if they, you know, at the end of the day, when they take a step back, they really appreciate Lenovo just being super transparent. It is a tricky deal right now. It is complicated and things are moving very quickly. I do not envy our sales folks and I don’t envy our partner sellers out there right now because there’s a lot of tricky, tough conversations that have to happen. You had mentioned Top Choice and Top Choice Express. We have invested in a model for Top Choice Express where we do have a supply. We can commit to an order to ship SLA that other vendors can’t right now. And again, I think that’s very well received by the partner community. It may be that the exact configuration is slightly different, but at a time like this, it’s a great way for us to service those customers collectively with our partners and with a high quality solution from Lenovo.

Craig Taylor: Yeah, just to add to that as well, I would say resiliency and agility have always been built into our supply chain. We currently manufacture in over 30 locations in 10 different markets worldwide. That global footprint allows us to be more agile as we go to market during these challenging times. Recently, Gartner has rated us as the number eight most robust supply chain in the world. I think that’s going to work to our advantage as we go and continue through these challenging times.

Robert Dutt: Switching to AI, you guys have posted 72% year-over-year growth in AI-related revenue. I want to unpack that a little bit. Jeff, where’s that coming from? Is that AI PC, infrastructure services, mix of all three through the hybrid AI advantage program and the Nvidia work? What does the enablement for a partner who wants to build an AI practice actually look like?

Jeff Taylor: Lots of questions in there, so let me make sure I can get them all back. In terms of our mix, it really is cross portfolio. We are leading the way in AI PC, which is fantastic. I think we’ve just scratched the surface on that device side. I still think some consumers and users are wondering, what is the real AI value here? Those use cases will continue to come and we’ll continue to see that market expand. In terms of our infrastructure business, everywhere from being able to service the big hyperscalers all the way into the enterprise and the SMB space is a testament to the strength of our portfolio. That growth is represented from everywhere from the hyperscalers to enterprise to mid-market to SMB. Again, on the services side, we talked about that a little bit ago. It’s really about partnering to make that happen. We are very fortunate to have partners. You had mentioned Nvidia, also Intel, also AMD, all the silicon guys are very much working with us on making sure that, A, the solutions are there, and that, B, the way we’re enabling those solutions, which is also a little bit different, Robert. We have to be enabling around outcomes and not around feeds and speeds. You have to be talking to customers about what are they trying to accomplish. It’s not feeds and speeds anymore. How we’re enabling our partners, Craig had mentioned our Lenovo 360 Solution Hub as an example. It is an outcome-based platform where our partners can come in and learn what’s available from an outcome’s perspective. The solutions, the hardware and the software is really incidental to the conversation around the outcome itself. I think all of those things play together.

Robert Dutt: Craig, where do you find Canadian partners are with AI at this point? There’s a spectrum with some building real AI practices, many still figuring out what the first customer conversation looks like. So I guess both acknowledging there’s a range of answers, where do you find partners are at? What’s the realistic, most common entry point for a mid-market focused Canadian partner?

Craig Taylor: Yeah, to answer the first part of the question, it is a vast spectrum as to where each partner is on their AI journey. But rest assured, because of the Lenovo services portfolio, we can actually support each of those partners independently and complement their offerings as they scale their AI journey. I would suggest that many of them probably are moving from proof of concept with their customers to now proof of execution with their customers. More and more, there’s a demand on measuring an ROI on the AI investments that have been made. And I think that’s where partners and customers are looking for Lenovo for some direction. We recently created a CIO playbook, which actually helps our customers and partners be able to capture what that ROI is and what the financial returns are getting as a result of their AI investments. And feedback from that from our partner community has been very good. The other thing I would suggest is that because these AI workloads are now going from modeling into the cloud, now into being actually practically used within the customer sets, it creates a massive opportunity for our infrastructure solutions group business. And you heard Jeff mention that several times. One of the things we’re doing with our partner community is making sure that we’re over-investing with their technical architects and solution architects within the partner community to drive even more familiarity with the Lenovo solutions around AI playbook to make sure that we’re being suggested, recommended, and considered when customers are coming to them for advice.

Robert Dutt: Jeff, Austin’s in the rearview mirror. You got the program changes out. New org is in place. What have you done for me lately? What does the rest of 2026 look like? And what would tell you by year end that this consolidation worked the way you wanted it to?

Jeff Taylor: Yeah, first, I’m going to take a nap. I’m tired. There’s a lot that has to happen. I mean, the first thing is we have a commitment to our partners and to our partners like Craig, our internal partners, that everything continues to move from a local perspective, that we want to make sure that whatever changes we’re making, services our geographies, services our markets, and most importantly, services our partners. So that’s kind of the first priority in my mind to go do that. The second thing, and we briefly mentioned this before, is I think the world of enablement is changing quite a bit. And I think AI is driving that. And we throw around the word transformation quite a bit and things still aren’t really transformative. They’re more evolutionary. I actually think at this point, we’re at a transformative part in terms of channel management. So we are investing heavily in our digital platforms to move from just kind of basic LLM models into AI agents and eventually into agentic AI that’s going to completely change the way that we enable all of our partners, big and small. It’ll be more efficient. It’ll be more intuitive. It’ll be more timely. It’ll be more forward-looking than backwards-looking. I think, Robert, you know most portals are somewhat static and kind of represents yesterday and not tomorrow. I think all of that is going to change. And so a big focus for myself and working very closely with our IT and digital transformations organizations is this reimagination of enablement in this world of AI. And you’ll see more and more from Lenovo in that regard.

Robert Dutt: I think that is going to be one of the most interesting things from a partner program structure point of view over the next couple of years is how you and your peers address those challenges and really potentially change the shape of what programs and enablement look like. It’s exciting.

Jeff Taylor: It really is an exciting time for us channel nerds that have been around for forever. This is like, “Yes, we’re going to be able to rock the world. It’s going to be great.”

Robert Dutt: Craig, for a Canadian partner listening to this, what’s the one thing that you want them to do differently or think differently in their relationship with Lenovo over the next little while?

Craig Taylor: Yeah, I think we’ve talked about some of them already. We need to continue to protect and grow the core, which is our client computing and PC business. We have to grow at a premium to market. And I think we’re well positioned for that. I need the channel community to help us to continue to accelerate our ISG, our infrastructure solutions group business, around the data center to make sure we continue to drive relevance, focus on those technical relationships and leverage Top Choice Express, which will better service all of our customers by getting the right products in their hands quicker. We talked about helping our customers and our partners on this services-led selling journey. So we’re going to spend more time on that. But the last two, I think, are probably where a majority of my focus will be for the second half of the year. The one is continuing to make sure that we demonstrate ourselves as the easiest partner to do business with. So whether it be through our portfolio like Top Seller and Top Choice, whether it be the program optimization that Jeff and his team are doing fabulous work on, or whether it be the alignment of our portfolio coming together to represent one Lenovo, that’s going to be the key to our success and where our partners should continue to challenge us. Internally, I’m challenging my team to operate and act like an owner of your own business. And so we’re empowering our people to make decisions in market in front of their partners in order to have a more agile relationship with those customers. We’re enabling them with the right tools. And then finally, we’re educating them properly to make sure they represent this more complex portfolio of offerings that continues to be positioned in the marketplace and satisfy our customers’ business outcomes. So a lot for the second half of the year, but I’m very bullish that we’re positioned properly for success.

Jeff Taylor: Robert, if you don’t mind, I would add just one quick thing there. And you had mentioned, like, we are in difficult times right now with memory and price increases and things like that. Partners are smart. They are going to lean on the partners that they trust, and they’re going to lean on the partners that have been there with them, or their partners that have been with them through these difficult times previously. And while nobody wants this situation, I think Lenovo is actually in a really good spot right now because we are that trusted advisor and have been for years. It’s not just words, right? It’s years and years and years of building relationships, the work that Craig and his team have done in Canada. You know, we have these relationships that allow us to navigate these waters maybe better than others.

Robert Dutt: And my last super serious question to end this is, I’m basing this on an inference off a small sample size of two. But do you guys have any problems finding Taylors to run the channel orgs in all of the countries you operate in worldwide?

Jeff Taylor: Go ahead, Craig. Say what you always say.

Craig Taylor: Listen, I like to tease Jeff that he’s my dad, but our age delta is probably much more closer than makes that physically possible. But hey, listen, we’re going to take the best of the best. We happen to get two Taylors on this call with you, Robert. That’s what you’re getting today. And we’ll look for more next time we meet.

Jeff Taylor: He’s definitely the better of the two. So it’s a funny thing. We were actually talking in Austin about how we might be able to mess with you a little bit, but we just don’t have to.

Robert Dutt: Good to know. And Craig, I’ll send you the audio clip of him saying you’re the better one for your performance review.

Craig Taylor: As long as that is your final edit, Rob, I’m happy.

Robert Dutt: Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time. It’s been a fun conversation and we covered a lot of ground very well. Thank you.

Jeff Taylor: Yeah, thank you, Robert.

Craig Taylor: Yeah, look forward to seeing you soon, Robert. Thank you.

Robert Dutt: There you have it. Jeff Taylor and Craig Taylor, both from Lenovo. I’d like to thank both Jeff and Craig for the time. It’s genuinely not that often you get the global and local perspective on the same conversation at the same time. And I thought the dynamic made for a richer discussion than either could have delivered on their own.

A few things were taken away from this one. The incentive consolidation is real and it’s significant. Going from 2,300 active global incentives down to about 200, a 92% reduction, while keeping the total investment pool intact. Meaningful simplification. Jeff’s pizza framing is a good one. Same amount of pizza, fewer slices, each one bigger and more impactful. Earning power stays, operational complexity goes. If your business has been navigating a patchwork of overlapping incentives, the cleaner path to earning should be welcome.

On the tier transition, Craig was direct that over 90% of Canadian partners either maintained or improved their status in the move to the new authorized gold and platinum structure. If you’re in the 10% that didn’t, the message was clear. Get in front of your Lenovo rep, build a joint business plan. There’s a path forward, but you have to start the conversation.

The services shift didn’t seem like a someday conversation. Lenovo’s targeting 15 to 20% of its partner revenues from services and solutions over the next one to two years. TruScale is available and more flexible than a lot of partners probably realize. The partners who are going to win here are the ones who can articulate their own services capabilities clearly, so Lenovo can align around them rather than compete with them.

On AI, I found Jeff’s forward-looking comments on agentic AI and the reimagination of enablement genuinely fascinating. Most partner portals are, as he said, static. They show you yesterday, not tomorrow. That is going to change. And how it changes will shape how partner programs actually function. Worth paying attention to across the industry.

And for the hardware volatility piece, Top Choice Express is the practical answer right now for partners trying to manage customer conversations when prices are moving before product ships. If you’re not comfortable with it already, your first call tomorrow should be with your Lenovo rep.

Oh, and yes, we did keep the clip of Jeff saying that Craig is the better Taylor. It’s in the edit. You’re welcome, Craig.

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, most of the major directories. Ratings and reviews are always appreciated and genuinely do help the show find a wider audience in the Canadian channel community.

Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca and I’ll see you in the channel.