Lenovo wants to give its partners focused on the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market a little credit. The vendor hopes its new financing initiative will help with partner cash flow and make it a little easier for partners to close deals in the SMB space.
Launched in Canada last week, the new program from Lenovo Financial Services extends up to 60 days of interest-free financing to eligible Lenovo partners in the SMB space. The program is currently only available through distributors Supercom and Synnex, and may be expanded to Lenovo’s other distribution partners in the future.
The SMB financing program first launched in the U.S. in June 2010 and, before that, Lenovo didn’t have specific financing programs for partners in this space said Diane Croessmann, Lenovo’s executive director of global financial services.
“This is the first offering we’ve launched and we wanted to be very aggressive,” said Croessmann. “It’s no surprise resellers are very excited to have extended credit terms; it’s essentially free money for 30 (more) days. We certainly wanted to get this up and running as quickly as possible.”
By its nature, SMB-focused partners have a very cash flow-dependent business model, said Croessmann, as they’re buying equipment and they need to also collect money from customers to pay for that equipment and buy more inventory.
“They’re always struggling with cash flow, and giving them an incremental 30 days is a very big enabler for them,” said Croessmann. “Cash flow has always been the number one issue for SMB resellers and this is now addressing it more aggressively. Hopefully it will help drive additional revenue for Lenovo and our partners.”
Since launching the program in the U.S., Croessmann said they’ve already seen a nice increase in the number of resellers that haven’t previously bought from Lenovo, and existing Lenovo partners have been exceeding average growth rates.
“Our goals and objectives are being met, and the program is still in its infancy,” said Croessmann. “Right now it’s about getting the word out to resellers.”
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