Hi-Tech Olympics

Nineteen eighty-four was a lucky year for China as the country resumed its seat on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after a 52-year absence. It was also a notable time for Legend Group Ltd., the computer company founded that year by businessman Liu Chuanzhi and 10 other engineers.

Although Legend started its business in a rented house in Beijing with a mere 200,000 yuan, it had grown to become the largest PC maker in the Asia-Pacific Region by 1999. It then changed its name to Lenovo Group Ltd.

Lenovo's ambition didn't stop there. It set its sites on higher goals-global recognition and international product sales. To help accomplish these tasks, the company tried wooing the IOC for possible marketing opportunities during the Olympic Games.

But Lenovo was still too young and too small to get noticed. It sent e-mails to the IOC in 2002, but never received any replies that showed interest, said Li Lan, a former general manager for branding at Lenovo.

Two short years later-and 20 years after its founding-Lenovo hit another streak of luck and became one of the few companies selected for the Olympic Partner Program (TOP), giving it exclusive worldwide rights to the use of Olympic logos, such as the five-colored rings.

Now, Lenovo is rolling out a slew of PCs and other computer hardware on its home turf for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Under its contract with the IOC, Lenovo must provide PCs and laptops, servers, printers and digital display boards between 2005-08 for a round of winter and summer games. It already provided hardware during the Winter Games in Torino, Italy, in 2006.

In return for its sponsorship, Lenovo can develop marketing programs with the IOC and the national Olympic committees or organizing committees of more than 200 countries and regions worldwide, host hospitality events at the Olympic Games and receive preferential access to Olympic broadcast advertising.

For next year's Summer Games, Lenovo will choose 150 of its 3,000 technicians and engineers all over China for a team dedicated to developing Olympic technology.

For next year's Summer Games, Lenovo will choose 150 of its 3,000 technicians and engineers all over China for a team dedicated to developing Olympic technology. This team will provide computer services during the 42 sports competitions that China is hosting between July 2007 and June 2008 during its "Good Luck Beijing" event, a run-up to the Summer Games in 2008. A total of 34 Olympic competition venues and 46 training centers will be operational during this period.

Next August, Lenovo will set up nine Internet cafes at the Olympic Village in Beijing, as well as information and computer maintenance centers around the capital and in other cities, such as Qingdao and Hong Kong, hosts of some of the competitions.

As it did for the Torino Games, Lenovo will work closely with two other TOP sponsors-Atos Origin, S.A., which provides the information technology system, and the Omega unit of The Swatch Group Ltd., which provides the timing.

Make it smooth

"Lenovo provided hardware to Beijing's organizing committee for the Summer Games earlier than it did for the Torino Olympic Winter Games," said Xie Long, who oversees Olympic sponsoring affairs at Lenovo.

The hardware must pass durability and stability assessments to qualify for Olympic usage. The equipment undergoes a three-year testing period in the Olympic integrated test lab and in field tests during various sports matches, Xie said.

Lenovo has made agreements with Beijing's organizing committee on the types and configurations of PCs, laptops, servers and printers it will supply. It recently delivered a third set of equipment to the Beijing organizing committee. To date, its total equipment delivery has added up to 8,238 units.

All the equipment is environmentally friendly and energy-saving. It's so good in these respects that Lenovo took top position in Greenpeace International's annual ranking of electronic product manufacturers that are environmental leaders. In the list issued in April, Lenovo seized the No. 1 position for the first time from Nokia Oyj, the world's largest maker of mobile phones.

Greenpeace praised Lenovo for its recycling and toxic content policies. "It's good to see a Chinese company topping the list and being responsible for the dealing of its digital waste," said Greenpeace's website.

"Lenovo Group has been devoted to reducing the influence of its digital products on the environment, and it is the first IT company to render recycling services to its users," said a Greenpeace spokesman.

Cold test

Lenovo proved itself a reliable and powerful Chinese computer-maker at the Torino Games in February 2006. It supplied 6,000 personal computers, 800 laptops, 600 desktop printers and 350 servers, according to a report issued by Bloomberg News in February 2006. About 1,800 people used its six Internet lounges in the athlete village daily.

Before those games, many raised questions about the dependability of Lenovo's products, prompting it to run many additional tests. Some observers, recalling the computer and data transport problems that plagued the Olympic Games in 2002 and 2004, worried that they might repeat themselves in Torino. And for the tens of thousands of reporters who would attend the Torino Games, even a small computer problem could cost them lost information or a missed report.

The company ran its information center for 17 consecutive days without a single glitch during the Torino Games.

But Lenovo's pre-Olympic tests demonstrated that its computers could withstand low winter temperatures without problems. The company ran its information center for 17 consecutive days without a single glitch during the Torino Games.

"It was the first time that we put the commentators' information system outdoors and it worked well. That was a real miracle!" wrote the IOC and the organizing committee for the Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games in a brief to Lenovo after the opening ceremony. The Lenovo system used low-noise touch-screen computers measuring just 30 decibels, which is quieter than the noise made by a flying mosquito.

From Legend to TOP

The TOP program began for the Olympiad that concluded with the Seoul Games in 1988 and now is limited to 12 companies that can be sponsors during the four-year cycle of one Olympiad. Selection standards are strict: those chosen must be top guns in their industries, have world-class products and services, and present a squeaky-clean image.

Although the tough qualifying criteria keep many firms out of the program, Lenovo still had high hopes for getting in. On the night of July 13, 2001, when China succeeded in its bid to host the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, Lenovo's then President and Chief Executive Yang Yuanqing sent an e-mail to all his employees, rallying them with a plan for Lenovo to participate in the Games.

Yang then formed a team to examine the possibility of working hand-in-hand with the 2008 Olympic Games. The team was dubbed "007," referring to the seven years between 2001-08, according to Xie.

During these years, Lenovo chewed over plans to expand beyond Asia. In particular, the company wanted to boost its brand recognition around the world after it bought the PC unit of International Business Machines Corp. for $1.75 billion in 2005. What better way to do this than to become an Olympic sponsor?

Despite the lack of interest the IOC first showed in Lenovo, the latter's hosting of an international technology innovation conference in Beijing in December 2002 finally got it noticed. Some IOC officials who attended were quite surprised by the company's products and technology.

When it was selected as a TOP sponsor in 2004, Lenovo became the first Chinese company to join a select list of corporate heavy-hitters with internationally known brands.

"As China's largest PC producer, the company not only is good at providing trustful services and products, but also conforms to the values that are shared by the Olympics," said Gerhard Heiberg, Chairman of the IOC's marketing commission during an interview afterwards. "We think it's a best choice for both sides as the company can help us with its technology and ability, as well we can make the company more internationalized."

The IOC contacted other top sponsors at the time to get their feedback on Lenovo. "They all accepted Lenovo into the top sponsor lineup, and not a complaint was ever heard," Heiberg said.

The current list of TOP companies includes Atos Origin S.A., Coca-Cola Co., Eastman Kodak Co., General Electric Co., Johnson & Johnson, McDonald's Corp., the Omega brand of the Swatch Group Ltd., Panasonic, a unit of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., Manulife Financial Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Visa International Service Association.

The existing sponsors have paid a total of $866 million in cash and services for contracts covering the four-year Olympiad for the Games in Torino and Beijing, according to the Bloomberg News report.