Since 2006, DoubleBlaze staff have worked with Lenovo to meet their eCommerce needs and challenges — first as a subcontractor and now as a primary consultant supporting Lenovo’s eCommerce activities.

Lenovo’s Director of Web Operations and Insights describes some of the capabilities the DoubleBlaze team has demonstrated:

• Configure To Order (CTO) tools increased sales dramatically while reducing required inventory.
• Flexible pricing and real-time offers increased sales and margins by providing personalized, behavior-based pricing.
• Conversion tools reduced lost sales from abandoned carts.

DoubleBlaze’s on-site contract staff are fully integrated into Lenovo teams, providing:

• eCommerce operations support (i.e., developing and running the eCommerce system),
• Business support (e.g., creating site content, identifying new business partners, reporting analytics), and
• Product enablement (i.e., making sure new products are ready for sale on the site by the required date).

These results are part of a long chain that began with Lenovo’s first major eCommerce site, built just in time to support the 2006 holiday sales season. The six-month project (inception to live) for the entire US. consumer business was an extremely ambitious and successful launch that marked the beginning of DoubleBlaze’s relationship with Lenovo.

Success Factors

How has DoubleBlaze earned its position as a trusted advisor?  Lenovo points to several factors:

• A commitment to technical solutions that solve business problems
• Strategic choices over which functionalities to roll out with each major release (typically 20-30 functions per release, three releases per year)
• Management acumen to get challenging projects over the finish line
• Innovative approaches to solve technical and business challenges
• In-depth knowledge about the Lenovo organization across many functions and geographic divisions
• Exceptional communication skills
• High integrity — representing the facts as they are and providing recommendations in Lenovo’s best interests
• High-quality recruiting, placement, and mentoring of technical staff to work alongside Lenovo staff
• Expertise with many payment methods
• Design to prevent large-scale security threats unique to eCommerce

No matter what our technical or business challenge is, Lenovo is confident about the outcome because DoubleBlaze consistently delivers

Snapshots from the Last Twelve Years

Here are a few of the effective and innovative approaches DoubleBlaze has implemented for Lenovo:

Implemented multiple major releases each year without jeopardizing live website

The DoubleBlaze team used a hybrid agile development process that allowed for fast prototyping, confirmations, and iterations created by a team of 60+ people. Releases would go live with dozens of new functions – wholesale changes with significant new capabilities – several times per year.

DoubleBlaze managed risk based on a thorough understanding of the technical implications of new functions and business readiness to support new capabilities. The approach was critical when making changes to a 24 x 7 system that  supported 20,000 to 50,000 sessions per day.

Configure-to-order (CTO) Tools

DoubleBlaze designed a CTO process to meet both customer preferences and shape demand based on supply chain constraints. Gap pricing techniques were used to encourage upgrades and increase attach rates. CTO improvements increased revenue while simultaneously reducing inventory requirements.

Flexible, Personalized Pricing

With BlueYonder software, DoubleBlaze created an extremely flexible pricing infrastructure. Lenovo drove additional profit through methods like targeted e-coupons, cart based discounts, and specialty pricing for different customer classes.

Real-Time Conversion Tools

DoubleBlaze created smart algorithms to boost conversion rates via custom incentives, recommendations, or bundled offers at specific points during a visitor’s progress through the purchase process.

Defense against eCommerce Security Threats

DoubleBlaze is experienced with the evolving large-scale security threats (malicious or accidental) that are unique to eCommerce. We understand how all tiers of the network and application infrastructure need to work together to detect and stop them.

Adaptability to Meet International Customer Purchasing Preferences

Customers completed their purchases using any number of payment methods such as PayPal, Lenovo-branded financing, or specialized credit cards in Korea or bank payment methods unique to Latin America. Customers also made purchases with a combination of payment methods such as a credit card plus a gift card, or multiple gift cards plus financing.

We are proud of our long relationship with Lenovo because we provide value in an ever changing business environment Ron Boling, DoubleBlaze