The company’s biggest ever investment in the sector, driving an additional £20m worth of business, aims to help make Lenovo a market leader in education tech solutions for the UK and Ireland, as well as supporting partners’ national programmes and geographic-specific projects.
Lenovo's announcement comes alongside expansion of its portfolio within education, through offering smart collaboration solutions, classroom management tools, VR and eSports.
Lenovo partners will become a ‘ConnectED’ community, with specific incentives offered exclusively to channel partners. The rewards are aimed at end-users and will only be available if purchased through Lenovo’s ‘ConnectED’ community. Benefits offered will include a tech trade in programme, CPD offerings and marketing funds to build opportunity for the new partners. New partners will also receive training and certification across all education products.
Working with the ConnectED community, Lenovo plans to launch its community support programme called EveryOne In, focused on tackling digital equality. In partnership with charity United Way, Lenovo will support multiple charities in the UK and Ireland.
Lenovo’s pilot project, Glasgow-based charity Impact Arts, has already benefited from a cash injection, devices and employee time to support schools with technical assistance, digital skills training, career advice and mentoring.
By using the relationship with channel partners, Lenovo said it will accelerate these efforts by identifying and supporting more causes and giving more time, money and resources to solve issues that have become prevalent during the pandemic. Additionally, partners will be able to access funds to support their own community digital equity projects.
“The pandemic led to the acceleration of technology used in and around the classroom, and we’re continuing to see significant growth in this area,” said Jane Ashworth, SMB and channel director, Lenovo UK and Ireland.
“We value our channel partners and will continue to support them. We have created a top-class programme that gives resellers the tools to be able to deliver exceptional service to the end-user, while also giving back to the community.”