Chapter 12 "The Road to Mount Everest"

Mount Everest is the highest peak in the world. There are two ways to climb Mount Everest: one is the southern slope in Nepal, which has a mild climate and a smaller slope, and it is easier to climb; the other is the northern slope in Tibet, China, where the climate is harsh. Straight and steep, it can be called the "Valley of Death". As early as the 1990s, Liu Chuanzhi said: "In China's IT industry, Huawei and Lenovo are two completely different companies. Huawei advocates a technological foothold, just like climbing the northern slope of the Himalayas, which is steep and steep; Lenovo is Going up from the gentle southern slope, taking the path of trade, industry and technology, you can also climb to the top of the mountain. The paths to the top of the two are different, but they are the same."

Ren Zhengfei is simply "one muscle", "don't turn back if you don't hit the south wall", even if you hit your head, you have to "make a hole", resolutely start from the steep and inaccessible north slope, and advance to the commanding heights of technology. "Development is not an easy task. You have to be prepared to invest billions of dollars without bubbling for a few years." He is ready to take a new path out of the predicament. Jesus said, "Go through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go there. Narrow is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to eternal life. There are also few people.”

Yu Hua wrote a novel to comprehend the true meaning of life.In the novel, the protagonists of the two brothers, one chooses the correct and kind narrow gate, and the other chooses the forbearing and cunning wide gate.As a result, their lives fissioned in fission, and sorrow and joy erupted in explosions. This book interprets a truth that seems absurd, but subtle but coincides with the transformation of yin and yang.The finishing touch of the postscript of the novel is: "Whether it is writing or life, the correct starting point is to walk through the narrow gate. Don't be fooled by the wide gate, the road inside is not very long."

Walking through the wide door is a shortcut, which can save a lot of energy. Many people like to walk, but starting from the wide door, it will become narrower and narrower, but from the narrow place, you can walk out of the wide. Decades ago, a major American dealer planned to give Akio Morita an order of US$100,000, asking to replace Sony with his own brand.Sony, struggling in a difficult situation, desperately needed $100,000, but Akio Morita refused.He wants to create his own brand and resolutely refuses to be an OEM. Decades later, the "Sony" brand will be famous all over the world.Many enterprises in China like to take the "wide door" and quickly rise up foreign brands through the door. However, they only make "marriage clothes" for people. It seems brilliant, but behind it is dangerous.When they develop, they will face a second choice.

In the trade and technology dispute between Liu Chuanzhi and Ni Guangnan, in the end Liu Chuanzhi chose the "wide door" and took the road of trade, industry and technology.But today, Lenovo has begun to re-select, focusing on technology research and development.Haier has risen rapidly with the help of well-known foreign brands, but the profit margin has been compressed, and the road to branding has to be carefully considered.Enterprises such as Changhong and TCL also need to reposition in the case of shrinking profit margins. In the Chinese corporate world, I am afraid that Huawei is the only one that walks through the "narrow door".At the beginning of Huawei's founding, Ren Zhengfei proposed to rely on technology, be independent, and never bow to multinational giants. For this reason, he "splashed money like water" and guaranteed to invest 10% of sales revenue in research and development every year, and gathered a large number of research and development personnel. With the pressure of debt and bankruptcy, he was undaunted.It is with this stubbornness that Huawei's road is getting wider and wider.

Ren Zhengfei insisted on following the "narrow door". He blazed a new path for the development of Chinese enterprises, completely broke the "myth" of China's lack of technology, prepared conditions for the realization of the dream of world-class enterprises, and rewritten the survival rules of Chinese enterprises. , Bringing Chinese enterprises into the era of technological brand creation. For foundry companies represented by Galanz, cost is their biggest advantage.Traditional industry brand enterprises represented by Lenovo, Haier, TCL, etc. have strong manufacturing advantages, strong comprehensive capabilities and capital strength.Emerging industries, represented by Huawei, face the greatest resistance in the process of entering the international market, because they face fierce competition from Cisco, Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, Siemens and other world-class companies.

Xiang Bing, Dean of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, said: "Among Chinese companies, only Huawei competes with world-class companies in both international mainstream products and international mainstream markets. Therefore, the difficulty of Huawei's internationalization is the same as that of all domestic companies. largest of the After the spin-off of Lenovo in 2000, Yang Yuanqing, president of Lenovo Group, put forward the slogan of "Lenovo of high technology, Lenovo of service, and Lenovo of internationalization", and began to pay attention to R&D investment and technological improvement. In 2001, Yang Yuanqing visited Huawei, hoping to gain experience in research and development from Huawei.Ren Zhengfei said to him earnestly: "Research and development is hard work, and you must give up any idea of ​​quick success."

Another member of Liu Chuanzhi, Guo Wei, also went to Huawei to learn from him.Ren Zhengfei advised him not to do research and development: "Don't do research and development, research and development is useless, isn't your strength in marketing? You have done a good job in sales, and I will sell my products to you when they are developed." Guo Wei Asked the reason, Ren Zhengfei replied: "R&D, if you want to do it, you have to do it big. If you make a small fuss, you might as well not do it, because this thing is a very expensive thing." Ren Zhengfei once visited a high-tech enterprise in Zhongguancun, Beijing, and someone asked him to talk about his impressions.He said something thought-provoking: "Founder has technology but no management, Lenovo has management but no technology, and Huawei has neither management nor technology."

For a long time, Huawei has been the benchmark of high-tech enterprises in China.When many well-known entrepreneurs mention Huawei, they think that "Huawei is one of the very few successful people who choose to 'climb the northern slope' when climbing the technological peak of the Himalayas", and their admiration arises spontaneously. In 1997, after visiting American high-tech companies, Ren Zhengfei found that no American high-tech company proposed to follow others in terms of technology research and development. In the eyes of American high-tech companies, imitating other people's technology will not last long. In order to develop in the long run, we must take the road of independent research and development.

The communication field is a high-cost industry, and it is naturally a "rich man's club".Those established companies in Europe and the United States have worked hard for many years, and that is their territory, and no one else is allowed to step in.Without enough patents and lack of core technologies, ordinary companies go into battle with bare hands and do not even have the qualifications to compete. Where does the competition come from? Wu Qinming, Director of Routing Product Line of Huawei Beijing Research Institute, said: "Huawei chooses technology to survive, which means that Huawei puts all its resources into one basket, and will not leave too many retreats for itself."

From the beginning of Huawei's founding, Ren Zhengfei advocated independent research and development, otherwise the core technology is in the hands of others, and it is easy to be passive in the market. He regards core technology as the life of Huawei. The amount of research and development expenses invested reflects the competitiveness of enterprises to a certain extent.Ren Zhengfei risked bankruptcy to maintain more than 10% of annual R&D investment, and research and development personnel accounted for 46% of all employees. Vincent Pluvinage, CEO of IPValue management consulting company, said with surprise that Huawei "has almost the same number of R&D personnel as AT&T Bell Labs." The real value of Huawei is not a large factory building, but a series of The core technology with complete intellectual property rights. Huawei keeps stepping into new fields and devotes itself to the research and development of next-generation network technology; when domestic manufacturers are still immersed in the pride of PHS, it has already invested in the research and development of 3G, aiming at WCDMA technology.Ren Zhengfei always grasps the pulse of technological development and leads the development of enterprises with technology.