Chapter 14 Sailing to sea: the outside world is wonderful

The sea, where the water and the sky are the same color, has a variety of styles, ranging from calm and docile to roaring and arrogant.It changes face from time to time, making people unpredictable and even more daunting.Facing the unfathomable sea, we can only "amaze the sea", confined to the small land space. Positioning determines the choice. Ren Zhengfei positioned Huawei as a large international company from the beginning, and "going to sea" is a natural thing.It is even more difficult to go to sea and go to sea, but the first step must be taken by someone, and Huawei has taken the first step boldly. In 1996, Huawei adjusted its strategy to rapidly expand into the international market while maintaining its domestic leading position. "Sailing to the sea" radiates from the surrounding area to the surrounding area. Huawei "raises the sails" and sails on the vast sea, enjoying the charm of the sea.

Breaking through the domestic siege, Huawei embarked on the journey of internationalization.When I went out, I realized that the outside world was very exciting, and only then did I realize how shabby I was.With the changing situation in the outside world, Huawei has also become "wonderful" by adjusting itself at any time. Huawei has been "sharpening its sword" for a long time, and the first stop of "going overseas" is Hong Kong.Hong Kong is one of the most concentrated areas of the world's telecommunications companies, and many world-renowned telecommunications operators are concentrated there. In 1996, Huawei and Li Ka-shing's Hutchison started the switch business, and Huawei began to enter the international market.

At that time, Hong Kong Telecom was the only one in Hong Kong's telecommunications industry, and Hutchison, as the second largest operator in Hong Kong, began to compete with it for territory.When Hong Kong returns to China, Li Ka-shing is more inclined to do business with mainland companies, but he is not at ease about the quality and service of mainland products. Sure enough, things were not as easy as imagined. Huawei failed to succeed and was blocked first.Most people in Hong Kong are used to Siemens products and lack confidence in domestic switches.The Hong Kong Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has to inspect each operator. If Hutchison fails to pass, it will not be able to obtain the right to operate telecommunications services.Moreover, the standard is not uniform, the domestic and international markets are very different, and the usage habits of users and the signaling coordination of switches between networks vary greatly, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty.

After going out, Huawei realized that it had a lot of problems and felt shabby.According to Zhou Gengsheng, who was in charge of the installation and construction of the Hong Kong commercial network at the time, and later became the director of Huawei's hardware department, the first time I went to Hong Kong, I originally assembled at 8:30 to leave the customs, but all the people arrived at 8:45.When debugging the equipment, an employee found an error, but did not notify the debugging team in time, causing everyone to make the same mistake; knowing that the virus is serious, but not dealing with it after discovering the virus, but continuing to debug.

At the beginning, accidents happened one after another, and the switch frequently broke down.The connection of the exchange is unstable and the time is tight. If there is a problem with the connection with Hutchison, the business license will not be obtained.Everyone felt terrible pressure, so they constantly analyzed the reasons from various angles, but the problem seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with others, and it just couldn't come out. In order to speed up the progress, without thinking too much, I bought a sleeping bag and laid it on the floor in the computer room, and everyone took turns to debug.At the same time, the staff in the Mainland also gave active support.Every weekend, the designers at the Shenzhen headquarters voluntarily give up rest and assist in debugging.At that time, every two or three o'clock in the morning, the mobile phone of the project team leader was very busy, constantly transmitting debugging information.Their hard-working spirit also touched the staff of Hutchison, and they also extended a helping hand and put forward various suggestions. "If people are united, Mount Tai will move", the problem was finally solved.

Successfully passed the inspection and acceptance, obtained the right to operate the telecommunications business, and Huawei set foot on the land of Hong Kong. The second stop of Huawei's "going overseas" is Russia.Russia is located near the Arctic Circle, and its winters are long and cold with ice and snow.The polar climate is very monotonous, with half day and half night.This time, Huawei people have thoroughly experienced the "long" and "severe cold" of the Arctic polar night. As early as 1994, Huawei had targeted Russia.After accumulating strength for three years, he finally launched a general offensive, but he was not sure of winning.

At that time, Huawei was well-known in China, but compared with the world's telecommunications equipment giants, it was still a primary school student.At that time, Russia experienced a painful "shock operation", the economy was in turmoil, and it was in a state of depression.But "a starved camel is bigger than a horse", Russia is not optimistic about Huawei from the bottom of its heart. The Russian market is very cold, and sometimes we don't see customers for half a year. In 1996, Xu Zhijun, senior vice president of Huawei, went to Russia with several executives, hoping to meet customers in order to promote products.But after staying there for two weeks, I couldn't even find a shadow of a customer.At that time, a person in charge of a large Russian company in charge of the software business saw Xu Zhijun's first sentence: "Russia will not use any new switches at all, so it is impossible to cooperate with Huawei."

In June 1996, the Eighth Moscow International Communication Exhibition opened.This time, Ren Zhengfei took the initiative himself, but it happened just in time for China's counterfeit and shoddy goods to flood Russia, and this move was of no avail.Zhu Jianping, who was in charge of the exhibition at the time, said that at that time, almost all the shops on Moscow Street had a sign: "This shop does not sell Chinese products."As soon as they heard that they were Chinese, the customers in front of the booth walked away. Then came the financial crisis in Russia in 1998, and the entire telecommunications industry came to a standstill.Li Jie, who is now the president of Huawei's Commonwealth of Independent States region, came to Russia at this time. He said: "Some are in litigation, some are clearing goods, and officials are dangling in front of me like lanterns. I not only lose I lost my sense of smell, and even my vision began to blur, and a series of measures to improve my sense of smell stopped. So, I had to wait, and I changed from a wolf to a hibernating polar bear.” In addition to telling the Russians: Li Jie is still there, don’t Nothing.By 1999, still nothing.At the World Telecommunications Conference in Geneva, Ren Zhengfei reminded this helpless "hibernating" person: "Li Jie, if one day the Russian market recovers, but Huawei is blocked from the door, you can jump off this building." Li Jie replied: "Okay."

"Polar Bear" began to wake up from hibernation. He actively formed a local marketing team and went deep into various regions of Russia. Based on this, he formed the current marketing network of the joint venture BetoHuawei; Mutual trust relationship has formed a group of customers. Huawei, after 7 years of hard work, from the first order of only 12 US dollars to signing a large order of tens of thousands of US dollars in 2001, the long "polar night" finally passed, and the "ice and snow" began to melt. In 2002, Huawei won another order for a 3,797-kilometer national optical transmission trunk line from Petersburg to Moscow.

After 7 years of "dormancy", the "wolves" in the Arctic have also begun to move.After winning the first battle, Huawei made a name for itself in Russia. Going out, Huawei talents discovered: "When we go out to expand the international market, we can see that the fertile land that we can see has already been seized by Western companies. Only in those remote, turbulent, and harsh natural environments, they act. If we are slower and invest less, we will have a chance." In order to seize this rare opportunity, Huawei people have been leaving their homeland and relatives since 1996, and have gone overseas one after another, no matter in Africa where the disease is ravaging, or in Iraq where the gunpowder is still in the air; whether it is Indonesia after the tsunami, or the earthquake-stricken areas Algeria...has left behind the struggle of Huawei people.

Many large international companies look at the markets of developed countries such as Europe and the United States, because the environment and conditions there are superior in various aspects, but they dismiss the backward Asia, Africa and Latin America.Huawei quickly seized this opportunity and took the opportunity to pick up these "leftover fruits", starting? ?Into the "rural".These emerging markets have low telephone penetration rates and low barriers to entry, making it easy to open up the situation. But even these countries are not optimistic about Chinese technology.Therefore, Huawei took many detours in the early days.At that time, as long as they heard that a telecom operator in a certain country had a project bidding, Huawei's sales staff would go to bid, but they won less and lost more. Due to differences in cultural backgrounds, living habits, etc., and encountered many difficulties, Huawei people had to fight and fail repeatedly until they broke the record of zero.For this reason, Huawei people have suffered countless blank stares and indifference. In the "rural" market development is not smooth.Deng Tao, who was in charge of developing the African market at the time, said: "When I first arrived in Africa, I faced an unfamiliar market with 25 countries, a population of 450 million, and a territory almost twice that of China. We have to start from scratch." Many people do not believe that China has its own technology, and ask in surprise: "Is this really a product produced by the Chinese themselves?" They suspect that this is the technology of developed countries, but it is only processed and produced in China. . After hitting the wall repeatedly, Huawei people gradually found the rules and began to choose key markets and make breakthroughs.Huawei has successively found breakthrough points in markets such as Ethiopia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil. From points to lines, it finally achieved breakthroughs across the board. After 6 years of hard work, by 2001, Huawei's efforts had paid off. Huawei's products entered more than a dozen countries in Africa and Asia, with annual sales of more than US$300 million. Huawei's brand has become popular in developing countries. During the first Civil Revolutionary War, Mao Zedong put forward the strategic thought of encircling the cities from the countryside and finally capturing the cities, and the Chinese revolution won. It is not easy for Chinese enterprises to "go global". The competitors are all world-class giants from all over the world, and it is impossible to compete head-on with them.They have long-term accumulation, industrial foundation and industrial environment formed by hundreds of years of development, profound business background, solid human resources and social foundation, first-class technical talents and R & D system, strong capital and famous brands, It has a solid market position and customer base, and a world-class management system and operating experience.Therefore, we can only take a roundabout indirect route and develop in the "rural areas" first. "Hide your strengths and bide your time", and wait until your power is strong before competing with it. After arduous development, Huawei won these "remaining fruits", established a "rural" base, and began to take root in the "rural". In 1997, Huawei entered Africa and brought them high-quality and low-cost products. In 2006, it undertook the construction of Africa's first 3G commercial office in Mauritius; in Nigeria, it undertook the construction of South Africa's longest domestic transmission network in 2005.Huawei's sales in South Africa exceeded $1 billion.In just 10 years, Huawei has covered the whole of South Africa. In the Asia-Pacific, Huawei has become one of the mainstream suppliers in the region and is widely used in India, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Nepal. Huawei also achieved a decisive victory in the South American market. In February 2004, Huawei successfully won the next-generation network project of Embratel, Brazil's largest data and long-distance operator, and signed a contract worth more than US$7 million in one fell swoop. In June 2005, Huawei Technologies successfully achieved commercial operation in Argentina. In 2006, Huawei achieved brilliant results in North Africa, achieved success in West Asia, and made rapid progress in South America.After a lot of tossing, Huawei finally found a base in the "rural areas", occupied the "rural areas" first, and based on this, formed layers of siege on the markets of developed countries, preparing conditions for the final entry into the high-end market.