Chapter 8 Layout internationalization

Ren Zhengfei made an international development strategy decision for Huawei after he gained a firm foothold in the domestic market, and Huawei began its international deployment in 1996.Ren Zhengfei realized that in the future, there will be no telecom equipment vendors that only rely on regional markets to survive, and all telecom equipment vendors must be internationally standardized. As a fledgling national communication company—how does Huawei implement "internationalization" in the situation of no capital, no brand, and no technology?How to grab jobs in the sphere of influence of international giants?Ren Zhengfei said that it was the soldier's innate vigilance and sense of crisis that led him to make this decision.He also knew that at that time, Huawei was a complete unknown in the international market, everything had to start from scratch, and Ren Zhengfei, who had come through a difficult life, was willing to invest heavily in this matter.From 1996 to 2000, Huawei created its own brand and popularity by frantically participating in the International Telecom Exhibition.It also launched brand plans such as "Oriental Silk Road" and "Orient Express" to allow international customers to familiarize themselves with the unfamiliar Huawei.

Another thing is that after Ren Zhengfei visited IBM in the United States in 1997, he realized the management gap between Huawei and world-class companies, and decided to learn from IBM.His study is not just talking about it or buying a few copies of "Who Said Elephants Can't Dance?" "So simple. In 1998, the cooperation project between Huawei and IBM—"IT Strategy and Planning" was officially launched. The content was to plan and design the business processes and IT support systems that Huawei needed to develop in the next 3 to 5 years, including integrated product development and integrated supply. 8 projects including chain, IT system reorganization and financial unification.For this reason, Huawei's investment in consulting fees alone is 50 million U.S. dollars per year, plus other expenses, and the price Huawei pays for business process changes is as high as 1 billion yuan.

However, this laid a solid foundation for Huawei's subsequent dominance in the international market. The book "Huawei's World" mentioned that Gao Ruibin, President of Motorola China, once made a judgment that Huawei's competitive advantage relying on "millet plus rifles" could not be maintained.The rapid response that makes Huawei people talk about it—the situation of rushing to the scene as soon as possible and trying to solve it when there is a problem, in the eyes of multinational companies, it is a manifestation of irregular corporate management and manufacturing. "After changing and changing, the differences in versions in different regions are getting bigger and bigger. In the future, when equipment is upgraded, it may be a mess. Now Huawei responds quickly because of the small contact surface. In the future, it will develop in the global market. Now this mechanism suitable for China's situation can still be used. Is it guaranteed that Huawei's response will be equally swift?"

Ren Zhengfei invited IBM with high tuition fees to solve this problem.When the development momentum of the enterprise is excellent and everything seems to be striding on the right track, let a group of coyotes running fast in tank tops, shorts and flat shoes put on suits and take uniform steps. Breathless thing.Ren Zhengfei's strong personal willpower played a great role in this matter. He almost used an indiscriminate order to push the integration process change.Now, Huawei's evaluation of this change is that because of integrated product development and integrated supply chain, Huawei can communicate with the world's top telecom operators in the same language.

After making preparations for both brand internationalization and management internationalization, Huawei's international expansion path can be considered to have really entered the runway, and this run is accelerating.By 2008, Huawei had achieved contracted sales of 23.3 billion US dollars, of which overseas sales accounted for 75%. At the same time, Huawei's total tax payment in 2008 was as high as 12 billion yuan. From 2004 to 2008, Huawei's contracted sales rose rapidly from US$5.6 billion to US$23.3 billion, and the proportion of overseas sales rose from 43% to 75%, with an average annual growth rate of more than 40%.

In 1994, Ren Zhengfei said something ambitious: "In the future, the world's telecommunications equipment market will be divided into three parts—Siemens, Alcatel and Huawei will each occupy one side." He did not say how far the future is, but by 2009, Huawei has surpassed many powerful competitors to become the world's second largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer. In 2010, Huawei became one of the world's top 500 companies, becoming the only high-tech company in China to be included in the Fortune Global 500 list. As one of the most thoughtful, influential, and leadership business leaders in China, Ren Zhengfei led Huawei to successfully implement the "going global" strategy, which changed the pattern of the world's telecommunications industry and became a benchmark for Chinese companies.