Chapter 17 go out and show the brand

Since Huawei was still very weak at the time and had no international reputation, foreign telecom companies were reluctant to purchase Huawei products.How can foreign customers understand Huawei and recognize Huawei products?Through careful analysis, Ren Zhengfei set an internal iron law for Huawei: as long as it is an international communication exhibition, Huawei must participate.According to Huawei's internal information, Huawei's annual investment in exhibitions is several hundred million yuan.Every time Huawei goes to a new market, it will hold a large-scale communications exhibition there to showcase Huawei's brand and products in an all-round way.

"Since 1996, we have participated in dozens of top international exhibitions every year, and we have shown ourselves on the international stage whenever we have the opportunity. Since 1995, we went to Geneva to watch the ITU exhibition. In 1999 In 2003, Huawei began to participate in the ITU exhibition. When Huawei participated in the ITU exhibition in 2003, it rented a 505-square-meter booth, which became one of the largest manufacturer exhibition halls at that time, and gave Western telecom operators a shocking experience. powerful impression.” Li Jie, senior vice president of Huawei, recalled.

"In China, there is definitely no second company that loves to participate in exhibitions like Huawei and can always show itself." Dr. J.Tang, a visiting professor at Harvard Business School, once visited Huawei's booth at the ITU exhibition in 2003.He said that at the exhibition, although well-known Western companies showed very sophisticated and exciting, he was "still proud of China's Huawei." Gradually, Huawei applied the skills of participating in exhibitions to participate in industry forums, and even Huawei simply convened seminars for international operators to enhance mutual understanding by dissecting Huawei's customer success stories.

According to Huawei spokesman Fu Jun, in July 2004, Huawei held the "International Seminar on Color Ring Back Tone Service" in Thailand. Operators from other countries were also invited to Thailand to conduct joint research and enhance understanding. At the end of 2008, the United Arab Emirates announced that Huawei would exclusively undertake the construction of a WCDMA network. This was the first 3G project in the world for Huawei and even a Chinese manufacturer.Huawei has always been proud of this project, because this time they did not win with a low price, but doubled the lowest bid, but customers chose Huawei without hesitation because of their excellent service.

The first business representative Huawei sent to the UAE was Wang Jiading. When he first arrived there, he didn't know where the customers were.We only know that the customer Etisalat is an operator with a world-class advanced network and has many years of cooperation with Western multinational companies, but they know very little about Huawei. Huawei people also lack confidence in their own technology.At that time, Huawei's 3G technology was not yet fully mature, and the relationship with customers was weak. Although several project leaders under great pressure opened an experimental bureau in the UAE and completed the construction of the experimental bureau in the shortest time, but due to The technology is not yet fully mature, and there is no commercial case. Problems appeared one after another. Then, when communicating with the customer for effect evaluation, an unfortunate thing happened. The customer gave the lowest score—zero.The cost paid can no longer be recovered, and the future opportunities can only be pursued.

However, even at this time, they did not give up communication with customers, but tried to convince customers that they were determined to go all out.Despite the temporary technical failure, customers began to recognize them slowly. At the last moment, they found the key to turning defeat into victory: There were two exhibitions in October 2003, one was the Geneva Communication Equipment Exhibition and the Gulf Gitex Information Exhibition. Considering the importance of the market to the operator's business, they decided to help customers participate in the exhibition There will be publicity.Huawei people know that strengthening contact with customers at this time can not only promote the relationship with customers, but also speed up the progress of project decision-making.Before the Geneva exhibition, several Huawei salesmen would rather temporarily sacrifice their own booths in order to help customers build booths and debug equipment, so that customers' exhibitions were unprecedentedly successful. Customers were very satisfied with Huawei's approach. After an exhibition, the relationship between Huawei and customers The relationship between them is basically solid, and Etisalat is also very satisfied with Huawei's service awareness.

The Chinese company Huawei has become a brand that Etisalat can trust.Later, winning the bidding became a matter of course. During an interview with Huawei, the author met a marketing employee who had just returned from the Latin American market. He said: "A lot of times our difficulty is not how to sell our products, but that we can't see customers at all. And every country's grand communications The exhibition is very popular in the industry. Huawei’s booth is connected with many international giants, and it is usually larger in scale and more meticulously arranged than them. Our most advanced technologies and products are displayed. Many people do not know Knowing about Huawei, but through these exhibitions, they will first have a visual shock, and then they will pay attention to Huawei's products and technologies. This is not only a process of publicity but also a process of brand reshaping." In the interview, The author also saw some pictures of Huawei's overseas exhibitions. One of them was a picture of Huawei's exhibition in the Middle East. From the pictures, we can clearly feel the pride of Huawei people, which is really exuded from the inside out. .