Chapter 28 Chapter 5 Ongoing Management Change

Ren Zhengfei said: "In terms of management, I am not a radical, but a reformist, advocating continuous management progress. Now we need to take off the straw sandals and replace them with a pair of American shoes, but it is still not enough to wear new shoes and follow the old road. After changing the shoes, what we are going to take is the path taken by the world's leading companies. These companies have lived for a long time, and the path they have walked has been proved to be a path of corporate survival. This is what we first rigidly and mechanically introduce Hay The only reason for the system (Hay's job evaluation system), in other words, is because we want to live."

In just 22 years, Huawei has become an international high-tech enterprise.Huawei's success is largely the result of years of uninterrupted management change. At that time, a person who left Huawei commented on Huawei: "Huawei is not lacking in strategy, but has formulated the wrong strategy. Why do you pay attention to strategy but make frequent mistakes in strategy? The reason is very simple. There is a problem with the management of Huawei. This is also the crisis of Huawei.” In fact, as early as mid-December 1995 at an internal staff meeting, Ren Zhengfei expressed his concerns about Huawei's management problems.At this time, the "Huawei Basic Law" drafted with the assistance of Renmin University of China has entered the first draft stage.

Since 1996, Ren Zhengfei has set his sights on the management system of international companies, and the qualification evaluation system of the Hong Kong branch of the American Hay Consulting Company was the first to enter Huawei.Huawei has opened the prelude to management reform, systematically introducing the management experience of a world-class management consulting company, in the fields of integrated product development (IPD), integrated supply chain (ISC), human resource management, financial management, quality control, equity incentives, etc. On the one hand, it has successively cooperated with IBM, Mercer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, NFO-TNS, Oracle and other companies to introduce advanced management concepts and methodologies, from business process, organization, quality control, human resources, finance and customer satisfaction, etc. Systematic reforms have been carried out in six aspects, focusing the company's business management system on the core of creating customer value. After continuous improvement, Huawei's management has been in line with international standards. The general recognition of customers and global partners effectively supports the company's globalization strategy.

Judging from the trajectory of management reform for more than 10 years, Huawei has gone through three stages of "independent optimization-introduction and replication-innovative development". 1. Self-optimization stage.This stage lasted from 1996 to 1998. The main changes in this stage were: the drafting of the "Huawei Basic Law", the implementation of the QC quality circle, the ISO quality system certification, and the optimization of various functions.The landmark events are: the resignation of the marketing department in 1996 and the completion of the "Huawei Basic Law".Classic quotes: "The unburnt bird is the phoenix", "Small improvements, big rewards, big suggestions, only encouragement".

Self-optimization is painful, crossing the river by feeling the stones, making slow progress and often taking detours.Take the "Huawei Basic Law" as an example. Six professors from Renmin University were hired to formulate it. It took three years and eight revisions of the draft. The theoretical role of "guiding Huawei to move forward".In terms of functional management reform, Huawei also faced the same problem, such as R&D management, and carried out management reform work of project establishment management and project process monitoring. However, the reform from 1996 to 1998 mainly emphasized the grasp of strategic opportunities, and focused on R&D speed and concentration. Superior force, this change was also gradually corrected after being introduced into the Western management system.

The management reform from 1996 to 1998 mainly relied on Huawei itself, except for occasional external consulting forces.Although the reform has achieved certain results, due to the limitations of employees' vision and being troubled by transactional work, Huawei has not been able to make breakthroughs in the management model. After Ren Zhengfei visited IBM in 1998, he clearly felt the limitations of his own transformation, and decided to introduce mature Western management methods to carry out professional and systematic transformation of the enterprise. This transformation has become a top priority.

2. Introduce the copying stage.In this round of management reform, Huawei positioned itself as a high-tech enterprise including R&D, sales and core manufacturing, and set up a process-oriented organization as the goal of management reform.In the design of the process-based organizational structure, it mainly relies on the pull of customer demand, implements the whole process, and provides real end-to-end services.Taking research and development as an example, as soon as any product project is established, a team (PDT) composed of marketing, development, service, manufacturing, finance, procurement, and quality will be established, and various advanced management concepts and tools will be used to manage and manage the entire product development process. Decision-making, to ensure the transparency of information in the entire process of product development and the satisfaction of customer needs and goals at one time.

While transforming business management, Huawei has also reformed functional departments such as human resources, quality, and finance, and consolidated proven processes into the enterprise information system to realize electronic process management and digitization of business information.In the end, through simple and standardized information control from client (demand) to client (supply), Huawei got rid of its dependence on people and realized the initial transformation of professionalization and specialization of the enterprise. With the gradual establishment of a Western management system in Huawei, too many process control points in the system not only reduce operational efficiency, but also tend to breed bureaucracy, and the flaws of dogmatism are also revealed, which aroused Ren Zhengfei's vigilance.

3. The stage of innovation and development.The financial crisis is a watershed between Chinese and Western management models. Entrepreneurs began to evaluate Western management models objectively. Management innovation based on Western management models has become a new feature of Chinese enterprise reform.Huawei's main work at this stage is to carry out organizational and process changes centered on the needs of front-line operations. Ren Zhengfei clearly pointed out: "There are not many Western companies in China that are successful, but they have copied Western management."In terms of the methodology of independent innovation, he emphasized that "persist in what we have succeeded, we must be good at summarizing why we are successful and how to continue to succeed in the future, and then use Western methods to standardize these concepts of management philosophy to make them standardized and baselined. It is conducive to wide dissemination and mastery."

The organizational structure and human resource mechanism reforms carried out in 2009 are as meaningful to Huawei as 1998, which is the first year of innovation and reform.In order to enhance the front-line combat effectiveness, Ren Zhengfei determined the Marine Corps-style front-line organizational structure based on the iron triangle of the representative office system department, with light equipment and comprehensive capabilities; borrowed the organizational model of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and proposed the reform of the area and put forward the swarm tactical requirements for the rapid assembly and evacuation of the "swarm".According to Ren Zhengfei's vision, this change will effectively implement the front-line combat mode of each regional department, representative office, product line, and rear platform, so that management will be in line with international standards.

The management changes in the above three stages paved the way for supporting Huawei's rapid development.The value of self-optimization lies in enabling the management to understand the real needs of the enterprise; the value of introduction and replication lies in the rapid professionalization and professional transformation; and the innovation and development stage is a key step in building the core competitiveness and original management of the enterprise. step. On April 20, 2011, the U.S. "Fortune" magazine released the "25 Most Influential Business Leaders in Asia" list, Japan's Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda topped the list, Samsung Group Chairman and CEO Lee Kun-hee Fourth, Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei ranks fifth, the highest-ranked Chinese entrepreneur. The "25 Most Influential Business Leaders in Asia" list is Fortune's quick evaluation of Asian business leaders.For a long time, the operating income, profit and growth rate of the most dynamic companies in Asia, as well as the role played by business managers as leaders in the success of the company, have been the basis for the evaluation by Fortune. Now the degree of globalization of companies has also become a An important aspect is added to the assessment.