Chapter 43 Technical route for overtaking on curves

Although he attaches so much importance to technology and innovation, Ren Zhengfei is first of all a sober entrepreneur. He is well aware of the huge gap in technology between Chinese companies and leading European and American companies. For this reason, he said within Huawei, "We are determined not to innovate. ".The "innovation" mentioned by Ren Zhengfei here refers to the kind of revolutionary innovation that goes deep into basic research and development.The reason why Huawei does not engage in this type of innovation is because it is clearly aware of the huge gap between China's basic R&D capabilities and the world's top level. As latecomers, Chinese companies can only choose the technical route that best suits their own development strategies.

Therefore, Huawei has always adopted a follow-up strategy in its research and development strategy, that is, when industry-leading technology manufacturers first develop new technologies and products and prove their commercial value, Huawei will invest a lot of resources in product-level development.In the words of Ren Zhengfei, "Huawei does not have academicians, only academicians (commercial engineers), stretch the bottom of the 'scholar' a little longer. If you want to become an academician, don't come to Huawei." Huawei does not do the lowest and most core research and development, such as CPU, operating system, core chips, etc.Huawei's main focus is on the development of non-core dedicated chips.This type of chip is characterized by a large number and relatively small technical difficulty.The scale of application is the key to judging whether it is worth developing. As long as the product can be scaled up, the effect of this technical advantage on reducing costs is very obvious.Huawei's basic research department is mainly engaged in research in this area. Every year, several major chips are designed, and then processed by professional chip manufacturers in the United States, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to replace the chips purchased directly. Cost savings of hundreds of millions of dollars.

In addition, Huawei also does "board-level development", that is, to take advantage of the relatively low domestic R&D labor force and spend several times the amount of manpower to reduce the cost of the entire circuit board. Cost, replacement of any device on the board, and any possible new design should be tried.Because each board only needs to reduce one yuan, it will increase the profit of tens of millions of yuan.In terms of research and development, Huawei has always adhered to the strategy of "small improvements, big rewards; big improvements, only encouragement".Once, a new employee wrote a "ten thousand words letter" to Ren Zhengfei not long after he joined Huawei, but Ren Zhengfei replied: "If this person has a mental illness, it is recommended to be sent to the hospital for treatment; if he is not ill, he is recommended to be dismissed."

With Huawei's continuous investment in R&D and long-term accumulation, Huawei will always follow behind its competitors, constantly narrow the gap with them, and look for opportunities to catch up. In 2000, Ren Zhengfei predicted that Huawei would obtain profits from the window of opportunity through technological leadership, and then use the profits for research and development to drive more breakthroughs.This is like an athlete running a long-distance race. At the beginning, Huawei insisted on running at the front of the second square and closely followed the first square; This is also known as Huawei's "curve overtaking tactic".

And when Huawei has spotted a certain technology, it will adopt the "pressure tactics" of concentrating resources on and developing it.As early as 1993, Huawei invested all the funds accumulated in the six years of entrepreneurship into the research and development of the C&C08 digital program-controlled switch.After gaining advantages in switch products, Huawei invested the accumulated funds in optical network transmission products with SDH technology as the core.Since then, according to changes in the market environment, Huawei has shifted its R&D focus from wired to wireless: starting with the first-generation analog technologies such as CT2 and ETS, gradually shifting to the second-generation GSM, and finally to the current 3G technology.Therefore, it has always been Huawei's guiding principle in technology research and development to focus on investment after seeing the general direction, rather than the average force of attacking from all sides. "Pressure tactics" have received very good results: in terms of 3G patents, the number of basic patents owned by Huawei ranks among the top 5 in the world; in terms of 4G (LTE) patents, Huawei has ranked among the top 3 in the world.That is to say, in the global wireless technology competition, Huawei has leaped from a follower of 2G to a competitor of 3G, and then a leader of 4G.

Of course, this technical "follow strategy" will eventually expose its limitations.For example, Huawei has never mastered the core chip technology, which also makes Huawei pay higher procurement costs, and cannot make more in-depth customization for its own products.Another example is that due to the long-term habit of following, Huawei does not have enough foresight to grasp the future industrial changes. When the mobile market undergoes revolutionary changes, it seems a little at a loss. In any case, Ren Zhengfei and Huawei under his leadership have created a path worthy of affirmation and learning for China's technology-based enterprises.