Huawei Case Study: Strategies to Success

Overview of Huawei

Huawei Case Study

Chinese Telecommunications Giant Huawei: Strategies to Success

Founded in 1987 by Ren Zhengfei, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (Huawei) has transformed from a one-room workshop in Shenzhen, China, to the world’s largest information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services provider. Over the years, it has developed capabilities across carrier network, enterprise and consumer fields. With a vision “To enrich life through communication”, Huawei has earned a reputation as one of the most dynamic, fastest-growing, innovative multinational technology companies. At the beginning, Huawei picked up basic technology by reverse-engineering foreign products and using that as the foundation to develop more complex technologies. At the later stages, Huawei placed strong emphasis on in-house research & development (R&D). With strong in-house R&D and aggressive undercutting of prices, Huawei has expanded quickly over the years and its products and solutions have been deployed in over 140 countries, serving more than one third of the world's population. In 2014, Huawei recorded profits of USD 5.5 billion (Huawei Financial Results, 2014). Its networking equipment serves 45 of the world’s 50 largest communications operators, with BT Group, Vodafone, Orange, and T-Mobile amongst its notable customers. Huawei is the only Chinese company that generated a higher revenue from markets outside of China (67 per cent) than from the domestic market. Currently, Huawei has around 170,000 staff globally (De Cremer & Tao, 2015), with 22 regional offices and over 100 subsidiaries around the world.

Today, the three main categories of products and services that Huawei offers are operator carrier networks, enterprise solutions and consumer products and services. At the beginning, Huawei’s fixed phone line switches were the first in-house products that they developed. These telecommunications switches are highly customisable and amongst one of the world’s best. Hence, they have since been a mainstay in the Chinese market. Until now, telecommunications switches remain as part of its first product category – carrier networks. This product segment also includes a wide range of wireless networks, fixed networks, telecom software and core networks as well as services solutions to telecommunications operators. The second segment, which is the enterprise business segment, is engaged in developing and manufacturing ICT products and solutions including enterprise network infrastructure, cloud-based data centres, enterprise information security as well as unified communication and collaboration solutions for government entities, public utilities as well as the energy, power, transportation, finance and other industries.

Coursework Brief The intended learning outcomes for will be assessed by one piece of coursework which will not normally exceed a total of 2500 words (excluding appendices). The coursework is as follows (word limits are indicative only). Read the paper (available on Moodle): Huawei - "Chinese Telecommunications Giant Huawei: Strategies To Success" by Guan Chong .

After reading the paper you are required to write a 5000-word essay which addresses the following:

Task 1 Provide an analytical review of the paper outlining the main themes and issues discussed and the implications of these for managing organisational change and innovation.

Task 1: Guidance Task 1 of the assignment asks you to provide an analytical review of the paper outlining the main themes and issues discussed and the implications of these for managing organisational change and innovation. Providing an analytical review means critically analysing the article and challenging the key points and claims the author makes and his credentials for making these claims. You need to find lots of other journal articles that challenges or supports Mendes’s views and present a critically analytical debate. Think about the other claims or views the authors’ expresses. To guide you these included the following:

• Innovation is change and change is innovation

• Innovators are change agents

• Organisations defensive routines keep them from embracing transformational change

• People will do everything they can to maintain status quo

• Organisations don’t have a coherent approach to change

• Some model of change from your lectures should be used and is useful for innovation

• The importance of shared understanding at project level

• The change agent is a catalyst for increasing the speed of innovation in a company

• Innovation Leaders need to broaden their roles as innovators and learn some of the disciplines of change management You need to pick four or five of these and using other journal articles present a critically analytical discussion about these views.

You also need to think about the journal and the author. Are they coming from a practitioner’s point of view, expressing opinion or are they presenting a research informed and evidence based peer reviewed journal? How much validity and reliability does the journal and author have to make the claims he does? Don’t forget you must include conclusions and recommendations.