Submitted to: Yan Cimon. Ph. D.
MNG-6059: Dynamics of Global Strategy
Faculty of Business Administration
Department of Management
March 6th, 2015
Introduction
Founded in 1987 in Shenzhen, China, Huawei is a leader of global information and communication technologies (ICT) providers. The revenue of Huawei reached 38 875 millions U.S dollars in 2014 and ranked 285 in the top global 500 companies (Fortune, 2014). Deployed in over 170 countries and regions in the world, Huawei has 150 000 employees who provide services to more than one third of the world's population (Huawei, 2015). Driven by a customer-centric innovation perspective and opened to partnerships, Huawei’s vision is to enrich life through telecommunication. It has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio, which adds competitive advantages to its customers in telecom, enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing. Huawei is a successful growing company but they are also facing some challenges. Managing human resources in their international divisions and entering the US market are the two main one’s.
A member of our team got the chance to interview Mr. Li, one of the senior managers who has worked in Asia, Europe and Middle East during his professional career. According to his professional experience and point of view, the conservative company’s culture would first be the cause of serious tensions between headquarter in China and subsidiaries. Also, as mentioned in the 2012 Sustainable Report, Huawei must improve its ability to retain talents since it is a critical factor to technological innovation.
Another problem is related to the willingness to sell smartphones in the U.S. Huawei is operating in the U.S since 2001 as a supplier of network equipment for telecom businesses. They are now making smartphones and selling them in Asia, Europe, Canada and Latin America. Huawei now wants to break into the U.S market with its smartphones. However, reaching the American customers pose several challenges. Firstly, the strong competition in the smartphone industry and market’s domination by Apple and Samsung makes it difficult to enter the U.S. Moreover, the lack of recognition of Huawei’s brand poses an additional problem. Thirdly, the company is facing some barriers from the U.S government due national security threat regarding suspected links with the Chinese government. Finally, the American carriers control most of the promotion and the shelf placement in their stores, so this is crucial to link the sale of devices with services, which is an additional challenge for Huawei.
1. International human resources management
1.1 Company culture management
Focusing on Research and Development and being dedicated to sustainable socio-economic development, Huawei has nevertheless implemented an environmental protection strategy. Actions are taken to dynamically cooperate and insure an optimal integration with business partners. In the same time, Huawei provides a broad portfolio of ICT (information and communications technology) solutions in an innovative way.
However, in our fast changing world, it is impossible to operate a global company, such as Huawei, based on traditional assumptions and using conservative managerial strategies. Doing what other companies have been doing is not good enough for Huawei to continue expending in the future. It is imperative for Huawei to adopt a corporate vision allowing managerial strategies based on flexibility, sustainability and innovation. In fact, the ICT industry is characterized by a high pace of change, an important number of players and an intense competition among them. Therefore, a global strategy is well adapted because it allows headquarter to manage a global strategic perspective, in conjunction with subsidiaries’ local rapprochements strategies based on national and regional levels. More importantly, the macro strategy should integrate
