Huawei shows why you have to walk the talk

In August 2013 Chinese multinational ICT and networking solutions provider Huawei announced the appointment of Wilson Liu as the new CEO of the Company’s South Africa operation.

Liu joined Huawei in the year 2000 and has fulfilled a number of senior management roles including CEO for Huawei Oman and Huawei United Arab Emirates.

Towards the tail-end of 2013 Huawei picked up an award for Best Network Improvement at the 6^th AfricaCom Awards, held in Cape Town, South Africa. This was for the Huawei FMC Solution – a partnership with Telkom, which saw a fixed line and mobile switch solution to bring Telkom up to speed in South Africa enabling the offer of fixed voice and broadband services to customers.

Huawei has established three regional head offices, 12 representative offices and technical service centres across the continent, as well as five training centres.

With customer centric strategies seen as a major influencer within ICT in 2014, Huawei believes it has the right strategy in place to take advantage of opportunities across emerging markets going forward.

In a rare interview with the media, ITNewsAfrica spoke to Wilson Liu about his appointment, the Company’s strategy and his take on competition and what is required to differentiate oneself in the current marketplace.

What have you identified as priorities in the Company that require your urgent attention?

Huawei Technologies SA has been under good leadership and I am proud to be filling the shoes of a great leader. South Africa is an important market for Huawei in the ESA region and our operations there generate more than 35% of overall revenue for the region, hence my focus will be to grow this business. Consequently, our mission at Huawei is to always improve our business and relationships with our present and potential stakeholders … so I intend to keep that wheel turning.

How would you describe your management style?

I prefer an open leadership style and empowering my employees to develop a positive attitude towards work.

Are there any plans to adjust or modify the Company’s existing strategy?

Our strategy is to deliver to the people of South Africa innovative, affordable, and customized ICT products and solutions that are able to meet the dynamic needs of our customers and end-users. Our commitment will remain to not only help build and service South Africa’s ICT ecosystem, but to also contribute to the region’s long-term ICT development through local partnerships, continued investments, knowledge transfers, and by fostering local innovation and talent. I plan to continue fulfilling this goal for our company.

Do you intend to recruit more people or increase the size of your existing team?

Like all businesses we aim to grow our team as the business grows. We are putting a great amount of attention on localization as part of our business strategy, and we have worked our way up to over 65 % local staff. Additionally, every year we provide internships for students in local universities to share with them our international expertise to help disseminate it locally.

What differentiates Huawei in a fiercely competitive market?

Huawei’s success is as a result of our commitment to invest in research and development (R&D) to deliver a customer centric products and solutions that meet our customers needs. This has ensures that our brand has remained relevant, trendy and innovative over the years. Huawei invests 10% of its annual revenue in R&D.

What is the strategy to further entrench the Huawei brand within the domestic smartphone market?

Over the past three years we have slowly developed our advertising strategy, driving a more aggressive campaign year-on-year, but this alone has not been enough.  The combination of providing good quality products with a cost effective price tag coupled with expanding our marketing footprint have helped us to gain traction.  Our investment in brand building media activities will go a long way to build consumer confidence.  We are very focused on driving sell-out and provide a full sales solution for our partners, rather than just focusing on selling a device.  We take great care in planning our smartphones, in line with consumer demands.

What are you most excited about in terms of directing the business in South Africa

As the largest economy in the region, South Africa is an important, strategic market for Huawei because we believe that our growth in this market is intertwined with the overall sustainable development of a region that holds so much potential for ICT innovation and growth. We are committed to being a long-term investor to South Africa through our contributions to job creation, knowledge transfers, local innovation and local talent development.

One of the Company’s key business strategies is to increase its localisation rate in every market in which it operates. What does that mean from a South African point of view and what impact will this have on the Company going forward?

Huawei South Africa is the regional office for Eastern & Southern Africa, serving 5 representative offices, with 4 offices in Johannesburg.  Currently Huawei has over 1000 employees in South Africa office, and 60 % are recruited locally to give opportunity to local talents. Huawei is committed to continue enhancing local talents through knowledge transfer initiatives on our global experience expertise to enhance our localization agenda which is key for our business continuity in South Africa and Africa at large.

Chris Tredger – Online Editor