After the consumer business was blocked, Huawei is doing everything possible to open up new water sources in a wider range of areas. Today, Huawei has formed 5 legions and is preparing to build 10 reserve corps. In contrast to Huawei's development history in the past 30 years, Huawei has been able to respond quickly to new situations and new changes through the adjustment of organizational forms and structures every time.
Wen-Shuzhi Frontline Shi Zhao Wang Kun
Editor | Zhao Yanqiu
Huawei appointed 10 more reserve commanders
In order to open up new water sources, Huawei is doing everything it can.
After Huawei held the oath-taking conference of the formation of the five major legions on October 29, 2021, the technology giant that is undergoing business adjustment has made a new move in the legion.
Digital Intelligence Frontline recently exclusively learned that Huawei President Ren Zhengfei has issued documents again at the end of 2021, set up a corps reserve working group, and appointed 10 reserve corps leaders.
The 10 reserve corps include interactive media (music), sports health, display core, campus network, data center network, data center base, station and module power supply, airport rail, power digital service, and government affairs netcom.
Of these reserve corps, two are related to the consumer business, one is related to HiSilicon, and the next few are mostly related to the enterprise business.
Digital Intelligence Frontline learned that unlike the five major legions (coal mining corps, smart highway corps, customs and port corps, smart photovoltaic corps, and data center energy corps) announced at the Huawei oath conference last October, the reserve corps will give a period of operation time to see the effect to decide whether to "turn positive". At present, most of these reserve corps are in preparation, with cross-departmental personnel and organizational preparations.
Commander of the Ten Reserve Corps Cartography/Digital Intelligence Front Zhang Yue
Judging from the introduction information such as Huawei's official website, most of the leaders of the reserve corps are elderly Huawei, and most of them have more than 20 years of industry experience. Like Huawei's previous business, the legion must not only face the domestic market, but also be based on the world, so the selected regimental commander usually has overseas work experience.
Among them, Wu Hao, the leader of the Interactive Media (Music) Reserve Corps, joined Huawei in 2008 and is the first product manager in Huawei's consumer Internet field, and has successively presided over the global business work of Huawei account, Skylink, cloud space, life services, application market, game center, etc., and served as vice president of consumer cloud services and general manager of the consumer cloud service application market business department.
Zhang Wei, the head of the Sports Health Reserve Corps, focuses on the field of wearable and health digitalization. In October 2021, he presided over the release of Huawei's sports health full-stack upgrade strategy. Wei Zhang graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and joined Huawei in 2000 as President of Huawei's Consumer Business Smart Wear and Sports Health Product Line.
Luo Kun, the leader of the display core reserve corps, joined Huawei in September 1999 and is the general manager of HiSilicon Display, and is very senior in the field of display chips.
Ding Yun (Dai), commander of the Park Network Reserve Corps, is the highest-ranking manager among the reserve corps commanders this time. He is the Managing Director of Huawei, graduated from Southeast University, joined Huawei in 1996, and currently serves as the president of two of Huawei's three major businesses, BG, the carrier BG and the enterprise BG.
The two reserve corps leaders of the data center network and data center base are Wang Tao (acting), who is also the managing director of Huawei, the director of the ICT infrastructure business management committee, graduated from Xi'an Jiaotong University, and joined Huawei in 1997.
Hou Jinlong (Acting), Commander of the Site and Module Power Reserve Corps, is the President of Huawei Digital Energy Technology Co., Ltd. Among the 11 key projects recently announced by Shenzhen, Huawei's digital energy headquarters and R&D base project in Xiangmi Lake, Futian District, with a total investment of 4 billion yuan. He graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and joined Huawei in 1996.
Wang Guoyu, the head of the Airport Rail Reserve Corps, is also an industry veteran, and is currently the president of Huawei's Global Transportation Business Unit, with dozens of project experience such as Dubai Airport Data Center and Changi Airport Video Surveillance, and has also led the construction of digital transformation projects for large customers such as Shenzhen Airport. He graduated from Beijing Jiaotong University and joined Huawei in 2006.
Sun Fuyou, Head of power digital service reserve, is currently Vice President of Huawei Enterprise BG and President of Global Energy Business Unit. Graduated from Northeastern University, he joined Huawei in 1998.
Yang Ruikai, deputy reserve commander of the Government Affairs One Netcom Corps (in charge of the work), is the first person huawei to test the waters of public cloud business, serving as vice president of Huawei and president of digital government. Graduated from the University of Information Engineering, he joined Huawei in 1999.
Legions don't start from scratch
Since being suppressed by the United States in 2019, Huawei's performance has had a substantial impact. Revenue in 2021 was RMB634 billion, down 28.9% year-on-year, the first decline in several years. Corresponding to the decline in revenue, Huawei's dividend in 2021 also fell by 15% compared with last year.
However, Huawei has already begun a series of production self-help and business transformation, and the form of the legion is also promoted in Huawei in this context. Ren Zhengfei explained during his visit to Shanxi in February 2021 that Huawei's approach follows Google's "legion" and gathers basic research scientists, technology, product, engineering, sales, delivery and service experts in one department, with the purpose of shortening the cycle of product progress, producing more grain in the industry, and playing a bright light effect in key industries.
According to media reports, Microsoft, which had more than 30,000 employees in 2004, was less innovative than Google, which had less than 2,000 employees. At that time, microsoft's more than 700 researchers were basically doctors, but their research and development departments were disconnected, and almost all of Google's developers were researching and developing without separation, and solved problems themselves when they encountered them.
This inspired Huawei. Several huawei insiders and outsiders told Digital Intelligence Frontline that at present, a huge challenge facing Huawei and Internet giants engaged in digital business such as Ali and Tencent is that they "can't catch" the demands put forward by the industry. For example, the unmanned production environment in some industries, the monitoring of some infrastructure, the real-time monitoring of some resource usage, etc.
Because it cannot provide good solutions, technology giants such as Huawei have no way to start and have no way to realize the final business value of customers.
Ren Zhengfei also mentioned in February 2021 in Shanxi that "in the 5G era, the main connection objects are enterprises, such as airports, docks, coal mines, steel, automobile manufacturing, and aircraft manufacturing, which are all unfamiliar fields for us" and "a large number of coal mines are physical and chemical problems, which is a new problem for us."
Huawei's establishment of the legion is to make a rapid breakthrough. The "Legion" breaks the boundaries of existing organizations and provides the basic organizational conditions for doing a thorough job in an industry and for business success.
Only by solving the difficulty of "not being able to catch" can Huawei, which is struggling to move forward, can it obtain valuable follow-up commercial success. Ren Zhengfei once said, "China has more than 5,300 coal mines, more than 2,700 metal mines... Coal mines are opportunities, so many coal mines will produce hundreds of billions of yuan in value in the future, hundreds of billions of yuan can feed how many people. ”
Digital Intelligence Frontline understands that in order to achieve such a goal, Huawei has given the legion a high degree of independence, no longer subordinate to any of Huawei's regional departments and three major BGs (business groups). The Legion reports to the incumbent boss and rotating chairman.
Huawei has also given the legion great permissions to sell all the company's products and allocate all the company's R&D resources, including the 2012 laboratory's basic R&D, and the product line's commercial R&D.
It is worth noting that whether it is the five major legions or the reserve corps, their business is not from zero to one. These businesses are strongly related to the original product line, such as smart photovoltaics, data center energy, etc., similar to special teams, which have a certain revenue scale or paving in Huawei, and then set up a legion on this basis.
From the five legions that have been established to the current ten reserve legions, the entry points chosen by Huawei are basically infrastructure, the foundation of people's livelihood, the requirements for intelligence, and can also integrate Huawei's 5G, cloud computing, AI, terminals and other related technologies, and have replicability, can be from point to surface.
For example, coal mines, roads, ports, airports. For example, in the context of the recently launched "East Counting West Counting" national strategic project, the data center energy corps, data center network reserve corps, and data center base reserve corps formed or prepared by Huawei will have a great place to play.
Pictured: At the legion oath meeting on October 29, 2021, Ren Zhengfei said: Peace is fought, and we must use hard struggle and heroic sacrifice to create a peaceful environment for the next 30 years.
But in practice, some Huawei employees have also raised their own confusion. For example, some post-90s employees mentioned that the legion can actively sign up for participation, and there are also because the business is one-size-fits-all, but passive participation is more likely to bring less efficient effects to employees and the company.
For another example, if the independence of the legion is large, will it become a "small hill"? After all, the legion has customer expansion, product development, and operation capabilities, and is self-contained, and there is a certain business conflict with the original representative office.
Although previously, according to Ren Zhengfei, the legion would be the center of income, and the representative office would be the center of profit. In layman's terms, the legion is expanding projects and grabbing grain, which may not be profitable in the short term, but it is very important for the market pattern and setting industry benchmarks. However, a representative office employee said to the digital intelligence frontline: "The core KPI of each organization is still revenue, so how to assess and distribute my revenue and the revenue of the legion?" The boss said to make a hole, and now I feel that it is a little bit off. ”
A closely related question is, a potential quality customer, who occupies the dominant position of the customer? "Is the Legion the support department or the main battle department?"
However, some Huawei employees said to digital intelligence frontline that the above problems have been thought up and down. "Grabbing customers with a representative office, this is certainly not the boss's original intention." The key problem now is that everyone can't start in the face of customer needs, which is a fundamental problem of ability. An employee said, "As for the division and settlement of sales revenue, this is at the technical operation level, don't worry." Compared to hardcore capabilities, the company rolls up a little, and there is nothing. ”
Some Huawei employees believe that the legion may be a transitional organization to solve the problem of insufficient capacity of industry solutions. "Once the capability is established, the legion may disappear."
Huawei has organized many changes
"Legion" is a word that has appeared frequently at Huawei in recent years. Ren Zhengfei, who came from a military background, has a natural affinity for this word.
In April 2019, Huawei, which was suppressed and sanctioned by the United States, mentioned that it would authorize the consumer business to "legion" operations, and proposed the goal of exceeding $100 billion in revenue within 3 years and $150 billion in 5 years. The focus was on organizational structure design and compensation system reform.
The effect of this mobilization and motivation is obvious. Huawei's market share in China has reached its peak, and in the first half of 2020, huawei's mobile phone market share in China once exceeded 45%. This also allows Huawei Group to maintain growth in a difficult environment.
However, due to factors such as the subsequent chip supply cut, the consumer business's goal of exceeding $100 billion in revenue within 3 years has not been achieved.
Therefore, Huawei needs to find a way to solve this battlefield problem while rushing to the next battlefield. In 2021, when Huawei's five major armies were established, the places that hit grain strengthened the industry solutions of toB or toG such as coal, customs, and highways. As one Huawei insider said, Huawei hopes to gather internal industry experts to maximize the potential of each business.
Ren Zhengfei also specifically explained that in his view, whether there is a need to set up a corps mainly depends on whether scientists need to be integrated into the frontline combat team.
Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei Consumer BG, also believes that the high-tech industry adheres to the talent strategy of "elite + elite soldiers", which is more efficient and valuable than the ant soldier strategy, and closely combines pre-research and research and development, and even considers organizational integration, which is more effective.
In contrast, over the past 30 years, Huawei has been continuously optimizing its organizational system to meet the needs of business development. From the earliest linear management, to the later multi-matrix organization for regions, customers, and products; from product decision organization to customer and strategy decision organization, and now business decision organization.
Behind each organizational change, either the original organizational structure is rigid and cannot adapt to the needs of existing businesses, or the company encounters growth bottlenecks and needs to open up new water sources.
For example, in 1998, Huawei's Basic Law divided the company's organizational structure into a dual structure of business units and regional companies. The Division is responsible for development, production, sales and user service; regional companies operate within the prescribed market. Business units and regional companies are profit centers and bear responsibility for actual profits.
Most of the time, in order to complete the diversified needs of customers, Huawei's business units and regional departments are joint operations to jointly expand customer needs. At this time, the management form of this joint operation is carried out by adopting a matrix management organizational structure. Thanks to organizational changes, Huawei survived the difficult period brought about by the Internet bubble at the end of the last century, and its sales exceeded 22 billion yuan in 2000.
In 2007, in order to solve the situation of separate battles in the organization, the condensation force and the PK of foreign large enterprises, Huawei formed an "iron triangle" in overseas markets.
The so-called iron triangle refers to the three roles of account manager, program manager and delivery expert, with the project as the center and the formation of a common combat unit. This statement was first put forward by Huawei's Sudan representative office, the original intention is to solve the situation of separate battles in the organization, unify the interface and working interface on the customer side, and form a joint operation team. In Ren Zhengfei's words, "Let those who can hear the gunfire make decisions."
In 2011, Huawei once again carried out organizational structure changes, establishing the three major BGs of operators, consumers, and enterprises, from the original one-horse carriage to a troika.
At that time, Huawei had grown into the world's second largest communication equipment manufacturer, the growth of telecommunications business encountered a ceiling, Huawei also needed to develop more water sources, and the consumer business surpassed the operator business in a few years. The rise of Huawei's mobile phones has also made Huawei's brand value, which was originally only facing more than 300 operator customers around the world, soar. In recent years, with the emergence of new services, cloud BU and car BU have also been established in Huawei.
"There is no immutable truth in the world." Ren said at a full staff meeting. In contrast to the development history of the past 30 years, Huawei has been able to quickly respond to new situations and new changes in a timely manner through the adjustment of organizational forms and structures, and survive the winter.
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