On the small island of Mauritius on December 31, 2021, the sky is blue and the sea is wide, and the bright sunlight passes through the unique wooden shutters of the local area and hits the desk like a golden veil.
Sipping tea, I asked SR: "Eh, Sunny Wang, didn't we win the company's gold medal team, the department asked me to write a story about our 2021, what topic do you talk about?" ”
"Just write "Our Post-90s System Department"!" "Old" Wang replied.
"Your 89s are also post-90s?!"
"David, this is my 89 years of stubbornness, forever young!"
At this moment, Xiao Zhao, the 96-year-old account manager next door, smiled.
Next to it, the 99-year-old Meng Xin left a confused face.
This is our average 26-year-old systems department. Today, I would like to tell you the story of our past year or so...
Beautiful small island of Mauritius
Set off, team up, open the blind box
At the end of 2020, the epidemic was still raging, and after receiving the transfer order, Lao Wang and I were transferred from Ghana on the Gold Coast to Mauritius, a multinational country in East Africa. From the Atlantic coast to the Indian Ocean islands, it is already a different world. Mark Twain said, "God first created Mauritius, then imitated heaven", I have wanted to come and see it many times, but this time it has become a "deep free walk".
Mauritius is like an emerald in the blue sea and blue sky, the size of Shenzhen, more than one million people, mainly tourism, but also because of this, it has been hit hard by the epidemic, but also let our business environment change unpredictably. Although the customer base I was going to was once the "star" of the region, due to many historical problems and changes in customer personnel, this year's results have fallen to the bottom. Xiao Zhao has been struggling to support for half a year, and I and Lao Wang have officially opened this "blind box" - frightened? Surprise? Start here. Isn't that a pit?
It was the hardest start I've ever seen.
As you may know, the main responsibility of a system department is to drive the company's resources like an engine; Like a local guide, he leads a large army in the right direction and creates value for his customers.
When I first arrived in Mauritius, near the end of 2020, because of the epidemic, I was quarantined in the hotel, and I could only participate in the business remotely, and I was far away from the frontline battlefield but had no heart. Customers face great business challenges, revenue declines during the epidemic, fixed operating costs cannot change flexibly for a while, investment is cautious, and projects are tightened. At the critical moment, the representative personally took command, and the team withstood great pressure to promote the progress of the project, but the overall result was still not good. Immediately after, the customer's 2021 budget was released, which is still the direction of tightening investment. This "overnight rain" extinguished my joy when I first arrived. Outside the window of the blue sky, blue sea, white sand, dark clouds in the room covered with bitter teenagers, I once doubted: such a small country, such a saturated market, such a dismal operation, should not be a pit...
During the quarantine period, I was in the house and repeatedly copied the sentence "The Red Army is not afraid of expeditions and difficulties, and thousands of rivers and mountains are just waiting for idleness." In the Long March of that year, a group of young people, facing the unknown future, how determined and confident. I often use the Long March to motivate myself, this is difficult, what is it?! I can't choose the client, I can only seize the opportunity and play the cards in my hand.
I began to study the financial reports of customers with Lao Wang and Xiao Zhao, read the speeches of the top management, check the dynamics on the Internet, and look for clues of opportunities from between the lines. Finally, in that room, we sorted out the key project opportunities in 2021, established a strategy that closely fits customers, and solved the people's growing connection needs through wireless upgrades and quality home widths for the market; Expand digital transformation to help customers reduce operating costs internally. Immediately after, we opened a "battlefield autumn soldier" project PD appointment conference, even if you do not know the way forward, do not know how many clues can fall single, but always have to rush, you have to firmly believe, others will believe, the more difficult, the more you have to go down, seek change and survival, self-confidence and fearlessness.
The shells are good, but they can't be hit!
There is no Zhuge Liang on the front line, no one can win a thousand miles, and all the strategies of the Dou Room must be truly landed. Customer relations are that last mile, without which the best solutions become duds. At the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, Zhao and I made every effort to build customer relationships.
Breaking the ice is the most painful. There is no skill, just sincerity, physical diligence, brain work. And the most critical thing is to get through it. During that time, the battlefield between Xiao Zhao and I moved forward, frequently appeared in the customer's office to brush my face, and asked the secretary of the high-level customer to visit the time through various ways.
Business topics are always the best stepping stones to expand relationships, and sincerely solving problems for customers is also the simple truth that breaks the ice of customer relationships. When I first planned a visit to a key customer, the customer met me with his own team, everyone and The qi made a mutual introduction, the customer praised Huawei has always been its long-term partner, etc., but until the end, the customer did not mention some of the demands for Huawei's business and its own business planning, seeing that the meeting was about to end, I was anxious, and hurriedly asked: "I first arrived in Mauritius, is there anything you need to follow up on?" The customer was silent for a while, or very politely, from the network indicators, construction speed, historical project legacy problems, business issues and other aspects of the light click.
I wrote them down one by one, came back and quickly pulled the team to speculate on every point said by the customer, combined with the business situation at that time, and quickly positioned the key demands of the customer. Immediately after that, for each voice, the corresponding strategy was made, and the next day I took the initiative to ask the customer for clarification. When the customer does not see me, I send information on the progress of key matters; After a period of time, the progress report is made, and the customer is still missing; During that time, I was stationed at the customer's front desk, and one day the customer suddenly called out, "David, let's come in and talk!" "In this way, the client communicated with us several key project issues. That month, our team was fully engaged in solving the delivery problems raised by the clients, and that's how I connected with the key customers. Customer courtesy is sometimes really polite, a little light may have a big problem behind it, only by each customer mentioned the problem as a key problem to solve, the relationship of trust can be established.
Doing customer relations is a team job that requires a good wingman. I still remember that on the last day of 2020, in order to visit a difficult customer, I cooperated with Xiao Zhao, one stayed downstairs, one waited upstairs, waited for a morning, and finally met the customer, and had a deep communication with the customer. It was a stormy day, and Xiao Zhao and I walked out of the customer building with a sense of relief and joy. In fact, there are many such scenes, especially in the ice-breaking period, the embarrassment of staying alone in the client's office, the crampedness of knocking on the door alone, all need a strong heart, and sometimes there is also a need for someone to help play the round field and support each other. This kind of cooperation and mood lasts for a while, we will be anxious because of a key visit, we will be lost because the customer will release pigeons, we will be discouraged by the customer's refusal, and we will be happy and fulfilled by a visit. This joy of building relationships between people is a sense of accomplishment that is unique to the customer line.
This year, we waited for 7 hours for the customer to clarify the problem; Our office space was moved from the company to the sofa in the customer reception; The restaurant also moved to the coffee shop downstairs, where a sandwich and a glass of juice became the norm during that time. At the end of the year, the client's secretary said, "A few of you have been in our office longer than we have, and this Empire of the year should be awarded to you." "We were laughing, and then we were very emotional. This year, there were no more shells that could not be fired.
A cup of coffee brings a benchmark
As I got to know each other well with my clients, I had the opportunity to have coffee with key clients, and I had a great conversation that day. Finally, out of professional habit, I asked the client, "Is there anything else I need to follow up on?" ”
The customer pondered for half a day and said, "Yes, recently I am ready to transform my operation and maintenance team, do you see what cases to recommend to me?" ”
"Okay, I'll write it down first, and I'll implement it when I get back."
After I went back, I pulled up the SR King to discuss. Lao Wang is a very smart person, born in service sales, and has a lot of research on service operation and maintenance. He said: "Why don't we introduce Huawei's operation management experience and platform to customers?" If you don't know, you can sell a platform. A word awakened the dreamer, and the more we talked, the more excited we became. In fact, customer-facing internal digital transformation is one of the strategies we set at the beginning of the year, and we firmly believe that this direction will certainly bring unique value to customers in improving operational efficiency and improving customer experience management. However, we have communicated with multiple customer departments before, and communicated with the customer's senior management, and we have not been able to find a good entry point, and this digital transformation is too abstract, unlike the previous products, it is easy to explain the solution and value.
This customer's request precisely hit the point where digital tools enable operation and maintenance, and also let our system department see a glimmer of the dawn of the project. Lao Wang quickly pulled the resources of the regional department, and I quickly followed up the customer about the time. The customer saw that I attached so much importance, the next day arranged the exchange time, listened to the expert explanation, the customer pondered for a long time, suddenly answered a phone call, and it ended hastily. I thought about it, and I guess the customer is not interested.
Unexpectedly, in the evening, the customer suddenly called me, he was very interested in the program, and we entered the details of the discussion stage, which entered the professional field of Lao Wang, customer interest was stimulated, we quickly followed up, after a month of benchmarking in the technical layer, finally determined the plan, and then, we and the customer together for intensive preparation, intend to go to the customer board for review.
I remember the night before the board of directors, Lao Wang and I walked around the company park round and round until the early hours of the morning, went back or couldn't sleep, and went to stare at the final result the next morning. We kept watch from morning to night, there was no one in the customer's office, and when I saw the customer coming down from the stairs, my heart suddenly hung up. After sitting down, the customer said: "We have planned a digital transformation strategy together, and now it is up to you to deliver the blueprint you have drawn." "I breathed a long sigh of relief, and the customer came to a big hug, just like this, we "short flat fast" laid the first solid-shift integration Autin project in Africa, won the Best Innovative Product Award of the African Communications Exhibition, on the company's official website bulletin board, Lao Wang also appeared on the global GTS conference to share project experience, we ridiculed him for a while.
One day Lao Wang joked: "I already knew that our project was so influential, we should set up an A-level marketing benchmark!" ”
I laughed and said, "It's okay, I wrote you to the "Huawei People" newspaper, the publicity effect is not better than that?" ”
Lao Wang said: "Yes, then you don't call me Lao Wang in the article, it's good to call me Sunny." ”
I replied, "Okay, Old King."
If you don't forget it, there will be an echo. The development of clues is a painful up-and-down stage of exploration, and the emergence of opportunities is sometimes a flash of inspiration. Of course, not only this cup of coffee, the team with the desire for victory and a keen sense of smell, excavated one opportunity after another, in the operation, played a turnaround battle.
Our glory
The achievements are not only the system department, but also a large team that has accumulated solutions, delivery, and finance. The system department is like a spark of stars, igniting the blood with hot blood and twisting everyone together. We had written materials for the next day's customer exchange until late at night, and suddenly there was a knock at the door of the domestic brothers at the opposite end of the conference call: "Hello, get up and test nucleic acid." "I realized that it was already dawn in China, and it was early in the morning on our side; In order to speed up the delivery of the project, we completed the warehousing of 13 containers in one day, setting a record, and the sunburn marks on the face of the supply manager are forever engraved in our minds; We are not only an iron triangle, this year, we won the company's gold medal team, the delivery of brothers, solution brothers, also stood on the headquarters or regional department annual meeting podium.
In 2022, we also shouted our own slogan: Let our system department become a stage where everyone can shine. There are only four people in the system department, and we operate a small team into a "big team" through openness, communication, convolution, and value recognition, so that everyone can find a sense of achievement and participation here, and let more people stand on the podium.
At this point, I think again, what forged the spirit of our system department? When I looked at Xiao Zhao as he prepared to meet a page of customers, I seemed to have found the answer: it was the inheritance of the system department from generation to generation. There are no textbooks in the Department of Systems, and people teach more than they do. Interpreting the customer strategy and analyzing the high-level voice strategy is what I learned from Tommy; Dare to be the first to take the lead, with the blood to ignite the chivalrous spirit of blood, as well as to meet the customer's four ones "a sentence of opening remarks, a souvenir, a material paper, a sentence of 'what else does the leader command'" I learned from Jason; Perseverance in customer relations and refined operation of the system department are what I learned from my former supervisor Ethan.
I improve myself in my studies, and I also influence the people around me in my practice. After generations of Huawei's old system department influence, we have also established a team spirit of "customer first, value creation, open unity, sharing success, pragmatic truth-seeking, and constant equals excellence", the description of these words may be forgotten, but those things they recognize: for customers, for the team, perseverance, eternal peak of the inner, will continue to inherit.
At the end of this article, it has entered 2022, and all the achievements and regrets have completely turned over with the second hand crossing 12 o'clock in the morning.
The new journey has begun again, Xiongguan Mandao is really like iron, and now he is stepping forward from the beginning!
Photos of our team in 2021