Why does Huawei's exploration of Russia frequently encounter cold? What is cold is not the weather, but the confidence made in China
Many companies are now glamorous, but in the early days of their establishment, no one cared.
When Huawei first opened up the Russian market, Li Jie, president of the CIS region, complained to Ren Zhengfei: This place has been gone for a week or two, and even the shadow of the customer cannot be seen, let alone introduce our products.
Ren Zhengfei could not hear the complaint and stifled Li Jie back: If one day the Russian market improves, and Huawei is blocked out, you should not come back.
Three years later, Li Jie returned with an order of only $38.
This time Ren Zhengfei praised Li Jie: At least we are still there.
In the 1990s, the domestic communications market was divided up by the foreign giants of "seven countries and eight systems". At that time, the mainstream international standard gsm had been formulated, and the main operators with all patents were Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens and Motorola, and the Huawei gsm patent at that time was 0.
The strength can not keep up, the technology is not, the funds are not enough to burn, the domestic manufacturers can only look at the dry eyes.
If Huawei wants to have a foothold, it must fire at the strict market.
So Huawei's "Yu Bold" Yu Chengdong took the initiative to ask for help, Yu Chengdong said to Ren Zhengfei: Ren Zong, I have a lot of ideas about the 3G business, but I don't have the funds to invest in research and development, so there is no feasibility report to you, but I think I can do it.
There are not many people who dare to open their mouths, except for Yu Chengdong, there will probably be no one who is so confused and confident in requesting 3G business. Ren Zhengfei still let the company's finance approve the funds to Yu Chengdong, and let Yu Chengdong take office and take charge of the 3G business line.
Ren Zhengfei and Yu Chengdong are very similar, both of them are people who boldly dream and practice boldly. However, the dream is very full, and the reality is very bone.
Yu Chengdong pulled a small team for the 3G network project and invested 4 billion yuan. Although it was successfully made in 2001, china has not issued a license to Huawei for a long time.
What does it mean not to be licensed?
Your college entrance examination results are the first in the province, but Tsinghua Peking University does not enroll students in the local area. So the 4 billion yuan was lost, and Huawei suffered heavy losses. The most direct result is that every time Ren Zhengfei sees Yu Chengdong and Xu Zhijun, the person in charge of wireless products, he has to chase them and ask: When will you get the 4 billion yuan back to me?
4 billion, not 40 bucks. Xu Zhijun and Yu Chengdong were impatient with the boss's torture, so they turned their attention to other places - overseas markets, and chose Hong Kong for the first stop.
Many people believe that Huawei's exploration of overseas markets is to "lay out the global market", but it is actually more like "looking for a way to survive".
Although Hong Kong was small, it had a huge influence, and Hong Kong was the region with the highest telephone penetration rate in the world at that time. If you can get a license in Hong Kong, it will be of great significance to Huawei.
At the time, there was an operator in Hong Kong called Sunday, and they had a scarce WCDMA license. Although it had a license, Sunday not only had no money at the time, but also carried a debt of HK$500 million.
Sunday has difficulties, Huawei has a breakthrough. Xu Zhijun and Yu Chengdong said in unison: Others lack money, I lack licenses, and complement each other.
So Huawei first took out 500 million Hong Kong dollars and lent it to Sunday, and the hole in the debt was filled, but Sunday still had no money to buy equipment. Huawei gave another HK$859 million to Sunday, and Huawei also spent a huge amount of money to become Sunday's second largest shareholder.
After spending HK$2 billion, Huawei won the first battle in the Hong Kong market.
At the end of 2003, Huawei got the second order in Hong Kong - Emirates Telecom's wcdma 3G order, and the third and fourth orders followed, and by 2005, Huawei's overseas market revenue exceeded 5 billion.
Among the many overseas markets opened up by Huawei, Hong Kong is relatively smooth, after all, what can be solved with money is not a big problem, but some areas cannot be solved with money.
Huawei's expansion of overseas markets is taking the road of "rural encirclement of cities", which sounds very powerful, but it is actually forced to be helpless. In the 1990s, the overseas market was already occupied by top foreign companies, and the overseas market was divided up to the point that there was no soup left. The place where these top companies have not gone is the vast "rural" area of "Asia, Africa and Latin America".
It is both an opportunity and a challenge, and Huawei began to replicate the "rural encirclement of the city" that it had walked in China.
As early as 1994, Ren Zhengfei set his sights on the Russian market. Russia is located near the Arctic Circle, the climate is cold and depressed, and the economy has retreated again and again.
But Russia is, after all, the big brother of the past, and the shelf and pride are still there. For the employees sent by Ren Zhengfei to Russia, the cold is not the weather, but the Russian market and the attitude of the locals to them.
At that time, China's counterfeit and shoddy goods were flooding Russia, and many shops would hang "no Chinese goods" on the door to inform the stores that the things in the store were genuine.
In 1996, Xu Zhijun, a senior vice president of Huawei, took several executives to Russia in the hope of opening up the market. Not to mention the market, Li Jie went for two weeks, and he didn't even see the shadow of the customer.
Later, the head of the software business of a large Russian enterprise took the time to meet with Xu Zhijun, who frankly said that Russia would not use any new switches and could not cooperate with Huawei. The Russians don't think China can develop such a high-tech product as a switch.
For a while, Xu Zhijun couldn't tell whether it was better not to have news or whether it was better to hear such news.
By then many countries and companies had abandoned the Russian market. But Huawei just does not admit defeat, in order to win the Russian market, Ren Zhengfei personally out of the horse.
In June 1996, Ren Zhengfei attended the 8th Moscow International Communications Exhibition, during the meeting, Ren Zhengfei realized that Russia has a huge market, where the communication market is not good enough, the telecommunications penetration rate is low, other companies have given up, Huawei's opportunity has come.
Ren Zhengfei personally went out to Russia to carry out propaganda. But the result is the same as Xu Zhijun, as soon as they hear that it is Chinese, the Russians turn around and leave. Therefore, Ren Zhengfei gave an order to take Li Jie to his post.
Russia is freezing cold, the market is sluggish, and manufacturers are not optimistic. Around 1998, the Russian market had just experienced the impact of the "Asian financial crisis", and there was news everywhere about "who quit the market", some cleaning up goods, some fighting lawsuits, and not doing business well.
World Telecommunications Conference, Geneva, 1999. Li Jie reported Russia's difficulties to Ren Zhengfei, who said in righteous words: Li Jie, if one day, the Russian market recovers, and Huawei is turned away, then you will jump from this building.
Li Jie was full of excitement, Ren Zongdu said so, Russia can not give up no matter how cold.
So Li Jie began to use the domestic "coyote" style of play, encouraging employees to run through the corners of the Russian market, when competitors eat, sleep, drink coffee, Huawei will go out to run the market, must be able to win others.
Li Jie led the team to run the market "up earlier than the chicken, sleep later than the dog", the kung fu paid off, and a few months later they got russia's first order - a few power modules, a $38 list.
Pick it up, a bit bumpy, don't pick it up, after all, it is the first order that has been hard to run out.
Li Jie and his team finally took this order, and Ren Zhengfei specially praised Li Jie's team for this: at least Huawei is still there.
In this way, Russian customers think that Huawei's employees are really interesting, and they have to keep their orders. The two sides slowly built bridges of trust.
The turnaround soon came, and after the new millennium, the Russian environment tended to stabilize and the economy gradually warmed up. Huawei's previous efforts planted the seeds and began to slowly exert force.
In 2000, Huawei won two major projects: Ural Telecom Switch and Moscow MTS Mobile Network.
In 2003, Huawei undertook the order for the 3,797-kilometer ultra-long-distance 320g Petersburg-Moscow state optical transmission trunk line in Russia, and finally achieved the goal of more than $300 million in sales in Russia this year.
Huawei has been able to get to this day not by asking God and worshipping Buddha, but by themselves.
Regarding Huawei's internationalization, Ren Zhengfei once said bitterly: In expanding overseas markets, Huawei is taking a "chicken rib strategy", and in those "saline and alkali lands" that are not looked down upon by international giants, Huawei works carefully with locals.
Hardships and hardships, Yuru Yucheng. Thanks to these tribulations experienced, Huawei "feudal officials" such as Yu Chengdong, Xu Zhijun, and Li Jie have been trained to dare to fight and win battles.
And Huawei is also in this "born to die" experience, a little bit of growth.