Fostering Mutual Growth: Huawei’s Partnership Strategy in the Digital and Intelligent Era

The wheels of technological progress turn in familiar patterns. In the late 17th century, steam-powered devices began to emerge, but it took until the late 18th century for James Watt's improvements to the steam engine to revolutionise industry.
Today, we are observing a similar trajectory with artificial intelligence (AI). Developed in the 1950s, AI is now at a similar critical milestone for the digital age, or as British economist Roger Bootle suggests, AI is approaching its;James Watt moment;—a pivotal point of practical, widespread application.

As AI reaches this crucial point, Huawei has developed a partnership strategy to harness its potential.
The tech giant’s collaborative approach is reshaping the ICT industry, and preparing businesses for an AI-
driven future. At Huawei Industrial Digital and Intelligent Transformation Summit at GITEX Global 2024,
Li Peng, Huawei’s Corporate Senior Vice President and President of ICT Sales and Service, said in a keynote speech that “We’re combining our strengths in networking, storage, computing, cloud, and energy and we’re working with partners to build new digital and intelligent infrastructure.”

Customer Centric Approach

Huawei recognises that seizing the opportunities presented by AI and other technological advancements requires collaborative effort. The company’s partnership strategy is rooted in the belief that no single entity can achieve greatness alone in this rapidly evolving landscape.
Huawei has over 47,000 enterprise partners, an increase of 18% compared to the end of 2023. Ernest Zhang, Huawei’s President of Global Partner, Commercial & Distribution, Enterprise Sales said at GITEX in Dubai, “We work with our partners to build a customer-centric culture, foster a healthy business environment and grow together to help our customers successfully embark on a journey of digital and intelligent transformation.”
This collaboration aims to bring substantial value to different regions, local ecosystems, and end users.
By combining Huawei’s global expertise with partners’ local insights, the company contributes significantly to regional economic growth and technological advancement.

Tailored Strategies for Different Needs

Huawei’s partnership approach is customised to address diverse market segments:

Named Accounts (NA) Market:

This segment focuses on leading or large enterprises within their respective industries. These customers typically face diverse and complex business scenarios and challenges, requiring sophisticated,
customised solutions. Huawei’s strategy for the NA Market involves building dedicated business units for various vertical sectors. Since 2021, Huawei has established such units for eight industries, developing over 200 digital and intelligent solutions worldwide. This approach allows Huawei to fully understand
industry needs and combine its capabilities with those of its partners.

For Named Accounts, Huawei:

• Leads efforts in customer engagement and satisfaction management
• Drives industry-benchmark innovations
• Leverages partners’ strengths to complement capabilities
• Offers comprehensive support, including:
– Pre-sale training programs
– Marketing funds for joint brand promotion
– Access to experts and Technical Assistance Centers
This approach enables partners to replicate success stories across various industries.

Small and Medium-sized Account (SMA) Market:

This segment comprises a vast number of SMAs with relatively simpler business scenarios, requiring more generalised solutions. Huawei pursues a partner-led strategy in this area, supporting partners in a number of key ways:

• Developing marketable products and scenario-based solutions tailored to the SMA Market. For
instance, in the healthcare sector, Huawei’s next-generation all-flash storage system addresses challenges in retrieving and storing high-definition medical images. It delivers performance 100 times better than traditional systems, retrieving medical images in seconds while remaining cost-effective.
• Improving the partner incentive system with a more effective opportunity registration process
and diverse incentives. This approach allows partners to benefit more from working with Huawei and deliver enhanced services to customers.
• Huawei offers a comprehensive training system and IT tools to help partners better understand its products and solutions. The goal is to equip partners with the ability to independently conduct business in five key areas: marketing, customer engagement, transactions, services, and operations. This empowerment enables partners to efficiently acquire and serve more customers in the SMA market.

Distribution Business Market:

This segment primarily serves customers needing standardised, out-of-the-box products. Huawei created the specialised HUAWEI eKit brand to meet this demand, targeting scenarios such as micro businesses, budget hotels, and schools.
The HUAWEI eKit follows the ‘six-easy’ step principle: easy to buy, sell, install, maintain, learn, and use.
For example, users can complete network configurations within two minutes by scanning a QR code, and AI-based troubleshooting can detect network risks within one minute.

The SHAPE Framework: A Structure for Partnership

Huawei’s partnership strategy is encapsulated in its SHAPE framework:
• Sustained Technological Leadership: Huawei has invested CNY 1.11 trillion in R&D over the past decade, focusing on AI-ready infrastructure.
• Honing Joint Innovation: This includes joint innovation with partners and a 6-layer ‘reference architecture’ for industry transformation.
• Advancing Partner Capabilities: Huawei offers ICT knowledge sharing, skills training, and has allocated $10 million for partner capacity development.
• Promoting Partner Experience: This involves maintaining stable partner policies and providing digital tools like the eFly app and HUAWEI eKit.
• Expanding Growth Opportunities: Huawei provides increased benefits for high-contributing partners.

Case Studies: Partnerships in Action

In his speech at the Summit, Li Peng detailed how Huawei has put the reference architecture into practice. This provides customers with leading and adaptable solutions for industries like government, finance, electric power, transportation, manufacturing, oil and gas, mining, and Internet. “We have
summarised over 100 case studies that different industry customers can use to accelerate their digital and intelligent transformation,” said Li.
Li went on to describe how Huawei is innovating nonstop to provide partners with lightweight solutions, marketable products, end-to-end business enablement services, and efficient digital platforms to help them serve SMEs more independently, easily, and effectively. Several case studies illustrate the practical
application of Huawei’s partnership strategy:

• In the NA market, Bayt Al-Ejada in Saudi Arabia reported a 16-fold increase in business performance over 8 years of partnership with Huawei.
• In the Distribution Business market, MULTITEK INTERNATIONAL in Panama saw its sales of HUAWEI eKit products grow 2.3 times in just 3 months after partnering with Huawei in 2023. This rapid growth demonstrates the effectiveness of Huawei's strategy in empowering distribution partners.
• In the education sector, King Faisal School in Saudi Arabia implemented Huawei’s high-quality 10 Gbps campus network with Wi-Fi 7. This upgrade allowed the school to:
– Support about 4,000 daily users across 14 buildings spanning 200,000 sqm
– Enable seamless AR teaching and remote teaching experiences
– Improve the efficiency of online teaching, administrative tasks, and conferences
– Eliminate blind spots in wireless coverage, enhancing the mobile office experience

The Future of Partnerships in the Digital and Intelligent Era

Huawei envisions future partnerships centered around collaborative innovation, particularly in developing AI-driven solutions across various industries.
For ICT professionals and companies considering their strategy in the AI era, Huawei’s approach offers a model of how partnerships might be structured to mutual benefit. As the AI landscape continues to evolve, such partnerships may become increasingly important in navigating the opportunities and challenges ahead.