Collaborating with Partners to Build an Ecosystem for the Intelligent Era

New technologies, such as 5G, cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and blockchain, are developing rapidly and being put into widespread commercial use. This trend is certain to have a profound economic impact, with revenue generated from digitalization set to account for 60 percent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2022, according to global market intelligence firm IDC.

Indeed, the digitalization of industry is already well underway and enterprises across sectors are improving products, operations, and relationships by applying digital technologies to drive business growth. Yet requirements for digital transformation vary from enterprise to enterprise, so it would be impossible for a single Information and Communications Technology (ICT) company to solve every enterprise problem independently.

Huawei realizes that digital transformation relies on collaboration. This was particularly apparent when Huawei Founder and CEO Mr. Ren Zhengfei held a panel discussion with US investor and economist George Gilder and architect Nicholas Negroponte on June 17, 2019. At the end of the discussion, Mr. Ren closed by asserting that the world relies on open collaboration for shared success. Indeed, Huawei’s own enterprise business mirrors the global picture: collaboration is fundamental for its development.

Chen Jin, Director of the Research Center for Technological Innovation at Tsinghua University, also believes in the importance of collaboration, suggesting that in the digital age ICT companies need an open, prosperous, and innovative ecosystem to facilitate industry-wide innovation. Chen believes that companies should implement a collaborative, ecosystem-based innovation strategy if they are to emerge as global technological leaders through digital transformation.

Professor Chen’s views align with Huawei’s partner strategy, which focuses on building a flexible, collaborative, and mutually beneficial ecosystem that can combine the strengths of Huawei and its partners.

Partners Make Major Contribution to Rapid Business Growth

In 2019, Huawei’s overall business remained steady, and the company stood strong in the face of adversity: annual sales revenue will likely exceed CNY850 billion (US$123 billion), representing a year-on-year growth of 18 percent. The company’s Enterprise Business Group (EBG) accounts for a significant proportion of that growth. Indeed, since Huawei EBG was established in 2011, its sales have increased 10-fold. Meanwhile, the percentage of sales revenue contributed by partners has soared over the years, with more than 86 percent of EBG’s total sales revenue in 2019 projected to have been contributed by partners.

As Huawei’s EBG has grown, it has gained the trust of more and more customers and partners in key industries, including government and public utilities, finance, transportation, and energy. To date, 228 of Fortune Global 500 companies, 58 of Fortune Global 100 companies, and more than 700 city governments worldwide have chosen Huawei as their digital transformation partner.

Huawei Collaborates with Seven Types of Partners to Build a Prosperous Ecosystem

EBG adheres to Huawei’s overall ‘being integrated’ strategy, adopting fair, just, transparent, and simple principles to guide channel partner cooperation. It teams up with partners to build a healthy ecosystem that advocates openness, cooperation, and shared success.

In 2019, Huawei worked with more than 28,000 partners worldwide, including over 22,000 sales partners, 1,200 solution partners, 4,200 service partners, 1,000 talent alliance partners, and 80 investment and financing partners.

Huawei has added a new type of partner for its 2020 enterprise business ecosystem: industry partners, which includes both hardware and software component partners. Industry partners will focus on the development of components for Huawei’s Kunpeng Computing Platform and other digital platforms, enabling components to provide commercial services.

Huawei will further expand its network of ecosystem partners, providing them with more enablement training, business consulting and network design, industry application development, joint solution incubation, project implementation, post-sales service, investment and financing, operation, talent cultivation, and standards formulation support. In these ways, Huawei and its partners will grow together.

Huawei and its Partners Build a Foundation for Digital China and the Core of the Digital World

With the arrival of the intelligent era, Huawei proposes a new concept combining ubiquitous connectivity, a digital platform, and pervasive intelligence to create a foundation for digital China and serve as the core of the digital world.

Huawei’s efforts to build this core require cooperation with partners. In turn, Huawei’s global ecosystem partners, supported by Huawei’s digital platforms, can achieve transformation through collaboration, to make their mark in the digital era.

This issue of ICT Insights includes many successful transformation and development stories from a selection of our outstanding international partners.

• Synnex International, for example, overcame considerable difficulties to achieve transformation, expanding its Huawei business to the international market and becoming a global distributor for Huawei’s EBG.
• Altron, Huawei’s partner in South Africa, has provided high-quality ICT solutions for local governments and customers in vertical industries such as transportation and industrial engineering through nearly 10 years of cooperation with Huawei. Indeed, the company has made a significant contribution to the construction of a fully-connected South Africa.
• Compwire, a partner in Brazil, transitioned from being one of Huawei’s competitors to becoming Huawei’s Best IT Partner of the Year, achieving rapid growth in the digitalization business.

Continuing its own digitalization journey, Huawei aims to team up with even more partners, in order to grow together, jointly build a prosperous ecosystem, and successfully tackle the digital transformation challenges of customers. Through this collaboration model, Huawei will help many more enterprises succeed in the intelligent era.