Huawei sounded the rallying cry

Recently, Huawei issued an internal document, announcing the official establishment of the Customs and Port Corps, the Smart Highway Corps, the Data Center Energy Corps and the Smart Photovoltaic Corps. This is the second time Huawei has sounded the corps assembly call after announcing the establishment of the Coal Mine Corps in February this year.

Under the pressure of US sanctions, Huawei is striving to find a better way to survive, explore new business areas, and increase industrial resilience. The establishment of the five armies means that Huawei's enterprise business is going deeper.

Let scientists hear the sound of artillery fire

Military terms such as "suicide squad", "city wall", "position", "gunfire", "charge" have become an important part of Huawei's corporate culture. Ren Zhengfei, who was born in the military, has deeply implanted his military thinking into Huawei's genes, hoping that Huawei will become an iron army that is invincible and can overcome difficulties.

In January 2019, Ren Zhengfei introduced the "Legion", a corporate department architecture model originated from Google, in an internal speech at Yizhi. He called on Huawei to learn from Google and carve out a path forward.

Simply put, the corps model brings together scientists from basic research, technical experts, product experts, engineering experts, sales experts, and delivery and service experts in one department to tackle key problems in a certain business area. This is more like a way to accelerate the integration of production, learning, research and application, shortening the cycle of product improvement.

The advantage of the corps model is that it transfers scientists and technical experts engaged in basic research in the laboratory to the "front line", allowing them to hear the sound of artillery fire, strengthen the coordination of R&D and application, improve efficiency, fully delegate power in business management, and give them a great degree of freedom.

In 2004, the New York Times published an article exploring why Google, which had less than 2,000 employees at the time, was much more efficient in innovation than Microsoft, which had more than 30,000 employees. Exposing Google's mysterious army of PhDs, the article argued that Microsoft's lagging behind was mainly due to the disconnection between R&D and practice, while Google's research and development were not separated, with all researchers engaged in development at the front line.

In Ren Zhengfei's view, whether to form a "corps" depends mainly on whether scientists need to be incorporated into the front-line combat team. If so, the "corps" model will be adopted; if not, the matrix business module model will be adopted.

After Ren Zhengfei's speech in January 2019, Huawei began to explore the legion aspect. In April 2019, the then Consumer BG launched a pilot program of the "legion combat mode", with the goals of focusing on producing more food (growth, profitability, cash flow), increasing soil fertility (quality and user experience, brand, organization) and risk management.

At the Consumer BG "Legion Combat" mobilization meeting, Huawei executives including Ren Zhengfei, Guo Ping, Xu Zhijun, and Yu Chengdong personally took the stage and led all employees to swear to achieve revenue of US$100 billion in three years and US$150 billion in five years.

A year later, the effects of the "legion operation" quickly became apparent. In April 2020, Huawei's global mobile phone market share surpassed Samsung, becoming the world's number one for the first time. This was also the first time that a Chinese mobile phone brand reached the top.

Due to the characteristics of terminal consumer businesses, the legionary combat mode promoted in the Consumer BG mainly focuses on decentralization and incentives in organizational governance. Unfortunately, in 2020, the United States began to sanction Huawei, and Huawei's Consumer BG business was directly affected. The "legionary combat" piloted on the consumer business side just got off to a good start but came to an abrupt end.

The five major armies: elite soldiers and generals take command

Due to the impact of US sanctions, in order to seek a better way to survive, Huawei's business focus has gradually shifted to the enterprise business field.

Earlier this year, Huawei announced the establishment of the "Coal Mine Corps", which combines industry basic research, product research, and market delivery to shorten the industrial chain, quickly adapt to demand, and promote the digital transformation of the global coal industry through technological innovation. In many related activities, Ren Zhengfei personally supported the Coal Mine Corps, which shows the importance he attaches to the Corps' business.

When the coal mining corps was established, Ren Zhengfei said that Huawei would set up corps in airports, ports, industry and other business areas. It is understood that Huawei's corps, which are at the same level as the consumer GB, enterprise BG and operator BG, are personally formulated and supervised by Ren Zhengfei.

Huawei defines "corps" organization as: through "corps" operations, breaking existing organizational boundaries, quickly gathering resources, interweaving operations, improving efficiency, going deep into a field, being responsible for business success, and producing more "food" for the company. Huawei hopes to break the boundaries within the enterprise, form vertical capabilities to make breakthroughs in key industries, and create new growth engines for enterprise development.

The top leaders of Huawei Corps are selected through internal open competition, and they have brought together the best talents of the enterprise business. In the four newly established Corps of Customs and Ports, Smart Highways, Data Center Energy, and Smart Photovoltaics:

Yang Yougui serves as the CEO of the Data Center Energy "Legion". He has served as President of the Global Marketing and Sales Service Department of Huawei Digital Energy Company and President of Huawei's Middle East Region.

Chen Guoguang serves as the CEO of the smart photovoltaic "Legion". He was formerly the Chief Operating Officer of Huawei Digital Energy Company and took over Huawei's smart photovoltaic business in April last year.

Xun Su is the CEO of the Customs and Ports "Legion" and was formerly the President of the Digitalization and Technical Services Department of Huawei Enterprise BG

Ma Yue serves as the CEO of the Smart Highway "Legion" and was formerly the vice president of Huawei Enterprise BG.

The Coal Mine Corps, which was established earlier, is chaired by Zou Zhilei, who was formerly the president of the Operator BG.

The heads of Huawei's five major groups are mainly department executives from the Carrier BG and Enterprise BG, who have rich experience.

As for the scientists in the corps model going to the battlefield, this has already been reflected in Huawei's coal mine corps. In February of this year, Huawei signed an agreement with Shanxi Province to jointly build an intelligent mining innovation laboratory. Among the 220 experts in this application-oriented laboratory, 53 experts in electronic technology are from Huawei, and the rest are experts in Shanxi coal-related fields. This is also the first time that Huawei has adopted the "corps" model to establish a laboratory. After the laboratory is put into operation, it will adopt the "coal industry expert + information and communication technology expert" model to carry out scientific research on topics such as coal mine information network, automation enablement, intelligent sensing technology, coal mine big data, and ecological cooperation, and realize the landing from technical research to application.

In recent years, Huawei has been recruiting "genius teenagers" in a high-profile manner, and several of them have joined the "coal mine army". According to Ren Zhengfei, they use 5G in reverse to make underground information more high-definition and comprehensive; reuse Huang Danian's density method to solve the problem of identifying coal mine water storage layers, etc., which will generate huge value in the future.

Industrial digital transformation: a vast world with great potential

Due to US sanctions, Huawei's consumer business, represented by mobile phones, has been significantly affected, but in Ren Zhengfei's view, Huawei can still survive even if it loses its smartphone business.

Today, 5G technology is being deployed at an accelerated pace around the world. The advantages brought by 5G's large bandwidth, low latency and other characteristics are not only reflected in areas such as mobile phones, but more importantly, 5G technology will empower thousands of industries.

Huawei's advantage lies in its connectivity capabilities formed through years of hard work in the information industry. According to Ren Zhengfei, Huawei's previous communication networks mainly connected thousands of households and provided connectivity for billions of people. However, in the 5G era, the main connection targets are enterprises, such as airports, docks, coal mines, and steel.

Huawei's ICT technologies, such as 5G and AI, can help traditional industries achieve rapid and effective digital transformation. In the context of digital economy and industrial digital transformation, enterprises and industries will also have huge room for development.

At present, 5G industry applications have spread to more than 20 industries. It is estimated that by the end of this year, there will be more than 5,000 cases of 5G+AI implemented by operators in the 5G To B industry, which will create more than 10 billion yuan in value this year. In the next five years, the market space will increase by about 8-10 times. 5G has played the role of a booster and cornerstone in the digital transformation of the industry.