China’s global communications trailblazer turns 30
2017 marks the 30th anniversary of the founding of one of China’s leading technology companies, Huawei. In that short time, the firm has risen to a globally dominant position in carrier networks as well as enterprise, consumer, and cloud computing.
This week at CeBIT the company will showcase the very best in Chinese innovation and we were lucky to catch up with their keynote speaker Diana Yuan, Huawei’s President of Marketing & Solution Sales. Since taking this role in April 2016, Ms. Yuan has been leading marketing and solution sales strategy, as well as the planning, design and verification of industry solutions to drive digital transformation.
What is the STEP methodology and Huawei’s vision for digital adoption?
Transforming enterprise operations to compete in the digital era requires more than a technology roadmap: we believe enterprises embracing digital should consider four key principles – Strategy, Technology, Ecosystem and People, or S.T.E.P for short:
IDC estimates that by 2018, 67 percent of CEOs of Global 2000 enterprises will have digital transformation at the center of their corporate strategy. Enterprises need to develop digital strategies specific to their business and a clear transition plan with well-defined business goals around customer experience optimization, increasing operational efficiency, and business innovation.
By deploying the right ICT infrastructure, enterprises can begin to realize the full potential of their investments in growth areas such as AI, big data, cloud, IoT, mobility and SDN to mitigate organizational risks and create a competitive advantage.
To fully leverage a digital approach, it is critical to build strategic partnerships in an open ecosystem that inherently focuses on value and innovation.
Transitioning to a digital model requires structural transformation within enterprises. A company needs a progressive CIO (who will act as a leader, driver and enabler) and digital talent to enable it to pursue the benefits that digital promises. As transformation moves from the “demand side” to the more complex “supply side” of the enterprise, businesses need to change the way they create and develop products and services, which affects the entire workforce as different skills and motivations are needed to be successful.
Huawei’s vision is to drive digital transformation best practices and an ecosystem approach to be the preferred strategic partner for global enterprise digital transformation.
What’s unique about Huawei’s R&D that makes it well placed to help multinationals and large enterprises embrace their digital transformation?
We provide one-stop enterprise ICT infrastructure across cloud, pipe and device to help enterprises stay competitive in the digital age. This is Huawei’s unique advantage. We will demonstrate our innovations in IoT, all cloud network, open cloud, cloud security, enterprise wireless and other areas during CeBIT 2017. These include:
- Cloud: Open Cloud (enterprise key applications, enterprise business cloud, big data cloud, cloud management); cloud-based communications (one-stop enterprise cloud communications, cloudification, integration, collaboration)
- Channel: Agile Network and SDN (SDN SHOWNET、Cloud Fabric、Cloud Campus、Cloud WAN); Enterprise wireless (eLTE Broadband Cluster-eLTE Public Security, OneAir Industry Network-eLTE-WBB, eLTE-IoT); IoT (intelligent water management, light networking, gas detection)
- Device: AR Agile IoT, IoT connection management platform, smart, video/IVS, LiteOS
- Security: Cloud security, big data security, IoT security, campus security
- Services: Basic services, professional services, training certification, service experience
Huawei also collaborates with partners to provide leading industry-specific solutions, which are open and compatible (open-source software, OpenStack, compatible), and offer global delivery. We deliver industry-leading new ICT solutions that generate digital transformation best practices:
- Intelligent Cities: Intelligent operations centers, smart administration, city IoT, public safety;
- Digitized Banks: Long-distance video banking, financial clouds, real-time Big Data anti-fraud solutions, server replacements;
- Smart Grid: Power IoT, intelligent photovoltaic systems, smart scheduling cloud platforms, power transmission and communications;
- Smart Transportation: Smart airport – airport operations centers, connected railway – railway IoT, rail signaling bearer network, rail traffic control services, smart highway;
- Smart Manufacturing: Agile design (HPC industrial simulation, SAP HANA data accelerating engine), intelligent factories, vehicle networking, intelligent connectivity – Internet of Elevators & Escalators (IoEE), enabling preventive maintenance.
Huawei can boast lots of successful digital transitions with many Fortune 500 companies. Can you give us your top 3 favorite examples and tell us why they stand out?
DHL, for instance, is a global leader in the logistics industry, with a network covering over 220 countries and regions. Despite operating in a traditional industry, DHL has embraced the waves of mobile Internet and Big Data. In Sweden, the launch of MyWays, a DHL mobile app based on crowdsourcing, enables everyday citizens to pick up and deliver packages close-by and get paid in return. DHL also applied Big Data in managing logistic risks to provide better service to customers and launched a corresponding solution named Resilience360.
Last month, DHL and Huawei signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to develop a range of supply chain solutions for customers using industrial-grade IoT hardware and infrastructure. This partnership is designed to enable digitally connected vehicles, objects, and drivers, helping DHL to perform E2E digital operations over its global logistics and warehouse systems.
Groupe BPCE is France’s second largest bank and No. 155 on the Fortune 2016 Global 500 list. It has more than 8,200 outlets and 40 million customers around the globe, providing banking and financial services to consumers and enterprises.
Huawei’s Agile Campus Solution helped build high-speed networks for over 8000 outlets of Groupe BPCE, helping them to deploy Wi-Fi Services in their branches and delivering quick service provisioning and commercial operations in a unified management model across its network of outlets.
Sinopec is one of the world’s largest integrated energy and chemical groups and has the world’s largest data warehouse, ranking No.4 on Fortune Global 500 list in 2016. A rise in the number of users fuelled data growth across the business, which exceeded the capacity of the original ICT system. To address this challenge, Huawei and SAP cooperated in joint innovation with Sinopec.
The FusionCube-based SAP HANA solution improves the database loading performance by 60%, shortens the data upload time from 4 hours to 30 minutes, and accelerates the data processing speed by four to six times. This solution also greatly increased Sinopec’s efficiency in processing financial reports, sales reports, and corporate decision-making.
Huawei just became the first Asian platinum member of OpenStack Foundation. What message should we take from that in terms of your commitment to the platform?
OpenStack is the foundation of Huawei’s cloud computing architecture, and Huawei is dedicated to giving back to the community. Huawei’s code contributions for later versions of OpenStack since the June release have been consistently promoted.
Huawei has provided cloud services suitable for multiple scenarios to contribute to the maturity of the OpenStack community. It has cooperated with carriers, such as Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and China Telecom, to provide public cloud services for customers, and has also developed its own public cloud services.
Huawei focuses on cultivating talent in the open source field, and it has contributed to a large number of developers and work groups in the OpenStack community, including 6 Project Team Leads (PTL) and 21 core members.
Huawei’s goal is to make OpenStack a huge success and to build OpenStack so that it truly brings value to our customers. We are honored to be selected as a platinum member and will continue to demonstrate our leadership and commitment to developing OpenStack and its ecosystem.
You lots going on this week at CeBIT. What presentations or demos should attendees look out for?
We will team up with more than 50 partners and customers to exhibit innovative ICT solutions across cloud, Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) that empower business and ecosystem advancements. Huawei will also share its customers’ success stories in a range of industries including Smart City, finance, electric-power, transportation, and manufacturing. We welcome all visitors to our exhibition booth and look forward to holding Huawei’s Global press conference on Mar 20th 15:00-16:30.
Ms. Yuan’s CeBIT keynote takes place on the
