From a latecomer to a global telecom giant: the development pathway of Huawei

This paper examined how Huawei, a Chinese telecom-equipment company, transformed from a local producer to a global titan during the past two decades. This paper first divided Huawei's development into four periods: initial birth and growth, rapid expansion, restructuring, and globalisation and analysed challenges and strategies of Huawei in each period. It further studied its globalisation, that is, how Huawei first succeeded in the marginal markets in Asia, Africa and East Europe, then the mainstream markets in Western Europe. This paper examined how Huawei imported and assimilated advanced management system such as IPD and ISC and reformed its original cultural value system to adapt to the modern management system. Although Huawei initially used the 'intense focus' strategy to build its innovation capability, it has incorporated a variety of R&D strategies including joint ventures with multinational corporations and establishing global R&D system in recent years.