Huawei's announces strategy for Africa known as “glocalisation”

Huawei, South Africa's leading information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider today revealed its business strategy for the local markets at the two-day AfricaCom telecommunications conference, in Cape Town. At the core of the local strategy is customer-centric innovation, establishment and maintenance of local business partnerships as well as localised operations.

“Huawei will capitalise on the current market opportunities by focusing on the concept of 'glocalisation', which is combining our global efforts with local insights and consideration. In South Africa, we have already had a considerable progress in this regard through a number of interventions such as enterprise development, skills and technology transfer, partnerships with local business and accelerated recruitment of locals,” said Peng Song, Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Africa.

Huawei's glocalisation strategy is focused on partnering with the local business community through local employees, sharing resources with local partners, as well as providing opportunities to develop local talent that will form the next generation of telecom leaders. Recently, Huawei's newly established Enterprise Business Unit has entered into partnership agreements with local companies such as Mustek and Gijima AST.

During the recent 13th Nikkei Global Management Forum, in Tokyo, Deputy Chairman of Huawei, Ken Hu said: “Innovation in emerging markets means practicality and adapting to local requirements; whether it requires adopting cutting-edge technology or just thinking outside of the box. Our goal is to work together to develop innovative products and solutions that enrich lives of those in emerging markets.”

The concept of reverse innovation, where solutions designed for emerging markets are then brought to developed markets has been used by Huawei as well. A site-sharing solution originally developed to tackle low utilisation rates of wireless base stations and increase operational efficiency in India, was so successful that it has been deployed by telecom operators in Europe.