Huawei's global president of business and network consulting, Paul Scanlan
Huawei’s global president of business and network consulting, Paul Scanlan, believes the best is yet to come, as the company moves away from being a hardware vendor to a solutions provider.
Despite being a very young company (it was founded in 1987), full of young employees (the average age is 31) Scanlan has been with the company for six years, joking that he is one of the most senior staff in the executive.
Scanlan said the company’s reputation for innovation has seen it expand to operate in 147 countries, across 654 customers, including giants such as China Mobile, which boasts 600 million customers. It also has the largest datacentre in the world, in China.
The enterprise department, which hasn’t seen much action in Australia, is globally just three years old, but this is to be a key focus of Huawei going forward as it moves to establish itself as a ICT solutions provider.
“Why did we do it? Because the technology in the comms area is the same, pretty much,” he said.
“Most telecommunications networks have been built to be the foundation of everything.”
While the company strives to be innovative, it still requires the local knowledge that partners provide.
“We have a lot of ideas, but we don’t know everything.”
It is this approach that has seen the company post ten per cent year on year growth, he said. And partner growth means growth for all.
“We’re not just about selling, but creating a bigger market.”
Sustainability has been a key focus for Huawei, Scanlan says, despite many corporations around the world using the GFC as an excuse to put green economics to one side.
“We all live in a finite world, and we want infinite growth – it just doesn’t match up.”
Scanlan said the company will also be focusing on the power efficiency of its products, slotting Cloud, smart cities and commerce together to create a cohesive eco-system – and is particularly focused on moving into the Big Data segment of the market, of which Scanlan believes data analytics will come to dominate every facet of the modern world.
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Scanlan sees Huawei’s role in the Australian market to educate its partners, and prospective partners about the nature of the company. As a Fortune 500 company with $39.5bn in revenues, its role in the world’s infrastructure is often understated – something the company wants to focus on building.
“We are probably the biggest brand in the world that no one knows,” Scanlan said.
“Huawei is a technology company, trying to move into business.”
