Smartphones have bridged the vague boundaries that exists between cellphones and personal computers. Despite the fact that smartphones didn’t become a conventional till the commencement of the 21 st century, the first smartphone was launched in 1993 by the company IBM. The Simon smartphone composed a pager, PDA, cellphone, and a fax machine. Nonetheless, the device was unsucsefful in seizing a significant share in the mobile global market. Several years after the release of the Simon, the Palm Pilot was launched by the U.S Robotics; this was the first personal digital assistant. Though this device didn’t have the cellphone attributes, it established a path for future smartphones by having applications and data capabilities. The very first and true smartphone entered the industry in 2002; this was after Research in motion launched the Blackberry 5810. This device had was capable of accessing the services of the internet and provide an environment for running applications. However, the 2007 market of Apple’s iPhone marked the distinguished smartphone word revolution (del Rosario, Redmond & Lovell, 2015). The features sandwiched in smartphones advances with the progress in technology. This paper seeks to review the case of Huawei’s smartphones, with an emphasis on, the current situation, strengths and weaknesses and a recommendation on the improvement strategy.
Huawei technologies was established and formed in the year 1998. The principal founder of the firm was Ren Zhengfei a former army officer and a telecommunications engineer. It was taken to be a private enterprise which manufactured telecom equipments for local companies in China at a subsidized and a much lower price that most of its competitors. Since its commencement, the vision of the founding principles was to create innovation capability. Nonetheless, different to the policies of exchanging market for technology in China, the founding principles were convinced that clenching a joint venture with foreign companies would only result to the bereavement of Chinas local market which would prevent them from acquiring foreign technologies.
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In spite of great attempts to fit into the cultures of the United States, Huawei was still accrued by hardships in its first operations in Texas. Its debut was first jeopardized by the fact that, it was difficult for the U.S residents to even pronounce its name. this made the company adopt another working name. adoption of another name increased confusion among the citizens because there was a mix-up in two names under one company. Worse of it is that employees had a difficult time adopting the culture and environment of the Texas region.
Initially, Huawei was observed as providing low end phones. On the other hand, the huge and expensive market was exclusively clenched by Samsung and apple. More than 75% of Huawei mobile devices were created entirely for telecom carriers who often placed bulk orders with an intention of the low-end mass market (Correy, 2018). With such a strategy, it would was difficult for Huawei to manufacture its own brand; neither would it assume knowledge about the preferences of end-users. As that goes by, the company has received a less than warm welcome in countries that have a stormy relationship with China. Additionally, the firm faced a hostile antagonism in the U.S on the basis that the telecommunications equipment manufacturers might be prying on the affairs of the U.S
On the other hand, The competitive world poses a risk due to the threat imposed by new players in the industry. The telecom industry in china has grown to become one of the largest telecommunications market around the globe (Pawlicki, 2017). Among the international companies in china that specialize in telecoms include motolora, Nokia, lucent and Siemens. It’s quite clear that having a number of telecoms companies will scare away new entrants; nonetheless, the risk of competition to Huawei is not dismissed. Therefore, this calls the company towards operations that counter potential competitions
Swot analysis
strengths
one of the strengths of Huawei lies on the outsourcing of supply from highly profiled and rated companies. This is a confirmation for extensive markets around the globe. With this, there is an assurance of the rise in sales which remains to be beneficial to the overall operations of the company. Additionally, this feature helps the company to qualify in the ranking of consumers.
The second strength of the company emanates from the fact that, it is in a position of getting outstanding and high quality software and hardware to serve the best interest and meet consumers’ anticipations. Clasping the best software improves the general appearance and functioning of their devices. With this in place, the market is expected to widen and it is an assurance of increased sales. The reason for this is that consumers prefer devices that are up-to-date and which allow efficiency in functioning. A good example is a modem that has a high speed. High speeds ensures efficient and on time work completion.
Thirdly, the pressure that is given to the employees by the administration qualifies to be a strength that puts the company on the limelight. Providing and enforcing pressure to employees of any company regardless of its specialization remains to be a key for success. The provision of pressure helps in the maintenance of self-discipline and preservation of a company’s reputation (Paik & Zhu, 2013). A good example is by having mentorship programs that provide guidance to the freshly employed employees. With this in practice, new employees will always feel the eye of their mentor. Hence, to have a conducive environment in their work endeavors, they will have to maintain self-discipline and endorse inner motivation. Moreover, pressurizing programs offers a company standardized procedures for the purpose of letting new employees know what is expected of them. this results in able progress and efficient working.
The Huawei company has exhibited a huge improvement in developing the overall status and position of its operations. The pressure that is given to employees is enough to help the company hit its goals and achieve its objectives.
Weaknesses
When all said and done, anything that has its strengths must also have a negative side. Therefore it is essential to assess the dual sides of a coin to get the overall impression tabled to consumers. The first weakness of the Huawei Company arises from its organization and structuring. The company has quite a considerable number of employees who translate to high and extensive labor costs. Having a low or the required number of employees but who have the right skills is far much better than having a crowd which does not yield to anything. A large number of employees will only result to failure of meeting the set goals.
Secondly, being a Chinese company, Huawei is viewed in diverse angles as compared to companies from other countries. Generally, the U.S perception that the telecom manufacturing equipment were prying on the operations of the U.S provides an impression that Chinese vendors relied and copied technological knowledge from western countries. More on this is that they manipulate complex products into standard commodities. This requires Huawei to move beyond the general perception and acquire a global image.
Additionally, the lawsuits that have been tabled concerning Huawei and Cisco claiming that Huawei infringed Cisco’s patents and copyrights by emulating its user interface, manuals, and source codes, greatly impacts its reputation in the U.S.
Recommendations
One thing that the Huawei needs to embrace is the development of new capabilities. To endorse this, the company needs acquisition which is currently scarce in their environment. By endorsing acquisition, Huawei will broaden its knowledge base and reduce cases of emulation. More on acquisition is that Huawei can launch a nonequity strategic coalition with some other firms and companies. Having a joint relationship helps in the sharing of resources and potentials to formulate a competitive advantage. By embracing this strategy, the company will reduce cases of copyrights and could assume licensing agreements with other alliance companies.
Secondly, Huawei needs to cut on labor costs. Simply, cutting the number of unnecessary departments and employees will lower the cost incurred on labor. To effectively do this, the company ought to employ talented employees who align with the requirements of the industry. Additionally, the company needs to overcome entry barriers. At present, Huawei has had problems entering the United states market, to counter this; a cross border acquisition ought to be considered. Having this in place will help in gaining control over the U.S market.
In a nutshell, It is highly recommendable that Huawei consider acquisition and non-equity strategic alliance as the right strategy where commerce is concerned. This will help in countering competitions and modelling future endeavors
References
del Rosario, M., Redmond, S., & Lovell, N. (2015). Tracking the Evolution of Smartphone Sensing for Monitoring Human Movement. Sensors , 15 (8), 18901-18933. doi: 10.3390/s150818901
Paik, Y., & Zhu, F. (2013). The Impact of Patent Wars on Firm Strategy: Evidence from the Global Smartphone Market. SSRN Electronic Journal . doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2340899
Pawlicki, P. (2017). Challenger Multinationals in Telecommunications: Huawei and ZTE. SSRN Electronic Journal . doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2934191
BIBLIOGRAPHY L, C. (2018). A dark horse in the global smartphone market . Huawei's smartphone Strategy .
