"Only if we seriously learn from these big companies can we avoid detours and pay less tuition. IBM has paid a direct cost of billions of dollars to sum up this. The pain they have experienced is a precious wealth of mankind."

"Only when we seriously learn from these big companies can we avoid detours and pay less tuition. IBM was summed up at the direct cost of billions of dollars. The pain they experienced is the precious wealth of mankind."

1997, Huawei annual sales were 4.1 billion, Ren Zhengfei insisted on spending 2 billion to learn management from IBM.

was a sensation in the industry, not only because of the sky-high tuition fees, but also because it was the first Chinese company to introduce advanced Western management experience. At that time, most Chinese companies spent large sums of money to purchase Western products, technologies or other assets. Huawei was the only one willing to pay for intangible wealth such as knowledge.

In fact, IBM also wanted to expand its corporate consulting business after Huawei, but they later found that except Huawei, no other company was willing to spend such a high price to find them.

Ren Zhengfei really takes an unconventional path. His thirst for and respect for knowledge are one of the fundamental reasons why Huawei is Huawei.

1. Ren Zhengfei said, "IBM taught us to climb trees, and we climbed up the trees and picked apples."

In the 1990s, Huawei was in a stage of rapid development. A large number of people poured into Huawei almost every day. Huawei's office buildings were changed again and again, and in the end it could only build its own company base.

Many bosses think that growing in size is a good thing. The more people they have, the better their reputation will be. But Ren Zhengfei is worried about this. “If an enterprise reduces its scale, it will lose its competitiveness. If it expands its scale, it cannot manage effectively and will face death. The only way is to strengthen it.” Management and service have the basis for survival on this road of no return."

It was precisely because he understood the essential contradictions that Ren Zhengfei searched for management methods. He sought out domestic business management experts and also invited people from Hong Kong. , a British consulting company, and later led a team to the United States to inspect large companies such as Hughes Company, IBM Company , Bell Labs , and Hewlett-Packard .

In the end, when Ren Zhengfei discovered that IBM, which had just survived the crisis, its management changes were very inspiring and useful for Huawei, he made up his mind to become a disciple.

2. In fact, the tuition fee of 2 billion was actually a 5-year service process. After 5 years, Ren Zhengfei once again asked IBM to transform the organizational process. The total cost should be around 4 billion, and the number of years before and after is approximately 10 years.

Ren Zhengfei came from a difficult background. When he was in school, he could chew a steamed bun for two days. After he founded Huawei, he lived in a small house of several tens of square meters all year round. Some Huawei employees recalled that Ren Zhengfei was usually very frugal. Once when he went on an overseas inspection, employees from the representative office went hiking with him. He asked the employees to buy better hiking shoes, but he bought cheaper ones himself. In his words, he was just afraid of this time, so there was no need to buy something too good.

It is said that such a character should be very willing to pay for the baht. For example, in business dealings, we often encounter bosses who like to bargain. If you quote a price, they will give you a 50% discount. If you cut the price, they will be very happy.

When negotiating with IBM, when his subordinates wanted to bargain, Ren Zhengfei stopped him. His only requirement for IBM was to do a good job in this project.

IBM was probably impressed by Ren Zhengfei's frankness and courage. They also adopted a "teach well" attitude and were serious and responsible. Even Ren Zhengfei and other Huawei executives dared to criticize them face to face. Ren Zhengfei was very satisfied with this and believed that he hired the right teacher this time.

3. But not everyone has the same ideas as Ren Zhengfei. At that time, there were also a large number of people in Huawei who were not used to and did not like IBM's management changes, and were very resistant to IPD (Integrated Product Development) changes.

Ren Zhengfei was furious about this. He held a special meeting for them, saying that they must cut off their feet to fit into American shoes. "What should I do if I don't learn well? It's just beheading. My attitude is to kill and punish them on the spot!"

Most of them People are intimidated by the boss's attitude, but some don't take it seriously, and they leave. Ren Zhengfei also feels very sorry and reluctant to give up, but there is no way. Huawei's management reform must be successful, otherwise Huawei will have no future.

Former Huawei Chairman Sun Yafang later recalled that thanks to Ren Zhengfei’s strong promotion, Huawei’s international capabilities were guaranteed. “He unswervingly implemented such a huge management engineering change and transferred unsuitable people.” It took fourteen years of implementation to achieve today's R&D level and end-to-end delivery level, and cultivate the ability to serve global customers."

html After the IPD reform in 2005, Ren Zhengfei wrote to the CEO of IBM to ask them to help Huawei. About 5 years of IFS (Integrated Financial Transformation), this 10-year study, and the astronomical tuition fee of 4 billion are rare in business history.

4. Although the tuition fee is high, Ren Zhengfei thinks it is worth it. Huawei now has operations in more than 170 countries and regions around the world, with nearly 200,000 global employees. It is well managed and can be said to be more advanced than most Western companies.

These are the foundations laid by learning from Western companies such as IBM.

We read martial arts novels, which talk about martial arts secrets such as "Nine Yang and Nine Yin" that will cause chaos in the world. For Ren Zhengfei, the advanced management experience of Western companies is as valuable as these martial arts secrets. If Huawei masters the secrets, he can become a martial arts master and have the capital to conquer the world.

The truth is that simple. Knowledge is priceless. Learning from other people’s advanced experiences can help you avoid detours and become stronger more efficiently.

But unfortunately, to this day, there are still not many entrepreneurs with Ren Zhengfei’s attitude and thinking. After Huawei, there are still no companies that are willing to pay 4 billion in tuition fees to learn from Huawei. (Today, if we don’t learn from IBM, we just say that we don’t take into account the prices of the year. Even if we spend 4 billion to learn from Huawei, how many business owners are willing to spend 4 billion to learn from Huawei?) It can be said that Ren Zhengfei cannot be copied.

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