Interview: My experience very positive in Huawei -- Paul Scanlan
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E-mail Xinhua, October 28, 2012
Paul Scanlan
by Chen Jipeng
SINGAPORE, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- Paul Scanlan did not expect that he would become among the many foreigners now working in Huawei, a giant Chinese conglomerate and a global leader in the telecommunications and information technology industry.
Scanlan started working with Huawei four years ago as a consultant before becoming a full-time employee several weeks later.
He was promoted as regional chief technology officer and, later, the company's first foreign vice president of solution, sales and marketing, South Pacific.
"My experience has been very positive in all respects," Scanlan said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
Scanlan has been in the telecommunications and information technology sector for 33 years. Before joining Huawei as consultant in the company's commercial and contractual operations, he had worked with a consultancy firm and, later, with a mobile services provider.
"I don't just want to work with Huawei as a consultant. I want to be part of the family and I believe I fit quite well in the company," he said.
Scanlan admitted it was not easy to work with Huawei, partly because of the company's huge ambitions as well as the cultural differences.
"It's a difficult company to work for because it's very ambitious. We are trying to grow the company. We are trying to grow the business. There's a lot of hard work. But the rewards are very good," he said.
Over the past decade, Huawei grew rapidly to become a global leader in fixed and mobile telecommunications equipment and solutions provider. It has expanded fast both in China and overseas.
In 2000, its overseas sales first topped the 100 million U.S. dollars mark. By 2005, half of its sales came from the company's overseas operations. In 2011, its revenues reached 32.4 billion U. S. dollars, with about two thirds from overseas.
Scanlan said Huawei makes a great company partly because of the team spirit.
"I find there is a very good team spirit in the company. Everybody is committed to work for the good of the company. The work environment is quite refreshing," he said.
He said he fits well in Huawei partly because he knows his limitations. He did not pretend to know everything when he first came to the company. "It is often challenging for a Westerner like me to work with an Asian firm because of the cultural differences. "
Scanlan said that in an Asian firm, everyone tends to work in a particular direction whereas in a Western firm, a person appointed to a certain position tends to be more assertive in his approach.
Scanlan also witnessed Huawei's transformation to become a multicultural and multinational firm in recent years.
The company is internationalizing and localizing. Local employees account for over 90 percent of its staff in some of overseas markets, and 60 percent in other markets. In India, it is as high as 95 percent.
The cultural mixture is "not easy but it works," Scanlan said. He said that if one wants to measure how successful the company is with its diverse work force, one can just look at the remarkable growth of the Huawei, which, in just a span of 10 years, has grown to be the number one company for both fixed and mobile products and services. Scanlan said Huawei is hiring local workers not just as cost- effective measure because labor is cheap but also because it wants to train local people to become skilled and competent workers in the telecommunications sector.
"There are lots of opportunities for foreigners and locals in Huawei. But the key is to put the right people in the right place and allow them demonstrate their talents," Scanlan said.
Aside from Scanlan, more and more senior executives and managers at Huawei are now from outside the Chinese mainland.
Huawei's vice president for media affairs is Scott Sykes, another foreigner. In fact, he and Sykes appeared together with Huawei Singapore CEO Zhou Bin at a press conference earlier this year to explain the company's strategy.
Scanlan said Huawei benefits the local markets it went into in many ways, foremost of which is bringing better and cheaper technologies. Many of its products have proved to work better than its competitors, thereby giving better choices to the customers.
And this is precisely why some Chinese companies like Huawei are now being discriminated in some countries. Huawei was banned from bidding for the Australian national broadband network project earlier this year. There were also efforts by some American lawmakers and lobbyists to block Huawei in the United States despite the fact that Huawei has proved itself in over 140 countries and regions around the world.
Huawei is now one of the Fortune 500 companies around the world. Actually, just as it sells its products and services to customers around the world, including 45 of the top 50 carriers, it relies on suppliers distributed around the globe.
In Singapore, the company invests in research and development and contributes significantly to social causes in the island nation, prompting Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to praise Huawei as a truly international company. Endi
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