3 Huawei has just gone through 3 years since its establishment. Its strategy has been constantly adjusted with the changes of the environment, and its organizational structure has been optimized with the strategy, thus maintaining Huawei's continuous progress and setting a banner in the history of enterprise development in China. By the end of 218, its sales scale exceeded 7 billion yuan. Strategy determines structure, and structure reacts on strategy. Huawei's development in the past 3 years can be roughly divided into four stages: (1) From its establishment to 1995, its linear/linear functional organizational structure.
In 1987, Ren Zhengfei and five partners * * * jointly invested 2, yuan to establish Huawei. During this period, Huawei first represented the products of Hong Kong companies, and then independently developed products and implemented a centralized strategy. In the market competition, we should adopt the sustainable development and production of a single product, adopt the sales strategy of encircling the city from the countryside, seize the market quickly through low cost, and expand the market share and company scale. When Huawei was founded, there were only six people, and there was no organizational structure. By 1991, the company had only 2 employees. Although it had an organizational structure, it was also a very simple linear organizational structure generally adopted by small and medium-sized enterprises. All employees reported directly to Ren Zhengfei. Until 1992, the sales scale exceeded 1 million yuan, and the number of employees reached about 2. In 1994, Huawei's sales exceeded 8 million yuan, with more than 6 employees. The organizational structure has also begun to change from a linear organizational structure to a linear functional organizational structure. In addition to business process departments, such as R&D, marketing and manufacturing, there are also supporting process departments, such as finance and administration.
evaluation: during this period, Huawei, like most other companies, had a single product and adopted a low-price strategy in sales. The organizational structure is simple, the power is centralized, the resources can be quickly and uniformly allocated to participate in the competition, and the market can respond quickly. The organizational structure of the linear functional system also matched the strategic development of the company at that time.
under this structure, all marketing strategies can be directly transmitted from the top of the company to the front line in the first time, thus completing the marketing task. For another example, the company's product development strategy, because the communication equipment industry is technology-intensive, capital-intensive and talent-intensive, Huawei's linear functional organizational structure can centrally dispatch any resources of the company and form a support for the R&D strategy in the first time.
(2) from 1996 to 23, the two-dimensional matrix organizational structure.
By 1995, Huawei's sales had reached 1.5 billion yuan, and the number of employees had reached 8, ranking 26th among private enterprises in the national electronics industry. By the year 2, the sales exceeded 2 billion, increasing at a rate of 1% for five consecutive years. During this period, Huawei's strategy gradually shifted from centralization to horizontal integration, from single product to mobile communication, transmission and other product fields, and began to develop towards diversification, becoming a company that can provide comprehensive communication solutions. In 1995, a research institute was established in Beijing, and in 1996, it began to enter the international market. At this stage, the organizational structure is also being adjusted with the change of strategy. During this period, competition intensified, market demand diversified, and Huawei sought transformation. On the one hand, product strategy develops to horizontal integration; Geographically, we began to enter the international market, and in terms of market expansion, we continued to follow the development strategy of "encircling cities from rural areas", starting from developing countries and gradually entering the markets of developed countries with a low-cost strategy. Huawei opened the international market, from extremely difficult to open up the market, from overseas income accounting for 4% to 75% of turnover, and finally achieved a gorgeous turn.
during this period, the advantages of linear organizational structure have become the disadvantages of development: on the one hand, there is no special functional structure, the burden of managers becomes heavier and heavier, and the coordination between departments is difficult. On the other hand, the number of employees in Huawei has increased rapidly. In 1998, the total number of employees was close to 8,, and the sales scale was close to 9 billion yuan. If the original organizational structure is followed, it will definitely restrict the further development of the company. Therefore, Huawei began to carry out management reform, starting with the division of business units, and established a two-dimensional matrix organizational structure combining business division system with regional departments: the first function of the business division is to fully authorize under the macro leadership of the enterprise, have completely independent business autonomy, and carry out independent operation and independent accounting; Second, the product responsibility unit or the market responsibility unit has the function of unified leadership for the integration of product design, manufacturing and sales activities.
Huawei also attaches great importance to the establishment of regional companies in order to seize the local markets to the maximum extent and do a good job in product sales and service. In 1997, Ren Zhengfei proposed to establish a joint venture company for the first time, and then jointly established North Huawei with Tietong, and acquired the original 12 factory to establish Sichuan Huawei. Since then, the strategic layout of Huawei's market has opened. In 22, Shanghai Huawei was restructured and became the real East China branch of Huawei Marketing Department (that is, Huawei's regional company). Subsequently, other joint ventures were gradually restructured, and Huawei's joint venture finally completed their historical mission and evolved into later regional companies.
this complex organizational structure is described in the basic law of Huawei: the basic organizational structure of the company will be a two-dimensional structure, with business divisions divided by strategic undertakings and regional companies divided by regions. The Division undertakes the responsibilities of development, production, sales and customer service within the business scope specified by the Company; Regional companies effectively use the company's resources to operate in the regional market specified by the company. Division and regional companies are profit centers and bear the actual profit responsibility. Functional specialization is the basic principle of establishing management department. The company's management resources, research resources, pilot resources, certification resources, production management resources, market resources, financial resources, human resources and information resources are the company's public resources. The principle of object specialization is the basic principle of establishing a new business department. The division principle of business divisions can be to establish expanded business divisions according to product areas, implement centralized policies and decentralize operations, which are profit centers; Establish a service-oriented business department according to the technological process. Regional companies are subsidiaries with legal personality, which are divided by regions, wholly-owned or controlled by the head office. Regional companies make full use of the resources allocated by the company and try to mobilize the company's public resources to seek development within the specified regional markets and business fields, and take full responsibility for profits. In the regional market that regional companies are responsible for, the head office and all business divisions do not compete with them for the same cause. If each business division needs to expand its business, it can do so by cooperating with or supporting regional companies.
evaluation: business divisions and regional companies are the main sources of Huawei's economic benefits. The company headquarters manages the company's public resources and gives guidance and supervision to all business divisions, subsidiaries and business departments. The headquarters mainly makes major decisions, controls and services to concentrate superior resources and energy to break through market difficulties. When the departments divided according to the principle of functional specialization and the departments divided according to the principle of an object specialization cross-operate, a matrix structure is formed in the organization. In order to achieve the market goal, the regional department and the business department will adopt the mode of joint operations, and the business departments will also adopt the mode of joint operations.
(3) from 24 to 212, the product-oriented matrix organizational structure.
after two years of slow growth, Huawei's sales in 23 quickly exceeded 3 billion, and still maintained a growth rate of over 5%. In 212, its sales exceeded 2 billion, and the number of employees increased from 3, in 24 to 138, in 212. Officially become the boss of the communications industry.
In 29, Ren Zhengfei began to brew new reforms. In this year, under extremely difficult external conditions, Huawei successfully withstood the test, and its performance went against the market. The annual sales exceeded 3 billion US dollars, the sales revenue reached 21.5 billion US dollars, and the customer relationship was further improved. Internally, the reform of organizational structure and human resources mechanism has been carried out simultaneously, and the battle formation of "navy and land warfare based on the iron triangle of the system department of the representative office, with light weight and comprehensive capabilities" has been determined, so as to cultivate opportunities, discover opportunities and seize them, and complete the battle organization for contract acquisition and delivery and the planning and request for project support of CUHK in a small scale. It turns out that with the passage of time and the enlargement of the organization, Huawei's decision-making bodies with too much power and resources are far away from the battlefield. At the same time, in order to control operational risks, many process control points are naturally set up, and they are unwilling to authorize them, which breeds serious bureaucracy and dogmatism. As a result, less than one-third of the time of the frontline combat troops is spent on finding targets, finding opportunities and turning opportunities into results, and a lot of time is spent on frequent communication and coordination with the rear platform. In the face of the growing market, the front line is constantly being stretched, and the fleeting fighter plane leaves Huawei less and less time to mobilize resources. The front line must have more decision-making power to adapt to the ever-changing and timely decision-making.
how to solve this problem? Conventional thinking, since the front and rear are too far apart and the coordination between them is insufficient, then streamline the organs, staff and processes in the rear, so that the efficiency of communication and resource allocation between the front and rear can be improved. However, Huawei EMT (management team) doesn't agree with this practice. They think that simply streamlining the organization can't fundamentally solve the problem. After the cadres and employees are pressed to the front line, it will increase the burden on the front line, increase the cost, and more importantly, it can't help and produce additional benefits. Moreover, after the cadres go down, they pretend to be the headquarters, but they interfere with the normal front-line work, which is not worth the candle. Since the conventional method doesn't work, it's not easy to innovate, and it's going to be deadlocked. A report from Huawei North Africa brought Ren Zhengfei a little inspiration. In Huawei's North Africa branch, employees set up a working group composed of account managers, solution experts and delivery experts to form a customer-oriented "iron triangle" combat unit. The essence of the iron triangle is to break down functional barriers and form a project-centered team operation mode for the goal. Huawei's advanced equipment and high-quality resources should be able to play a role in time and provide effective support as soon as the targets and opportunities are discovered at the front line, rather than those who have resources to direct the war and support the soldiers. This provides an idea for Huawei's organizational change and decentralization, that is, the decision-making power is granted to the front-line team according to the authorization rules, and the rear only plays a guarantee role. The corresponding process combing and optimization should be done in reverse, that is, the purpose is determined by the demand, the guarantee is driven by the purpose, everything is considered for the front line, and * * * efforts are made to control the setting of effective process points, thus streamlining unnecessary processes, streamlining unnecessary personnel, improving operational efficiency and laying a good foundation for survival. Huawei used to be centralized, and its organization and operation mechanism were the powerful engines of the central authority. In the process of pushing, some useless processes and unproductive posts were invisible. Now Huawei has allocated power to the front-line team and gradually formed a "pull" mechanism. To be precise, it is a combination of "push" and "pull" and a mechanism based on "pull". When pulling, when you see which rope is not stressed, you will cut it off, and the departments and personnel connected to this rope will be cut off together, and the organizational efficiency will be greatly improved. The redistribution of power makes Huawei's organizational structure, operation mechanism and process change completely, each chain can run quickly and flexibly, and the key interactive nodes are controlled, so naturally there will be no bloated institutions and bureaucracy.
at this stage, Huawei has adopted the strategy of vertical integration, diversification and internationalization. Market competition adopts the strategy of winning with "partners". The company has also transformed from a telecom equipment provider with comprehensive communication solutions to a telecom equipment service provider with end-to-end communication solutions and customer or market drive. Huawei's organizational structure has changed from a combination of business departments and regional departments to an organizational structure dominated by product lines. Although Huawei introduced a number of consulting organizations to carry out process reengineering, its main structure is still a product line organizational structure oriented to market and customer needs, in order to change the mode of small profit center, speed up decision-making and adapt to the rapidly changing market.
evaluation: the adoption of product line can effectively communicate with customers on products, and discover and meet customer needs in time, thus effectively enhancing Huawei's competitiveness in the international market. After several years of reform and adjustment, Huawei has gradually transformed from a telecom equipment provider with comprehensive communication solutions to a telecom equipment service provider with end-to-end communication solutions and customer or market drive.
(4) Dynamic matrix organizational structure from 213 to the present.
At present, Huawei is a diversified enterprise, which has formed three business systems: operator business, enterprise business and consumer business, and its organizational structure will remain such a matrix structure in the future. And this huge matrix organizational structure is also dynamic and will be adjusted at any time with the adjustment of strategy. When enterprises encounter external environmental challenges, this network will shrink and overlap, that is, posts and personnel will be streamlined; When the environment improves and needs to expand, this network will be opened and the posts and personnel will be expanded. But its basic business process will remain relatively stable.
As the so-called strategy determines the structure, the structure is also reacting to the strategy. Huawei's 3-year development course is also a very good interpretation of this concept. At the same time, in order to support the implementation and achievement of the company's strategy, Huawei has also carried out a series of process reengineering and organizational structure changes, from the initial linear functional organizational structure to the matrix organizational structure of the current product line. There is no best mode, only the most suitable mode. Enterprises should explore and establish the most suitable mode and road according to the industry and their actual situation. But generally speaking, to move towards standardization, specialization and internationalization, and bid farewell to the boss's "centralized", reasonable decentralization and authorization are the inevitable paths. It is just a matter of specific ways and means and the grasp of "degree" in different occasions and situations.