In today’s digitally intelligent world, the age of enterprises shoring up their singular competitive advantages is over. With industries converging and consumer requirements constantly evolving, today’s businesses need to be more open, flexible, and build on their “ecological advantages” as well.
This was the key message delivered by Huawei CEO Guo Ping during his keynote speech at Huawei Connect 2016.
“Today we are in the cloud era, and while we do not yet know what things will be like in the future, one thing is sure—every modern industry system will become interconnected and complicated,” Guo said.
“As data, IoT, mobility and cloud entities develop, businesses that are not even connected with one another will have more interactions. Hence, advantages will not only come from within the organization as has traditionally been the case, but also by the effective use of its external resources.”
Guo predicted that in the many complicated scenarios that industries such as transportation, healthcare, and education will face, companies in these sectors will eventually develop and evolve toward an open ecosystem.
The same can be said for the ICT industry, whereby in the cloud era the sector has already transformed from a single vertical industry and into an enabler of digital transformation. A report from the World Economic Forum revealed that in 10 years, the opportunities brought upon by the digital transformation of industries will reach $100 trillion, with the world seeing the rise of even more new applications.
“Vertical integration of the value chain is a thing of the past,” stated Guo. As the ICT industry cultivates a new ecosystem, the Huawei CEO believes it will have three key features—open, dynamic, and symbiotic—wherein enterprises, big or small, “can take part in this interdependent, symbiotic, and regenerative community of common interests, as long as it has its own unique value and makes its own unique contribution.”
As for Huawei’s role in this cloud-driven ecosystem, Guo stressed his company’s primary principle is to prioritize “creating a bigger pie (market) over fighting for a larger piece of a shaky pie.”
“It’s the path we must take to build our future ecological advantages,” stated the CEO. “Our responsibility as an industry leader is to leverage our core competency, and use insights gleaned from our customers as basis of development to increase the size of the market. We don’t emphasize on whether the resources will be owned by us, but instead we emphasize on would be what can we leverage and effectively connect with external resources to bring the future together.”