Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, has officially launched its enterprise business in Vietnam, which will focus on providing end-to-end ICT solutions to key vertical sectors and corporate users.

VIR’s Song Ngoc talks with Yang Hua, president of Southeast Asia Enterprise Business of Huawei, about his business strategy in Vietnam’s challenging economic environment.

Huawei has just launched its Enterprise Business in Hong Kong and now to Vietnam. Is Vietnam the start of Huawei enterprise business’ strategy in the Southeast Asia?

In 2010, Huawei Enterprise business also launched its channel partner programmes in the Middle East, Russia and Brazil. We also plan to launch our partner programme to other markets such as Taiwan and the Philippines by end of this year and early next year.

The reason we decided to launch this enterprise business in Vietnam is because it is well-known as an emerging market with high potential. There are growing international investments in Vietnam’s ICT industry to support business so there is a huge opportunity for our products and services to help boost their ICT infrastructure.

The core concept of Huawei Enterprise Business’ channel network development can be summarised as creating win-win situation for partners and customers and partner commitment. We nurture, support and manage an open, interoperable and partner-based ecosystem to ensure long-term and maximum value for channel partners and their enterprise customers.

What challenges are you expecting for the Huawei enterprise business to operate in Vietnam in the current context?

Huawei Enterprise business was mainly focused on the telecommunications field and has not done active branding promotion in other industries. So the challenging thing for us is how to increase our brand awareness and the variety of our product and service portfolio in the enterprise business market.

After this launch we will actively focus on recruiting channel partners, organising seminars for the diversified of product and service training and update our partners the Huawei Enterprise business’ products and solutions.

What special support will Huawei Enterprise business provide its channel partners to make your solutions stay ahead of strong competitors such as HP, Cisco and Avaya?

Huawei Enterprise business will provide support, including sales training, pre-sales, post-sales training, workshops and technical assistance to its channel partners, helping them to fully understand our enterprise business portfolio, the installation and configuration and enabling them to sell Huawei Enterprise business’ products easily and quickly.

Every partner is well briefed on the product portfolio, the installation and configuration as well as encouraged to focus on service delivery. Ultimately, our approach will create a win-win situation for partners and customers, creating more business opportunities for themselves.

As part of the long-term channel development efforts, Huawei Enterprise business will also introduce different certification programmes to ensure that its partners meet the industry standards required to fully engage with the products and solutions. Huawei Enterprise business will also prioritise to share its technical expertise and introduce next generation products and solutions to its channel partners.

Cloud computing technology is becomingly popular in Vietnam and more international ICT firms are looking to tap into this potential market. Are there constraints to develop cloud computing technology for Vietnam?

Huawei has strong expertise in this cloud computing service, until now we have conducted more than 20 national scale projects in this field in Africa, Europe and mainly in China. Huawei’s cloud solutions consist of cloud platform which enables virtualisation, elastic computing, and massive storage, and has the functions of automatic scheduling and intelligent control.

The cloud platform is also an open application development platform. It supports third parties to develop and deploy applications, thereby providing rich cloud services, and building a win-win industry ecosystem. Cloud technology training is the key to help local firms understand its power before deploying it accordingly.

How do you evaluate the growth of Vietnam’s ICT in the years to come in comparison with regional markets?

You may know that there is the report that in 2010, telecommunications in Vietnam had a rapid growth. Total revenue in the telecommunications and IT was estimated at $7.4 billion and the growth rate reached 15-20 per cent, nearly three times of the gross domestic product growth.

I believe this is the very good growth rate compared to other countries in the region, especially when the Vietnamese government has a strong focus into the investment for ICT infrastructure.