One hundred of Europe’s top channel resellers were invited to attend the conference with presentations from global and European Huawei executives, supported by industry-leading analyst house IDC.
Since its establishment in Europe, Huawei has continuously invested in local markets. Huawei’s enterprise business will double this year to $4bn and it plans to make significant investment and recruit local resources in Europe to grow the business to $15bn-$20bn over the next five years.
With more than 120,00 employees worldwide and nearly half of them in R&D, Huawei brings with it an innovative portfolio of ICT products, services and vertical solutions that will help enterprise customers increase business efficiency and organisational flexibility.
The theme of the launch was “Forerunner”, recognising those channel partners who wanted to align and take early advantage of Huawei’s investment and launch plans. From a partner perspective, at a time when business is challenging and margins have declined, Huawei’s strategy to conduct all business through partners and put margin back in to the channel was well received.
At the conference, partners discussed how best to engage with Huawei’s sales model, which will include partners being supported by high-touch sales teams aligned to vertical markets as well as telesales teams for lead generation.
Comprehensive channel programmes including demand generation, co-marketing, significant target-based rebates and deal registration to protect partner investment were also introduced.
Plans were unveiled to recruit partners into an accreditation scheme which would recognise their commitment and allow them to “fast track” and take advantage of Huawei’s expertise. Service capability was also recognised where partners were given the option to sell either a “branded” or “co-branded” service, again with significant margin opportunity. These programmes highlight Huawei’s understanding of the importance of not competing with but instead complementing partner capabilities.
Dominique Vanhamme, vice president, enterprise channels, Western Europe commented, “Huawei’s launch into the European enterprise channel is unprecedented and gives partners the opportunity to chose a manufacturer with a world class, comprehensive end-to-end product portfolio that will provide sustained profitable growth.”