Working at Huawei helped Victor Shan not only gain experience in various business verticals but also ensured that he was part of and contributed to, China?s economic boom. ?I have witnessed China?s economic reforms and opening up, which started in 1981 and attracted people from all over the country. I am fortunate that I experienced it through working in Huawei,? he says.
Interestingly, joining China?s technology rat race was never a part of the career he had envisaged. ?I wanted to become a writer in the league of Shakespeare! Unfortunately, this was not meant to be.? Nevertheless, he is hopeful of revisiting this dream after he retires. The present, meanwhile, is full of business concerns and ambitions. ?As president of Huawei?s device business in India, I am responsible for its operations, performance and aspects like revenue, profit, market share and customer relationship. My role involves products, services, marketing and sales.? A key challenge is lack of customer awareness about Huawei in the Indian market. ?We have been here for about 10 years and have been selling products on operators? channels. We do not face consumers directly. Hence, awareness of the Huawei brand has been limited. We are now fixing this situation,? Shan notes.
The ?fix? involves a comprehensive market positioning strategy. ?Our strategy is to position India among our top markets and establish Huawei as one of the top five handset brands worldwide by 2013,? he says. ?This will not only help Indian customers realise that Huawei is a global company with $28 billion revenues, but also strengthen our relationship with operators and enhance bilateral cooperation.?
He is also hopeful of replicating the company?s past success stories in India. An important achievement, for instance, has been growing channel sales by 15 per cent in Huawei Devices in 2010. According to him, ?Telecom is a very technology-intensive industry. While we talk about 3G, 4G is in trial. Thus, companies that have leading technologies and telecom solutions that make transitions between technologies seamless and cost effective will be the ones that survive.?
Moreover, he observes that feature-laden phones are gradually giving way to smartphones. ?Cloud technologies, chipsets and display technologies will give an entirely new shape and form to terminal devices, and convergent devices will come out.?
In the midst of keeping abreast of technology developments and market dynamics, does he get any spare time? ?Not really,? he rues. ?I like playing badminton, am learning cricket right now and practise Chinese TaiJi. I also like cooking.?
