The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Today marks my third anniversary in Huawei. I chose the movie “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, which was released the year I was born, as the title of this blog to reflect my time in Huawei because the movie was about bounty hunters, police, crimes, and the quest for gold. The three bounty hunters had different characters: the good, the bad and the ugly.

After 30 years of public safety related work from a frontline police officer to a technology provider, I have traveled to 535 cities in 75 countries, of which 55 cities 25 countries were visited for the first time during my last three years in Huawei.

My thousands of friends in hundreds of public safety agencies around the world are doing a very honorable job of keeping the public safe, especially with today’s rising demands by the public and the media! While not answering a calling as high as these friends, I still consider myself in the business of public safety. Instead of guns and the law, I am now enabling public safety through the use of ICT.

“The Good”

Speaking of ICT, I thought I knew a lot when I worked in American MNC for 16 years. When a headhunter called me in September 2015 about Huawei investing more in public safety, I was quite arrogant by replying, “Why should I join a Chinese company selling routers?” I didn’t even know then that the mega Saudi 911 project my previous company had lost had been won by Huawei! Huawei even agreed to the Saudi Government’s request to have the new Command & Control system implemented in less than a year to be ready for the 2016’s Hajj pilgrimage, after the one in September 2015 had a terrible stampede with more than 2,000 deaths.

From my 30 years’ experience in public safety, a new Command & Control system requires at least two years to implement. The fact that Huawei did it in one year (and in other similar large scale projects too) is crazy! It is definitely crazy in the eyes of other ICT players. Is this a reflection of Huawei’s first two core values: Customers First (成就客户) and Dedication (艰苦奋斗)? I think so.

I am much honored to lead a team of public safety experts from around the world, bringing more than 300 years of public safety experience to our customers, partners and colleagues. Our backgrounds include Argentina Ministry of Public Security, China, Germany, Polish Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Singapore Police, and UK London Metropolitan Police. We speak Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Polish, Russian, and Spanish.

My experts like to say, “We are hired as public safety experts, but we feel more like firemen!” It is quite common for us to be mobilized within short notice, and often over weekends, to support our customers’ requirements. Do you know colleagues from China are encouraged to sign a 奋斗者协议 (Striver Agreement) to work long hours and even give up their vacation for better recognition and compensation? My non-Chinese colleagues and I often joke we work as hard as these strivers even though we have not signed such an agreement.

I believe the striver culture, or “wolf culture”, is a factor behind Huawei’s continuous innovation. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) just announced that Huawei has set “an all-time record by anyone” by filing 5,405 patents in 2018:

This is hardly surprising since 80,000 of the 188,000 employees are in R&D, and Huawei spends about 15% of its revenue on R&D with tens of R&D centers around the globe. ICT industry is all about innovation, especially globalized innovation; trade protectionism and even nationalism are counterintuitive.

In addition to people and innovation, the other aspect that makes the company successful can be attributed to its third core value: Continuous Improvement (自我批判). The Chinese version is actually much stronger, directly translated as “self-criticism”! But the management is concerned that non-Chinese colleagues may find this core value too difficult to stomach. I cannot think of any company or government agency globally that is more transparent and accountable than Huawei.

Continuous improvement results in a strong learning culture within Huawei. While in American MNC, consultations often meant that colleagues say, “Oh, I know, I know” before I could finish sharing. Since the colleagues seemed more knowledgeable than me, I would often stop there. But in my past three years in Huawei, for each answer I gave, I would get two more questions from my colleagues. And, usually within 48 hours, the notes of discussion would be ready for my vetting, and sharing thereafter. If you want to know about the DNA of innovation in Huawei, it is this strong learning culture and knowledge management.

In 2018, the Global Government & Public Sector Business Unit carried out more than 30 onsite and online training classes for more than 5,000 colleagues from around the world. Topics ranged from industry trends to solutions, and skills included engaging such industry customers. In Huawei, training is not one-way, the participants are usually divided into teams with lots of team exercises and competitions.

In line with the Dedication (艰苦奋斗) core value, many trainings are conducted at night and over the weekends.

The other powerful strategy of Huawei is the Strategic Reserve Team. For critical areas of the company, we would set up a Strategic Reserve Team to attract talented colleagues from across the company to join and be enabled in that particular area with the ultimate aim of producing the next generation experts. Since public safety is a top enterprise business for Huawei, we have a Safe City Strategic Reserve Team with Mr. Guo Ping, Rotating Chairman of Huawei, as the Team Leader.

Our Chinese colleague, James, is a success story of the Strategic Reserve Team. With a background in R&D, he joined the pioneer batch of the Safe City Strategic Reserve Team and after weeks of enablement he was deployed to Country S in Europe to help with the Safe City project there. Spending months there, James and other experts successfully implemented the project, which brought about many benefits to the country’s public safety, including the safety and security of an international sports event in 2018, where more than 20,000 supporters from various countries were in the country. James is now in my global team as a Business Architect, working hand in hand with Industry Experts with public safety background on various projects. James can now confidently engage senior public safety customers on his own.

The Enterprise Business Group’s focus on “Platform + Ecosystem” is very crucial too. It is great to see Huawei working with hundreds of partners from around the world, especially through the tens of OpenLabs in major cities, allowing partners to test and optimize their solutions and services on Huawei’s ICT platforms. Ultimately the aim is to create customer-ready solutions that are secured, standards-based, scalable, future-proof, and with “Huawei Inside”.

Take Mauritius for example. Mark Twain once said, “Mauritius was made first, and then heaven; and heaven was copied after Mauritius.” Tourism is a core economy, and any increase in public safety threat is bad for tourism. Working with various partners, including Mauritius Telecom, Huawei built an integrated Safe City systems for this lovely island country. Expected benefits include lower crime rate, less than 15 minutes emergency response, and safer roads.

Another country, in great contrast, saw its tourism and foreign investments plunge after a very deadly terrorist attack in 2013, with a high number of fatalities. Determined to make the country safer, the government put aside some budget and through a transparent procurement process, Huawei and partners won and built a comprehensive Safe City system for the country. Thereafter, not only have international events been organized with no major incident, the overall crime rates have even been reduced by 46%, and the country has seen a 14% increase in international visitors.

Unfortunately there was another attack recently. Having been influenced by another core value, Openness & Initiative (开放进取), I proactively asked to visit the country to do an After Action Review (AAR) to study the strengths and weaknesses of the Safe City technologies. My wife was obviously concerned, but I guess once a police, always a police. I met several officials, including the country’s Inspector-General of Police. His first comment to me was, “I can’t imagine how we can do policing today without CCTV.”

Although an attack is one attack too many, this latest incident was very well managed. The siege was over in less than 24 hours with the attackers neutralized, and more suspects arrested and charged in court in less than a week. There were more than 3,000 emergency calls during the siege and they were all attended to promptly. Relevant responders and specialists units were identified through real-time location tracking, and dispatched quickly to rescue the hostages and to counter the attackers. Technologies were also involved in the identification of the attackers’ vehicle and their likely places of abode. The authority was greatly praised by the public and the media in managing this latest incident.

We also saw technologies allowing the various agencies, such as the police, paramilitary, fire brigade, ambulance, and hospitals working together and even collaboratively to respond and recover from the threats. This is the concept of Collaborative Public Safety, or digital transformation of public safety, created in 2016 by myself and Mr. Khoo Boon Hui, the Past President of INTERPOL and the retired Commissioner of Singapore Police. In addition to inter-agency collaboration, the concept also calls for collaboration with the communities, and the creation of new organizations, processes, and services.

C-C4ISR Accelerating Collaborative Public Safety

I was taken by surprise not only because the Collaborative Public Safety concept was well accepted in the company, but also because a year later in 2017 Huawei consolidated and developed a suite of C-C4ISR solutions to accelerate this digital transformation. Such go-to-market speed was near impossible in my 16 years with American MNC. I attribute this to a major factor: Huawei is 100% employee-owned, there are no quarterly reports to major shareholders and analysts! For such creativity and innovation, we even have trademark protection for “C-C4ISR” in many countries and the European Union (EU).

On the topic of the EU, Hungary used to have four emergency numbers, and call centers in 18 counties. Huawei won and built a Collaborative Command & Control system for the country, unifying the emergency numbers to just one – 112, as required by the EU. We also helped to consolidate the 18 call centers to two. Despite an average of 13,000 calls a day, all are answered. This project even won the 2017 EENA 112 award.

Huawei’s Collaborative Command & Control capability sets another world’s first – it is integrated with video surveillance for visualized command & control. The UK is an early adopter of video surveillance for public safety, having done so since the 1960s. The British Security Industry Association estimates that today there are about 6M cameras in the country, translating to a ratio of 1 camera to 11 citizens. Most of these surveillance systems are silos with no intelligent analytics. To better fight crimes and even counter terrorism, more countries are integrating such silos either through enacting laws or encouraging voluntary connection.

Shenzhen is an example of Collaborative Surveillance; the city has 1 camera for every 20 people. But only 5% of the cameras belong to the police, the rest are from other government agencies and private entities. Crimes there dropped by 28% and solving rates increased by 32%. In 2017, a kidnapped 3-year-old girl was rescued 15 hours later 1,000km away, and her abductor arrested. Such collaborative public safety also helped to rescue many old folks with dementia who got lost in this big city, which is also known as the Silicon Valley of the East.

Other than having our headquarters in this Silicon Valley of the East, Huawei is very much a global MNC with presence in 170+ countries. Today we have public safety customers in 700+ cities and in 100+ countries. Despite being a new kid in the global public safety market, our 10-digit US$ revenue is growing at a tremendous rate:

“The Bad”

I know I sound like a total Huawei convert, and indeed I am! So are many of my colleagues from around the world. But we do have our grievances, and I feel there are areas that we can improve further to better serve our customers, and to sustain the high growth of the business.

Can you imagine that when I first formed my team, there was an occasion when a young Chinese colleague asked me to cancel the leave application of one of my foreign experts because there was a senior customer meeting that we needed to attend to?! I guess this is an extreme example of “wolf culture”! I cannot blame this young colleague as that was how he grew up in the company. For Huawei to be truly international, all of us must accept diversities in culture, religion, and even law. It is no wonder my manager asked me to lead the team of international experts as opposed to having them reporting directly to the regions, as they may not stay in the company for long. Also as a team, it is easier for me to arrange for backup as and when an expert is not available.

On differences in laws, this is another learning point for Huawei. I like to say the only common denominator of public safety agencies globally is the mission statement, which is along the lines of preventing, detecting, responding, and recovering from public safety threats. Beyond this mission, however, agencies in different countries are very different because of the laws, organizations, processes, etc. For example, while Hong Kong is part of China now, the police is not using fixed video surveillance because of the strong privacy law. Also, Hong Kong’s policing follows the British/Commonwealth system, which is very different from that of China and the USA.

Many colleagues and even supervisors felt that we could just replicate the China’s safe city successes overseas. One example is the use of Big Data analytics to prevent or solve crime. In many countries, the law enforcement agencies do not even have sufficient data due to reasons such as privacy law, lack of connectivity, or just bureaucracy between agencies challenging the sharing of data.

Big Data/AI based Predictive Policing is getting popular in the USA, but it may not be implementable in many countries.

While Customer First is critical, it does not mean the customer is always right! We cannot blindly respond to what customers want as that may not be the best solutions to their problems. What is important is the next core value of Huawei: Integrity (至诚守信). Firstly, Huawei has and will continue to abide by the laws of the 170+ countries we operate in. Secondly, integrity means we serve the needs of the enterprise customer’s organization even though it may be against some individuals of the organization, or even make business for Huawei more difficult.

Take Uganda for example. Due to rising crime rates, the authorities wanted a traditional video surveillance system, having being, I believe, misled by another technology company. Huawei could have simply sold our award-winning (by Frost & Sullivan) video surveillance solution. Instead, we took pains to analyze the public safety threats and proposed more viable solutions. Subsequently through an open tender, Huawei won and is implementing the solutions now.

Such work requires different experts, from consulting, solutions development, pre-sales, marketing, delivery, cyber security, etc., to work together. Team Work (团体合作) is the sixth core value of Huawei. Compared to my 16 years in American MNC, internal competition and bureaucracy within Huawei is not that bad. But there is still room for improvement. An example is driven by “wolf culture”: when local offices call experts from different HQ teams for support, often without proper coordination. Customer engagement has to be consistent with similar messages. On quite a few occasions, I arrived at a local office and learnt that other HQ experts were around too! No wonder some of my foreign experts said they were being used as “flower vase” in front of the customers. We need to have more discipline in using resources to achieve better ROI. This is why in 2018 we initiated the High Level Engagement Standard Operating Procedure and Major Opportunity Shaping and Solutions Design Methodology.

In 2017, other foreign experts and I were mainly deployed for high level customer engagement since we know the public safety industry intimately. In 2018, in line with management’s expectation, we got more involved in actual opportunities and projects. But we soon met an obstacle – language, which is a similar challenge in Japanese and Korean companies too. From HQ to regions to local offices, many foreign experts find it nearly impossible to have in-depth discussion and involvement during such meetings conducted in Chinese. This is a long term problem that cannot be easily solved. We found a solution after working through few projects. Now for each project, we partner our foreign Industry Expert with our Chinese Business Architect, regional/local expert, and member from the Strategic Reserve Team. This “4 groups 1 team” arrangement not only solves the language obstacle, but also keeps a balance between industry knowhow and technology expertise. Such balance makes us even more capable in the eyes of our customers, a key factor in winning their trust.

“The Ugly”

“Prism, Prism on the Wall, Who is the Most Trustworthy of Them All?” I had a good laugh when I saw the keynote speech by Mr. Guo Ping at the Mobile World Congress 2019. In case you don’t understand what is Prism, check with Edward Snowden. With zero evidence, more countries are coming to the same conclusion that the USA’s attacks on Huawei are more about trade protectionism and nationalism. It is well known that many American corporations hire former government officials and politicians to lobby decision-making bodies such as the Congress.

During the initial stage of the attacks, I was very concerned for the foreign experts. Some of them were from high-level government jobs in their home countries, and even till today, have high level security clearance. I was worried about how they felt and whether they were under any pressure from their governments for working in Huawei. We all have the same response, “Where is the evidence?” Frankly, many of us would not be here if there were evidence of malicious activity in Huawei.

It is also laughable that certain politicians and pro-western media conclude that Huawei is linked to the Chinese Communist Party because Founder Ren was a retired solider. Various major American government contractors hire senior retired military and government officials – why is there no concern since these contractors sell to many governments overseas? What about my previous company – it started as a project in CIA! And why are these same politicians and pro-western media not reporting on a certain American company that has been discovered to have various backdoors? Try Googling “five months five backdoors”.

Cyber security is a scientific and technical consideration. It must not be politicized. I am glad more governments are seeing this clearly and doing the right thing. I am proud that Huawei is investing in more cyber security verification centers around the world and increasing our transparency. With the free publicity on Huawei by the USA, and with in-depth scrutiny by more governments, I believe Huawei’s products are now the safest in the world. Which other company is going through the same level of baptism by fire?

In Huawei’s 30 years of history, we have maintained a solid track record in cyber security. We have also been helping governments during their most difficult times, especially colleagues from the Carrier Business Group. From the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami, to the 2013 Philippines Typhoon Haiyan, to the 2014 Chile earthquake and tsunami, and to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, we have put aside our own priorities and even safety to help our customers and our communities. Less than two weeks after I joined Huawei, a major earthquake hit Ecuador on 16 April 2016. I was so impressed and proud that the company sent about 300 staff to the country within days to help with the recovery work:

On 23 June 2018, the world watched the search and rescue of the 12 young footballers and their coach in the caves of northern Thailand closely. On 25 June 2018 the Royal Thai Police reached out to Huawei, and on 27 June 2018 our staff and special mobile equipment were on site in the forested area to provide Multimedia Critical Communication coverage for the operation.

Indonesia Sulawesi was hit by earthquake and tsunami on 28 September 2018. A day later, tens of Huawei employees traveled to ground zero via military aircraft and vehicles to help with the recovery work despite the persisting aftershocks.

True Gold Fears No Fire

Just like the three cowboys in the “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” were looking for their gold, all of us are searching for the “gold” in our life too. But don’t forget our organization and ourselves can be the “gold” too. We should thank the USA Government for igniting this fire to test Huawei and Huaweiers. I am confident we can withstand this fire and come out as true and stronger “gold” as long as we continue to be responsible and bring values to our customers.

The many stories I shared with you above make former public safety official like myself very proud to work for Huawei. We provide public safety solutions to governments not just to make money. We are contributing to the safety, security, stability, and even economy of the cities and countries we serve. We aim to solve customer’s problems and not just sell solutions.

Take the Pakistan Lahore Safe City project as an example. The authorities did a great job in hiring young officers to run the various systems. I was impressed that Huawei set up these state-of-the-art systems in an old building nearby to conduct training for these new officers. Once the new center was ready, we moved the systems there for live operations. Today, the emergency response time in Lahore has reduced from 30min to below 10min. It used to take 45 days to solve a terrorist attack, and now only 2 days. Cases of driving through red light reduced by 50% and traffic accident down by 70%. In the past two years, the systems helped police solved 2,000 cases of theft and robbery.

While globally there are many big cities such as Lahore that have high budgets for Safe City implementations, we decided that despite their low revenue, we need to help make the tens of thousands of small cities with population below 1M safe too, and grow our business in such “volume” market. With Huawei’s typical speed, we created the Safe City Compact solution in no time.

A small town in Chile (82,000 population) now has a compact visualized Command & Control system achieving 50% improvement in emergency dispatch efficiency. Post-crime evidence discovery has improved by 80%. Argentina Salta Province (1.3M population) has a compact Intelligent Video Cloud with facial recognition accuracy more than 95%, and helped the police to arrest few fugitives in less than a month after implementation.

Seeing the trends that government customers prefer OPEX versus CAPEX, we designed solutions suitable for “Safe City as a Service” model. The largest private security company in Singapore, Certis, is currently offering such a service to its government, enterprise, and retail mall customers. Brazil telco, Oi, is offering a similar service to make Rio de Janeiro safer.

In my past two decades working in the technology industry serving public safety customers, I have not seen a company as agile as Huawei in continuously solving customers’ current and even future problems. I believe the six core values I mentioned earlier are major contributing factors. Huawei’s 6,000 people, including 4,000 in R&D, supporting public safety business is definitely a right investment by the company.

In my three years in Huawei, I have traveled more than 75% of my time, worked over so many weekends and national holidays. How did I do it? I guess I am happily tired, and excited to see my ideas and others’ turn into innovations and bring values to public safety agencies and the communities. The journey would not have been possible without supporting colleagues and supervisors, and a very understanding family.

If I can sum up what I am doing now, it is the Japanese concept “ikigai”, the source of value in one's life or the things that make one's life worthwhile!

Huawei is definitely not a router company, nor just another Chinese company with worldwide operations. Huawei is already a multinational corporation with leading technologies! How wrong I was in September 2015! 535 cities 75 countries later, I am very proud to have made a difference in enabling public safety globally. I am thankful to Huawei for giving me the opportunity to excel. I look forward to walk with others on this adventurous journey and together bring the company to the next peak. With the global attention and even scrutiny, the journey will not be easy, but by holding on tightly to our six core values, I am confident that Huawei and Huaweiers will become stronger and bring even greater values to our customers and the communities. True Gold Fears No Fire.