Building a Better Connected World

MTN Business and Huawei Technologies, the leading global ICT solutions provider, have recently joined forces to provide products and services of the highest quality to businesses in Cyprus. On Thursday 20 October, an event entitled The Future of Enterprise ICT Solutions is taking place at the Hilton Park Hotel, Nicosia with the aim of introducing enterprise Information Technology directors to Huawei’s ICT solutions. Gold spoke to James Li, Managing Director of Huawei Cyprus, about the company and this latest venture with MTN Business.

 
Gold: Huawei and MTN have been partners in Cyprus since 2009 but this new collaboration takes things to a new level. What’s the rationale behind the latest move?
James Li: Huawei’s partnership with MTN Cyprus has flourished in recent years, leading both companies to success in the local market. We strongly believe that the new collaboration can further enhance this strategic partnership, giving the opportunity to both MTN and Huawei to provide innovative, agile, reliable and leading ICT solutions to facilitate enterprises' transformation and create value for local customers' businesses..   
 
Gold: How can Huawei’s networking and IP solutions benefit MTN Business customers?
J.L.: Huawei’s Networking Solutions use Software Defined Networking (SDN) concepts to form open, simple and secure networks that are faster and more flexible, helping enterprises stay ahead of the competition. Huawei offers the industry’s most complete line of enterprise networking and IP products, including ethernet switches, enterprise routers, WLAN and security products and network management systems. These products and technologies all work together to form integrated, basic network platforms for campuses, branches, WANs, and data centres. These competitive advantages of Huawei Networking and IP Solutions meet MTN Business customers’ requirements and can facilitate transformation and business development.
 
Gold: IT is key to every successful enterprise. What are the advantages of Huawei’s IT products over those of its competitors?
J.L.: By adhering to the concept of “Make IT Simple, Make Business Agile”, we have continued to develop innovative IT products, which has allowed them to become more competitive in the marketplace. Our IT products and solutions have been deployed in over 150 countries and regions and have become a new engine and benchmark for enterprises' digital transformation.
Huawei’s broad range of high-performance, low-power consumption and cost-efficient servers and components for data centres and campus networks are powered by the latest multi-core Intel Xeon processor technology. Huawei storage products provide converged functionality that maximizes performance and capacity utilization, to meet a wide range of needs: entry-level, mid-range and high-end enterprise applications, Big Data, vertical industry applications; and cloud storage applications.
 
Gold: Among other things, Huawei is now the largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world. What has been the key to this remarkable success?
J.L.: We believe that the key factors behind Huawei’s success are our commitment to the company’s core values of staying customer-centric, inspiring dedication, persevering, and growing by self-reflection. Moreover, driven by responsible operations, ongoing innovation and open collaboration, we have established a competitive ICT portfolio of end-to-end solutions in telecom and enterprise networks, devices, and cloud computing.
 
Gold: It’s almost 20 years since Huawei won its first overseas contract but within eight years (in 2005), Huawei’s international orders exceeded its domestic sales. Does the company continue to make most of its profits abroad?
J.L.: Huawei continuously aims to bring value to customers in order to leverage its commitment to enable the future information society and ultimately build a better connected world. In 2015, Huawei's revenue reached US$60.8 billion, an increase of 37% year-on-year. Our carrier, enterprise and  consumer businesses all met the sustainable growth targets set by our Board of Directors at the beginning of 2015.
 
Gold: Huawei places considerable emphasis on R&D and has established research centres in many countries. What is the thinking behind this?
J.L.: As a major contributor to the ICT industry and ICT standards setting, Huawei has been leading industry developments to promote technological progress towards a better connected world by sharing insights into ICT advances. This is the key driver for Huawei to cooperate with global innovators through its 16 R&D institutes and centres and 36 joint innovation centres around the world, constantly investing over 10% of its revenue in R&D every year.
 
Gold: Cloud Computing and Cybersecurity are two extremely significant areas in today’s business world. How important are they to Huawei’s offering in 2016?
J.L.: Cloud Computing and Cyber Security are two areas of Huawei’s primary interest and key success factors in the enterprise business. Leveraging years of innovation and development, Huawei’s Cloud Computing Solutions provide the reliability, agility, openness and price-performance needed to deliver cutting-edge applications and services quickly, safely, and securely. Moreover, Huawei Security Solutions are uniquely qualified to provide comprehensive protection for the information era. They cover terminal, cyber, cloud and application security as well as security management and security services specific to various products and solutions.
 
Gold: Given that Huawei has a presence in almost every country in the world, what does the company hope to gain from this new partnership with MTN Business in Cyprus?
J.L.: For Huawei, Cyprus is a strategic market; we have strong local presence and commitment to leading technology and services and continuous year-on-year growth. We also believe that the Cyprus economy has increasing potential for tremendous growth in various industry sectors (like e-government, tourism, energy, finance, transport, education, services and communications) where Huawei’s Enterprise Solutions partnering with MTN Business can provide ICT solutions to create value and facilitate local business development. We are looking forward to exploring this opportunity and jointly build better connected enterprises in Cyprus.
 
 
The event is addressed to all ICT decision makers CIO, CTO, CTIO, as well as GM, CEO, CFO of enterprises in all sectors of the economy.
For more information about the programme, please click here
Entrance is free, but registration is essential. For online registration, please click here
Organiser: MTN. Secretariat: IMH. Communication Sponsors: IN Business, InBusinessNews.com, Reporter.com.cy For further information, contact: IMH, 5 Aigaleo Str., 2057 Strovolos, P.O.Box 21185, 1503, Nicosia, Cyprus Tel.: +357 22505555 Fax: + 357 22679820, e-mail: events@imhbusiness.com, website: www.imhbusiness.com