Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng (pictured) urged industries to embrace digital transformation as the “time is ripe” to embrace new technology for growth, while also pledging the Chinese vendor will continue to invest in connectivity, computing, storage, and cloud.
Today (April 19) at Huawei Analyst Summit 2023 in Shenzhen, the executive warned the global landscape is rapidly changing due to the growing influence of the digital economy.
“This will have a deep impact on industrial innovation and economic development. The digital economy is growing into a key driving force behind the reorganisation of global resources, and the restructuring of the global economy and changes in the global competitive landscape,” said Meng.
Huawei estimated that by 2025 around 35% of economic growth will be driven by the digital economy, and by 2026 the global spend on digital transformation is expected to reach US$3.4 trillion. Over 170 countries and regions have developed digital strategies, noted Meng.
“This will be a new blue ocean for the whole ICT value chain. Both enterprises that are going digital and those that are helping others to go digital will have huge addressable markets and huge economic benefits, both now and in the distant future. As the power of digitisation is unleashed, boundaries between enterprises will fade, and together they will bring about industrial interconnectivity.” said Meng.
Enterprise drive
Enterprise was a key area of focus highlighted by Meng, who stated how the Chinese vendor is working with multiple sectors to enable their digital transformation journey.
An example she pointed to was glass manufacturer Xinyi Glass. The company was wasting natural gas through inefficient practices on its production line. Xinyi Glass adopted systems to collate data from over 200 types of manufacturing equipment, enabling it to adopt better practices, and as a result, the company saved up to CNY400 million (US$58 million) and improved its carbon footprint by reducing the usage of natural gas.
Meng highlighted four routes for companies to go truly digital: digitising operations, building digital platforms, enabling platform-based intelligence and putting intelligence to use. The executive conceded Huawei itself was “not a digitally native company” and required several transformation projects under those paths to becoming one.
“In this process, we improved capabilities in domains like R&D, manufacturing, sales, delivery and finance. Throughout the process, we've found that our capability has been greatly enhanced. We believe strategy is essential data is the foundation and intelligence is the destination of digital transformation,” said Meng.
