Huawei CEO reportedly puts company in survival mode

Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei has reportedly told staff that tough economic times represent a real threat to the company. Reports in Chinese outlets Yucai and NetEase allege that Ren posted a missive on Huawei’s internal networks in which the CEO called for the company to prioritize cash flow and profit instead of growth and scale …

[PhilipN]

Could be the best thing to happen to the company

Being forced to adopt a new more sensible business strategy focused precisely on the important item (essential profitability - gasp!) instead of breakneck growth.

First time I dealt with a Silicon Valley company, in the '80's, managed (cough! cough!) by brash Stanford MBA's it descended from super-confident "GROWTH!" through hubris to collapse in no time at all simply because they were unable to change direction after the initial limited successes. Happened hundreds of times a year since then.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Could be the best thing to happen to the company

How come we never hear about those great companies that concentrated on cost cutting over investment and growth? Media bias !

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Could be the best thing to happen to the company

Management by MBAs is slightly better than management by CPAs, but not by much.

What is needed is innovators and engineers for long term success.

You don't achieve profitability by cost cutting. IBM tried that for years and is only beginning to recover after they put an engineer back in charge.

[Mellipop]

asking the customer what they want sometimes works.

[JWLong]

Maybe if...... .

.......companies worried more about satisfying customers than Wall St., none of this would be an issue.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Maybe if...... .

2 years ago Huawei was a front for the Chinese secret service and so the boss of Huawei is presumably just a puppet of Chinese communism - but now he is a prophetic warning of capitalism's decline

[Anonymous Coward]

How the company will adapt ...

The CEO is reportedly holding meetings with Huawei employees telling them, "Look, your monthly quotas for the amount of foreign tech you must steal have now all been DOUBLED! Anyone found NOT to be stealing at their required theft rates will be laid off! I'm not kidding guys we must steal twice as fast going forward if my intellectual-property-theft based company is to survive!

Also, we are hiring foreign engineers and pumping them for trade secrets for 1 year and then firing them unceremoniously. Well, going forward we either milk them twice as fast over that 1 year or we fire them after only 6 months! That's our new reality!"