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1.0 Introduction介绍
当今时代，由于经济、生产力和社会生产力的提高，已经从卖方市场转向买方市场，消费者面临着多种选择，消费者的忠诚度越来越低。这对一家公司的营销构成了巨大的挑战。针对这一挑战，学者和企业提出了许多解决方案，其中关系营销理论和策略就是其中之一。在应用关系营销理论方面取得了一定成效的企业有很多，中国华为就是其中之一。本文旨在研究华为的关系营销策略，并对其关系营销策略进行评价，为其他企业应用关系营销策略提供有价值的模板。本文首先描述了华为如何运用关系营销战略与政府、供应商和竞争对手建立关系。然后根据4r理论，介绍了华为如何建立企业与消费者之间的关系。最后，对华为关系营销战略的优缺点进行了评价，并对华为如何改进未来的关系营销战略提出了建议。
In today's times, due to the increase in economy, productivity, and social productivity, it has already changed from the seller's market to the buyer's market, consumers are faced with a variety of choices, so consumer loyalty is getting lower and lower. This poses a huge challenge to the marketing of a company. Scholars and companies have proposed many solutions to solve this challenge, among which relationship marketing theory and strategy is one of them. There are many enterprises that have achieved some success in applying relationship marketing theory, among which Chinese Huawei is such a company. The purpose of this paper is to study Huawei's relationship marketing strategy and evaluate its relationship marketing strategy to provide a valuable template for other companies to apply relationship marketing strategies. This article first describes how Huawei uses relationship marketing strategy to build relationships with governments, suppliers, and competitors. Then according to the 4R theory, it introduces how Huawei establishes the relationship between the enterprise and consumers. Finally, it evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of Huawei's relationship strategy and proposes recommendation on how Huawei improves its future relationship marketing strategy.
2.0 Main body主体
2.1 Relationship marketing between Huawei and governments华为与政府的关系营销
华为是全球领先的通信设备制造商。年收入超过1000亿美元，其中70%以上来自国际市场（Dambr_ns，2016）。因此，对华为来说，与政府保持良好的关系对于其在国际市场上的竞争至关重要。华为与政府关系的现状可以分为三个层面。首先，华为与发展中国家政府关系良好，因为华为可以提供低价格、高质量的产品，满足发展中国家对高技术通信产品的需求。第二，华为与以美国、澳大利亚为代表的发达国家政府的关系非常糟糕，因为这些国家政府认为使用华为产品可能危及国家安全，因此拒绝华为进入他们的穹顶斯蒂克市场。因此，华为在这些国家的投资和销售都非常糟糕。最后，华为与以欧盟为代表的发达经济体的关系处于微妙状态。一方面，他们允许华为在欧盟投资和销售。华为在欧盟也取得了巨大成功，获得了大量利润，一方面，欧盟政府也对华为施加了一些制裁和警告。例如，华为在英国面临数十起诉讼，被处以超过100亿英镑的罚款（Fan，2017），这给华为在这些领域的发展带来了一定程度的阻碍。
Huawei is the world's leading manufacturer of communications equipment. Its annual revenue exceeds 100 billion US dollars, of which more than 70% comes from the international market (Dambrāns, 2016). Therefore, for Huawei, maintaining good relations with governments is very important for its competition in the international market. The status quo of Huawei's relationship with governments can be divided into three levels. First, Huawei has a good relationship with governments in various developing countries, because Huawei can provide products with low prices and high quality to meet the needs of developing countries for high technology communication products. Second, the relationship between Huawei and the governments of developed countries represented by the United States and Australia is very bad, because these governments believe that the use of Huawei products may endanger their national security, and therefore they refuse Huawei to enter their domestic market. Therefore, Huawei’s investment and sales in these countries are very bad. Finally, the relationship between Huawei and the developed economies represented by the EU is in a delicate state. On the one hand, they allow Huawei to invest and sell in the EU. Huawei has also achieved great success in the EU, earning a lot of profits, and On the one hand, the EU government also imposes some sanctions and warnings on Huawei. For example, Huawei has faced dozens of lawsuits in the UK and been imposed fines of more than 10 billion (Fan, 2017), this has given Huawei a certain degree of obstruction in its development in these areas.
The EU is the most important source of economic income for Huawei. 50% of its international revenue comes from the region. Therefore, it is very important for Huawei to do a good job in maintaining a good relationship with EU governments. The measures taken by Huawei in this area mainly include the following three aspects. First, before the EU filed an anti-dumping lawsuit against Huawei in 2010, Huawei never met with European governments. After the EU filed the case, the company began to deal with European governments to explain and communicate. In the end, the EU withdrew its allegations of anti-dumping against Huawei. Since then, Huawei has attached importance to strengthening communication with EU governments and letting the governments understand Huawei's strategy, products, plans, etc., which has reduced the governments’ vigilance against Huawei and gained more trust of the governments for Huawei. Second, Huawei began to get rid of the past market competition strategies and means, making its management and marketing behavior more in line with regulations provided by local governments. For example, in the summer of 2012, Huawei encountered low-cost dumping in the EU, through communicationg with European governments, finally, by way of price increases, Huawei allowed the EU to lift the allegations (Luo, Cacchione, Junkunc and Lu, 2012). Now, prices of Huawei's products in the European market are comparable to that of Ericsson, and slightly higher than that of Alcatel and Nokia. Finally, Huawei has increased its local investment in Europe and employed more local employees. This has greatly improved the local economy and gained more favorable feelings and support from the local governments. For example, Huawei has invested 1 billion of dollars in the UK and employed more than 1,500 local employees, Huawei has become one of the most well-known and most popular international companies in the UK (Lin, Liu, Han and Chen, 2018).
2.2 Relationship marketing between Huawei and suppliers
As an electronic equipment manufacturer and mobile phone manufacturer, Huawei has a large number of suppliers from all over the world, and some of them are even world-renowned top companies (Dambrāns, 2016). They have provided excellent parts for Huawei's products and brought great help to Huawei's products sales. For example, Leica, a world-renowned camera manufacturer, provides cameras for Huawei mobile phones, which is the most important reason for Huawei's mobile phones to be popular. Then why these suppliers are willing to offer their best products to Huawei without worrying about if their technology will be learned by Huawei. The reason is that Huawei's strategy is very good to maintain a good relationship with various suppliers. Samsung's strategy is a whole industry chain strategy. Every component of Samsung products is produced by itself. Huawei only focuses on the research and development of core business, especially the research on mathematical logic, and it has little investment in other aspects. Moreover, Huawei has repeatedly stated that it will not invest in research on non-core businesses to compete for markets with its suppliers. Therefore, many of the world's top suppliers are willing to maintain good relations with Huawei and achieve a win-win situation with Huawei.
2.3 Relationship marketing between Huawei and competitors
Huawei believes that in today's world, new technologies are emerging one after another, and the market is more volatile. Huawei can't start all research on its own, and Huawei does not have the ability to monopolize all markets. On the contrary, Huawei and its competitors only have to compete and cooperate with each other, complement each other to create greater value for customers, in this way, Huawei can become stronger and stronger.
Over the years, Huawei has extensively cooperated in technology and market worldwide, and has established strategic partnerships with major international companies including competitors. It has successively worked with companies such as Texas Instruments, Motorola, IBM, Intel, and Lucent Technologies and established a joint laboratory, joint ventures with Siemens, 3Com, and Symantec to complement and make use of the advantages of each other in both technology and market aspects. However, Huawei is also facing litigation from many competitors. In recent years, these lawsuits have exceeded 100 pieces, the most famous case of Cisco’s lawsuit against Huawei in 2003 has lasted for about 10 years (Lin, Liu, Han and Chen, 2018). The reason for the lawsuit was that Huawei had infringement and may leak client secrets. These lawsuits show that Huawei's relationship with its competitors is relatively tight, and these lawsuits have a large negative impact on Huawei's own image.#p#分页标题#e#
2.4 Relationship marketing between Huawei and customers
2.4.1 The marketing theory of 4Rs
The marketing theory of 4Rs is based on relationship marketing, focusing on long-term interaction between business and customer relationships, and focusing on building customer loyalty (Lo and Campos, 2018). It is a more practical and effective marketing success, both in the interests of manufacturers and the needs of consumers.
Four elements of 4Rs marketing theory includes (Huang, 2015): first, relevance, it means that enterprises and customers are a community of destiny, establishing and developing long-term relationships with customers is the most important part of business operations. Second, reaction means that in market competition, the most important job for operators is how to listen to the opinions of consumers in a timely manner from customers’ point of view and establish a business model that can respond quickly to customer need. Third, relationship includes that in the current market environment, the relationship between business and consumers has produced five shifts: from one-time transactions to emphasis on establishing long-term friendly cooperative relations; from mutual conflicts of interest to common harmonious development; from customers’ passive adaptation to single sales of enterprises to the active participation of customers into production process; from management marketing mix to the management of the interaction between an enterprise and customers; from focusing on short-term interests to focusing on long-term interests. Fourth, reward, a certain reasonable return is the starting point for correctly handling various contradictions in marketing activities, and also the foothold of marketing strategies. Fourth, reward believes that a certain reasonable return is the starting point for correctly handling various contradictions in marketing activities, and it is also the foothold of marketing strategies.
2.4.2 Relationship between Huawei and customers
Relevance strategy means that a company and its customers are a community of destiny (Huang, 2015). Huawei's relevancy strategy includes Huawei's establishment of a joint venture with the postal and telecommunications departments of 18 provinces and cities in China. The purpose is to strengthen the market, expand the market and occupy the market by establishing a community of interests.
Reaction strategy refers to a company's emphasis on listening to consumers' opinions in a timely manner from the perspective of customers and establishing a business model that can respond quickly to customer needs (Lo and Campos, 2018). Huawei's reaction strategy can be found in the following areas.
Huawei has established regional departments and representative offices in all continents and major countries around the world, actively participating in the establishment and maintenance of cooperative and mutually beneficial relationships between the company and its customers, establishing a multi-faceted organization and communication channel directly facing customers to actively understand customers’ needs. These include symposiums, annual meetings, third-party satisfaction surveys, centralized service hotlines, customer certification receptions, summits, and routine daily communication visits. In 2011, Huawei conducted a total of more than 900 service meetings, 44 annual conferences with customers around the world, since 2001, Huawei has continued to commission professional third-party market research companies to conduct customer satisfaction surveys worldwide, and based on the results of the survey, Huawei further improves their services; Huawei currently has 12 TAC (Technical Support Center) in more than 150 countries around the world (Lin, Liu, Han and Chen, 2018). It will meet the requirements of customers after receiving and resolving technical service requests in a timely manner, and further understand customers’ evaluation through telephone or email return visits.
Reward strategy refers to that a company's marketing strategy and activities are designed to pursue a certain reasonable return (Schäfer, K. and Kummer, 2013). Huawei's reward strategies mainly include the following aspects.
Huawei focuses on those who are concerned about the future and are interested in establishing long-term relationships with Huawei. Huawei divides customers into two categories: trading customers and relational customers. Trading customers only care about prices and they have no loyalty at all. Relationl customers are more concerned about the quality and service of goods, and are willing to establish long-term friendly partnerships with suppliers, they have high customer loyalty (Kumar and Shah, 2004).
Huawei proposes the principle of "ordinary customer" relationship. It believes that customers are not divided based on their jobs. As long as they are related to the sales of products, they must be paid a full attention, because any unobtrusive detail and an inconspicuous role may decide if they will purchase Huawei’s products. Thus when dealing with customer relationships, they must treat all customers equally, and they can not neglect customers with small orders, and they not only repeatedly contact individual senior leaders, but also respect other middle-level leaders and even ordinary employees, which ultimately helps Huawei to reach an agreement with customers.
Relationship strategy mainly refers to the establishment of long-term friendly cooperative relations between enterprises and consumers; from focusing on short-term interests to focusing on long-term interests (Dumitrescu, Ţichindelean and Vinerean, 2013). Huawei's relationship strategy is reflected in the following aspects. First is identifying customer needs. In marketing, Huawei pays great attention to establishing marketing organizations in each product line and regional departments, and they are close to customers to understand customer needs to ensure that customer needs can be quickly fed back to the company’s product development to satisfy customers. At the same time, Huawei's makes clear that being close to its customers is the driving force behind the company's process optimization and organizational improvement. Where Huawei's products are used, where they will build customer service centers to be close to the customers, truly understand and discover the customers’ needs, and provide them with quality service.
Huawei establishes customer service centers in each city and strengthens the marketing service network in the first-tier cities of a province. If customers have problems, they can immediately communicate with Huawei’s engineers around them. Huawei hires experts for each customer. In addition to basic training of product and management, it also plays the role of consulting and planning for customers. This kind of training helps customers to master Huawei's products and are more familiar with Huawei's products, which makes them be more comfortable with Huawei’s products and add customers’ a sense of intimacy with Huawei.
2.5 Discussion
2.5.1 The success of Huawei's marketing strategy
Huawei believes that it is not necessary to put orders in the price war, and dealing with customer relationships is to support its profit. That is, to sell things that seem be the same, Huawei can sell more expensive than its competitors. Huawei believes that customer relationship builds trust between Huawei and its customers, so that Huawei can display its comprehensive strength to customers to fully present the value they bring to customers and gain recognition from customers, indicating that it makes sense for its more expensive products. Huawei's product prices in most projects are 20% higher than ZTE’s, and customers think it is reasonable, the 20% may be Huawei's profit (Fu, Sun and Ghauri, 2018).
Communication industry is an industry with a particularly strong competitive intensity. The serious loss of customers is a problem that many related companies cannot solve. Huawei's good relationship with customers can help them to improve customer loyalty. Many of Huawei's customers have maintained a long-term relationship with Huawei. In addition, Huawei's excellent customer relationship management has also enabled many customers who were Huawei's former competitors to choose Huawei as their partner, which has enabled Huawei's market share to continue to grow.
2.5.2 Deficiency of Huawei’s relationship marketing
Huawei's current relationship marketing strategy is generally successful, but there are two problems. Firstly, Huawei's relationship with its competitors is too bad. For example, Huawei has encountered more than dozens of lawsuits these years. Part of the reason for this problem is that Huawei has certain defects in its management and marketing, such as the existence of infringement. Therefore, in the market competition, Huawei cannot ignore the rights and interests of its competitors. It should strictly abide by the laws and regulations of market competition, and it should not be too nervous about its relationship with its competitors, thus affecting its image. Secondly, market risk is ubiquitous. Huawei has invested huge amounts of money in relationship marketing in the United States, but the end result is failure. For Huawei, how to focus on risk control while conducting relationship marketing is the link that its future relationship marketing strategy should pay attention to.
3.0 Conclusion
In general, Huawei's relationship marketing strategy is successful. Huawei has maintained a good relationship between Huawei and the EU governments by strengthening communication, complying with local laws, and increasing investment in local areas and hiring local employees. Huawei adopts a focused strategy rather than a full industry chain strategy to establish a win-win relationship between Huawei and its suppliers. Huawei hopes to gain more advantages through cooperation with competitors, but Huawei's relationship with some of its major rivals is still very tight, making Huawei face a series of lawsuits. Based on the marketing theory of 4Rs, Huawei has established a long-term relationship between Huawei and its customers. The shortcoming of Huawei's relationship marketing strategy is that Huawei's relationship with its competitors is too bad, and its risk control in relationship marketing is insufficient. Huawei's future relationship marketing strategy needs targeted improvement.#p#分页标题#e#
References
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