Cover/Picture Worm Creativity

Just like most successful companies, Huawei's process from small to large to strong is not based on a product or a stunning advertisement, but on comprehensively and solidly promoting various businesses, step by step and steadily. Among them, Huawei's unique "iron triangle" sales method contributed.

Many enterprises in the market are learning the "iron triangle" sales system, but they often can't do it. Fan Houhua, former vice president of Huawei's overseas market, participant in "Huawei Miracle", 17 Huawei's working experience. In his new book "Huawei's Iron Triangle Work Method", he made a systematic analysis of Huawei's sales system and led us to understand the underlying logic of Huawei's sales miracle.

Huawei was founded in 1987. It took Huawei 30 years to grow from a small enterprise with a registered capital of 2 1.000 yuan and only 6 employees to an enterprise with annual sales of nearly 900 billion yuan and 654,380+0.900 employees, ranking among the top three enterprises in the information and communication field in the world. In an era without mature experience and management system, how did Huawei get out of a world-class leading enterprise?

Talent is the key to enterprise growth. Ren once said: "Talent is not Huawei's core competitiveness, but the ability to manage talents is the core competitiveness of enterprises." It can be seen that the management of talents is a vital part of enterprise development. In Huawei's talent management system, there is a model that cannot be ignored, and that is Huawei's "iron triangle" sales model.

Huawei's "iron triangle" sales method began in 2007 and has a history of 13 years. In 2020, in the face of the COVID-19 epidemic sweeping the world and the drastic changes in the international situation, Huawei still made a sales income of 8.910.40 billion yuan, an increase of1/0.2% year-on-year. The "iron triangle" sales method is indispensable.

Regarding the "iron triangle" sales method, there is a very classic comment: "Triangle is not a restrictive system of separation of powers, but a * * * combat unit that embraces life and death and takes customer demand as the center. Its purpose is only one: to meet customer needs and realize customer ideals. "

"Let people who hear gunshots make decisions, set up a working group composed of account managers, solution experts and delivery experts", "set up a small team combat unit facing customers" and "change from account managers to small teams". This is Ren's exposition of Huawei's iron triangle and the essence of Huawei's iron triangle.

1/ The origin of Huawei's "iron triangle"

The "iron triangle" sales method is Huawei's sales management wisdom summarized from the first-line failure lessons.

At the end of qingping, the wind blows, and every tall building that can pick clouds by hand starts with the first shovel to dig the foundation. The first shovel of Huawei's "iron triangle" sales system can be traced back to a failed project bidding.

In 2006, an important bid for Huawei's representative office in Sudan failed, exposing the problems in the operation of the sales team: the organizational structure does not match the needs of customers, most people are still operating in the traditional mode, the account manager does not understand products, the product manager does not understand delivery, and the delivery manager does not involve the customer interface. All product departments simply follow the domestic quotation model, only pay attention to their own land, and lack a unified and coordinated network-wide solution.

Fortunately, Huawei's representative office in Sudan quickly learned a lesson from this defeat, and they fully realized the seriousness of the problem-if they want to regain their reputation in foreign markets, they must adjust their sales organization and model in time, and the key is to make a solid customer interface.

In order to solve the organizational structure problem, at the end of 2006, the Sudan Representative Office appointed Rao Xiaobo, Wang E and Wang Haiqing to form the core management team of the customer system department, which was responsible for customer relations, delivery, products and solutions respectively, and twisted the sales force, delivery force and product force into a rope for the first time, standardized the interface for customers, and achieved unified standards in product introduction, sales and delivery, so as to truly make Qi Xin work together to meet customer needs.

Since then, the three people have met customers together, delivered goods together, worked together and even lived together. The existing barriers and "departmental walls" were completely broken, mutual understanding deepened, and finally "one hole" was realized, which basically realized the "interface normalization" when facing customers.

After three years' efforts, this failed team won the biggest project of Sudan operator National G Network in 2009. In the applause of customers, the team cried. When they reported to Huawei's top management, they wrote such a passage: "Three people are United, and their profits are broken. Let's call it the iron triangle!

The successful iron triangle model has been rapidly popularized in Huawei, and a single spark can start a prairie fire, which has been widely used in all fields and links of the company's business development. When facing customers, members of the Iron Triangle not only represent customer relationships, products and solutions or delivery, but also represent customer demand and value growth.

2/ What is Huawei's "iron triangle" sales system?

In nature, the most stable and basic structure is a triangle. In the ancient art of war, one of the most aggressive basic array methods-forward vector array method must be bypassed. As the name implies, the shape of the front arrow array is similar to that of a sharp arrow. The most elite troops are triangular, placed in front of the team, breaking the gap of enemy positions, affecting China's army and the large troops in the rear to make a surprise advance and be invincible.

The same is true of sales. Sales is a job that requires both individual initiative and teamwork. Without aggression, you can't obey orders; Without the cooperation of the team, even if you win the order, you can't provide customers with satisfactory products or services for a long time, and the customer satisfaction naturally can't be improved, so you lose the possibility of repurchase and referral. Sales is a coordinated operation across departments and fields, and it is by no means a one-man show of a key role.

Schematic diagram of "iron triangle" sales method

Huawei's "iron triangle" system consists of three roles:

The first one is the account manager, or the sales manager, or AR (account responsible) for short, who is mainly responsible for customer relationship, business demand management, business negotiation, contract, payment collection and so on. A truly excellent account manager should spend 80% of his time with customers, keep close contact with them, and even work directly with them, always knowing their needs, instead of staying in the headquarters office. Calling the customer will complete the task. In the "iron triangle" sales system, the requirement for account managers is to be around customers every day and always pay attention to whether there are new opportunities.

For account managers, before selling a product, it is necessary to understand the current situation and problems faced by customers and look for opportunities. As long as you believe that customers have needs and this demand is real, and you firmly believe that you can create value for customers with your own products and services, you should fully consider customers from their perspective and gain their understanding and trust.

Second, the scheme manager, referred to as SR (solution responsible), is mainly responsible for product demand management, product and scheme design, quotation and bidding, and technical problem solving. In the "iron triangle" sales system, the scheme manager is a very important role. He is by no means a simple account manager assistant, but as a strategic analyst and planner of a project, he is responsible for analyzing all aspects of the market and customers, connecting all aspects of resources, and striving for the maximum probability of project success.

The core role of the project manager is the builder of product structure, the disseminator of brand and the guardian of profit. Among them, the most critical three core points are: camp, win and profit.

Third, the delivery manager, abbreviated as FR (FullResponsibility), is mainly responsible for the project management from order, manufacturing, logistics, installation to delivery and acceptance. In the "iron triangle" sales system, Huawei requires the delivery manager to change the weak image in the past, participate in the whole process from project establishment to contract signing, fully understand the cause and effect of the project, and express professional opinions.

Account manager, project manager and delivery manager, these three roles * * * together form a triangle attack team, supporting each other and cooperating closely. Through the extremely fast response mechanism, they can respond to customers' needs end-to-end in the shortest time, provide customers with comprehensive solutions, and combine the most offensive and collaborative aspects in sales work.

The "iron triangle" sales system is not a secret. Many enterprises in the market are learning the "iron triangle" sales system, but they often fail to achieve good results. How to transform personal ability and experience into organizational ability while improving the personal ability of sales team is a problem faced by many companies. Huawei has been practicing for many years in improving its sales ability, and has a unique set of practical experience and promotion system.

3/ How to fight, how to practice.

The training of "Iron Triangle" personnel is mainly through specific sales practices. Don't appear on the battlefield and need a rifle to shoot, but all the people trained are flying aircraft carriers. Training and authorization should always be closely integrated with the business needs on the battlefield. Soldiers who sharpen their knives without mistake and cut wood without training have a high mortality rate. Every "iron triangle" personnel must attend relevant training and pass relevant post assessment before they can take up their posts.

Because of the different industry attributes and development stages, each company has different requirements for the ability of "iron triangle" personnel. It is necessary to sort out the core competence requirements of each position, as well as the main gaps and problems of current competence, and then carry out targeted capacity improvement plans.

It is far from enough to rely on theoretical knowledge training. Training and actual combat must be combined, which is a cyclic process from self-study to concentrated training, actual combat test, defense and re-learning.

1) Self-taught. Aiming at the knowledge and ability required by the "Iron Triangle" personnel, Huawei has developed a series of learning courses and managed them through the I-Learning learning platform. "Iron Triangle" personnel can apply for the authority of relevant courses to study and take exams at any time and place according to their own needs. Business departments will also require employees to study by themselves and pass relevant exams as needed. Before taking part in centralized training, in order to ensure the effect of centralized training, employees are generally required to complete relevant courses and pass the exam before entering the centralized training stage. Courses on the I-Learning platform will be constantly adjusted with the change of business. In the process of business development, if you need to add some specific knowledge, it will be immediately reflected in the learning content. If business development does not need some knowledge, it will be replaced in the learning content immediately and refreshed in time, so there will be no lag.

2) Centralized training. The content of centralized training is generally divided into three categories.

First of all, the instructor guides. Generally, this part of the content only accounts for about 20% of the time, and is guided by managers or business experts with rich practical experience to teach students and share knowledge with their own practical experience.

Second, case analysis. This part of the content will generally account for about 30% of the time. In Huawei's intensive training, the evening time is generally used for case discussion, and the lecturer guides the students to focus on specific cases. Cases mainly come from two aspects: on the one hand, they are common and typical cases in textbooks, including success cases and failure cases; On the other hand, it is the students' own cases, or it may be the cases collected before class. Huawei's case teaching method was not invented by itself, but borrowed from the case training methods of Harvard Business School and Yiwei Business School in the United States and developed its own case teaching logic, including case writing method, case teaching method, case study and discussion method.

Third, simulation exercises. Another 50% of the content is students' discussion and simulation exercises in class. For example, in the training of sales project operation management, the corresponding sand table will be set in the classroom, and the simulation exercise will be carried out in the classroom in the form of role-playing. These sand tables are modeled and abstracted according to the actual business.

3) Practice the test. After the training, the trainees will return to their posts with their own tasks, practice the specific knowledge and skills learned in the training, and solidify their behavior through concrete practice. At the same time, they will be asked to summarize and output the training courses. In the practical examination, some positions will also appoint a tutor for each member of the "Iron Triangle" according to the qualification requirements, and the tutor will give guidance and help in the aspects of role cognition and work development.

4) debriefing defense. After a period of practice, each student needs to summarize and review his knowledge and practical experience, and write his feelings, gains, understandings and suggestions. Finally, defend yourself. On the one hand, these summaries should explain their actual achievements from the perspective of business, on the other hand, they should also explain them from the perspective of ideology and culture, that is, values. Those employees with excellent business and ideas will be labeled and have the opportunity to be promoted quickly.

5) Keep learning. After the defense is completed, the company will continue to push higher-level courses and cases through the I-Learning platform to help employees continue to learn and improve.

4/ Cultivate better people with the best people.

1) Most of the people trained and empowered by Huawei are business experts or managers whose business experts take up management positions.

Ren Zheng Fei once said that you should find someone who can fly an aircraft carrier to teach you how to fly an aircraft carrier, or you will hit a rock. Huawei requires lecturers who walk on the platform to have actual combat experience, and every year, some people with successful project experience are selected to develop courses and walk on the platform. Those who step onto the platform must be the best people. These best people should take responsibility and train better people for the company. Huawei has a rich library of part-time lecturers. Management cadres and business experts basically have to give lectures on the podium. Their stepping onto the podium also represents the company's recognition of them. They are the best people, and I hope they will give more light and heat to cultivate more and better people. Developing courses and teaching is also an important input for lecturers' professional contribution, which is helpful for their qualification evaluation. If a key employee or manager has no record of curriculum development output or training and teaching, his career development will be affected.

On the other hand, full-time training teachers also need to constantly strengthen their understanding and learning of business knowledge, go deep into the front line of business to practice and participate in specific business projects. Through tempering in the project, we can deepen our understanding of the company's business, so as to be more closely linked with the business in the process of course project design, content development and teaching guidance.

2) Huawei believes that the biggest waste is the waste of knowledge and experience, so it has gradually established an effective knowledge management platform and case base in practice.

Huawei has a huge case library, where every employee can post and share cases, and then experts and other employees can comment, praise and discuss interactions. After the excellent cases are reviewed, managers will promote them internally, and even some cases will be selected into training materials as teaching cases. For employees who provide excellent cases, Huawei internally designed various material incentives or spiritual incentives to promote everyone's contribution and the construction of case base. Even in the qualifications of some positions, it is mandatory to make certain contributions to the case base during the promotion review to ensure that the case base has sufficient resources.

3) Teaching spirit and teaching methods are more important than teaching knowledge, and the construction of "spirit" is an indispensable module in Huawei's "Iron Triangle" training.

Whether it is the training of the new "Iron Triangle" employees or the on-the-job training of marketing management cadres, Huawei will arrange at least one week of basic training. The training content mainly includes three aspects: first, physical training and military training to cultivate employees' spirit of not being afraid of hardship, being brave in challenges and teamwork; The second is the study and discussion of corporate culture, so that every employee can truly understand and comprehend the company's core values of "customer-centered, striver-oriented, long-term hard work and self-criticism", and carry out discussions in combination with their own work; Third, let every employee understand the current situation of the company and the mission and responsibility he should undertake, especially establish the belief that the "iron triangle" team will win, be full of desire for victory, dare to pursue and never give up! I won a project twice, the first time in my heart and the second time in reality.

5/ LTC process: an important guarantee for the operation of the "iron triangle"

On the surface, the "iron triangle" sales method is a sales tactic, but in essence, it is the concrete realization mode of process organization advocated by Huawei for more than ten years, and it is also the concrete embodiment of the business philosophy of "taking customers as the center and creating value for customers", which is suitable for most modern enterprises.

Speaking of "iron triangle" sales method, LTC process is an unavoidable topic. The "iron triangle" is the smallest combat unit in the sales front line and can also be understood as the smallest business unit. All businesses are supported by a process, which opens up the whole process from finding sales leads to opportunity points to completing delivery and payment. This process is called LTC. Relying on LTC process can effectively promote the efficiency of sales business and improve the success rate of projects, while the "iron triangle" drives middle and back-office resources to serve customers and create maximum value for customers.

LTC Process and "Iron Triangle"

As shown in the figure, LTC process is the main business process from managing leads to managing opportunities to managing contract execution. That is to say, we should first pay attention to market research and early expansion, collect and generate project clues, then form an opportunity point, develop into a contract with customers, deliver products and services to customers through contract execution, realize customer value creation, customers pay for the obtained value, enterprises recover the money, and finally clinch a deal. This is a complete end-to-end value creation process, and the protagonist who runs this process is the "Iron Triangle" sales team.

For example, if the LTC process is compared to a highway, then the information, data and rules related to clues, projects, contracts, orders, products and services are the vehicles driving on this highway. Since it is an expressway, there are bound to be relevant traffic rules and traffic control measures, and every role in the "Iron Triangle" sales team, like drivers of different vehicles, naturally needs to abide by these rules in order to arrive safely from A to B and successfully complete the whole transportation process.

LTC process management aims to align the customer's business process, connect and integrate the whole process from clue, opportunity, contract signing, contract execution, payment back to contract closure, and build a complete customer-centered LTC process architecture and system.

The goal of LTC reform is to create customer value.

After seven years of LTC reform plan development and pilot, Huawei has improved its combat capability and supported commercial success. So how does Huawei build a simple, orderly and effective LTC business management system suitable for big customer service?

Huawei's LTC transformation design takes the improvement of organizational ability and management system as the core, and aims at realizing process integration, efficient decision-making, timely supply, accurate data and ability in place. IT builds a set of business platform, resource platform and data platform integrating LTC rules, processes, organization and operation, and uses flexible Internet technology, big data technology, cloud service and intelligent technology to form a globally operated IT digital system, thus realizing customer value creation and ensuring customer satisfaction and satisfaction.

6/ When people are together, they are called "gangs", and when people are together, they are called "teams".

As the saying goes: the train runs fast, all by the headband. In order to make the front of the car run at full power and carry more loads, it must be given enough power. The incentive management of enterprises itself implies the expectation of outstanding talents' performance. Huawei's incentive management is not everyone's welfare, but gives key incentives to those who dare to struggle, are good at struggling and can really contribute to the results.

Many HR in the industry lamented: "It is easy for Huawei to dig our people, but it is much more difficult for us to dig Huawei people." Behind this is Huawei's incentive management system. Huawei has always advocated "long-term hard struggle", which mainly refers to spiritual hard struggle and is not contradictory to material incentives. Huawei's material incentives for employees have always been generous.

The assessment of the "Iron Triangle" sales team mainly includes three indicators: contract finance, excellent operation and customer satisfaction. Contract financial indicators include income, profit, cash flow and cost realization; Operational Excellence indicators include the performance of contract terms such as business, quality, time and budget; Customer satisfaction indicators include customer experience, problem solving and relationship maintenance.

In the bonus distribution of the front-line "iron triangle" sales team, Huawei insists on not engaging in the "sales commission system", but on the "bonus package distribution model" based on the target achievement rate, that is, according to the "contribution and profit sharing system", supplemented by project awards, to achieve the balance of collective and individual interests. Through this method, enterprises can constantly strengthen the "iron triangle" team cooperation mechanism, get rid of individual heroism, and go to the team to win, so as to achieve the goal of helping each other in the same boat.

Huawei has always adhered to the principle of combining short-term incentives with long-term incentives. Short-term incentives generally refer to immediate incentives and project bonuses. In the above case, the 7 million yuan given to the "iron triangle" team involved in overcoming the gap and expanding the market belongs to short-term incentives. This timely rain will further stimulate the spirit of struggle of employees. Giving the team 10000000 yuan again in 20 13 years is aimed at greater market opportunities in the future, not at the past, and belongs to the category of long-term incentives, which is helpful to strengthen the long-term management consciousness of the "iron triangle" team and realize the balance of short, medium and long-term interests.

What needs to be emphasized is the role of the locomotive in the sales team, not only pushing but also pulling. The purpose of all assessments and incentives is to make each car a power source and coordinate with each other; Let everyone step on hot wheels, with three heads and six arms, full of energy, showing their magical powers, and let everyone in the team dare to compete for the first place.

Please remember that people together are called "gangs" and hearts together are called "teams". To learn the "iron triangle" sales method, we must first change our concepts. Facing customers, whether you come from sales department, product department, delivery department or R&D department, you represent the company. There are no "we", "you" and "them", only "we", and customers will only remember your company name.