Author丨Gu Jian
Producer丨 Yan Xi
Recently, the eyes of the whole world have been on Saudi Arabia because it shows an independent and new side.
In the field of infrastructure, the new future city project in Saudi Arabia with a total investment of 500 billion US dollars has been gradually implemented; In the field of science and technology, the "Riyadh Carnival Season" park uses AI and AR technologies from China, and cloud services, SaaS, and new energy are also showing vitality here. In the field of entertainment, Saudi Arabia's ten-year tourism investment plan of 800 billion US dollars continues to advance, and the first E-sports World Cup, which provides the largest prize pool in history, is poised to start... Even the strictest prohibition shows signs of easing – the country has begun to open liquor stores for diplomats.
Saudi Arabia's "elephant turn" largely reflects the attitude of the entire Middle East and Central Asia.
Many countries in the Middle East have accelerated the reform process and vigorously developed the digital economy around the non-oil economy; Central Asian countries are actively opening up economic corridors with their neighbors, including the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project, which has been under negotiation for more than 10 years, and has recently been formally signed. There are various signs that the "gold rush" in the Middle East and Central Asia is heating up rapidly.
Two years ago, HUAWEI CLOUD initiated the Lingyun Overseas Alliance, which seemed to foresee this grand occasion. At present, the HUAWEI CLOUD Forum on Chinese Enterprises Going Global with the theme of "Lingyun Goes to Sea, Come to the Middle East and Central Asia" has opened the door for Chinese enterprises to deploy in the Middle East and Central Asia. The summit not only invited key government officials from various regions to interpret policies, but also "seniors" who went overseas to share their secrets of going overseas with HUAWEI CLOUD "from 0 to 1" and "from 1 to N" to the guests.
It's time to get out there because this time it's really different.
1. Go to the Middle East and Central Asia to reclaim new fertile ground for digital
A month ago, at the first China-Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Digital Economy Seminar, politicians, industry and researchers from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian regional economic cooperation member countries gathered in Zhejiang to feel the dynamic "digital pulse" of mobile payment, live e-commerce, intelligent manufacturing and other fields. For these technologically underdeveloped regions, the cost reduction and efficiency improvement of the manufacturing industry, the rapid circulation of commodities, and the forward-looking prediction of big data have undoubtedly produced a huge attraction.
At the same time, with the increasingly close exchanges and cooperation between Chinese enterprises and countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, these countries are increasing their support for the digital economy. Uzbekistan has set its ambitions in the field of e-government, aiming to reach 100% of e-government services by the end of 2026. Kazakhstan's "use of digital technologies to improve the standard of living of the people" is refreshing.
At the China Enterprises Overseas Forum, representatives of various governments have brought the latest "policy gift packages":
Si Junji, director of Greater China at Qatar Investment Promotion Agency, said that it is necessary to provide investors with a competitive business environment.
The head of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office said that it is necessary to achieve win-win development with foreign investors in an open, prosperous and sustainable business environment.
Janat Pak, Senior Executive Manager of IT Park of the Uzbek Digital Technology Department, threw an olive branch in his speech, "The Uzbek government attaches great importance to economic and trade cooperation with China, and is committed to further optimizing the business environment and providing more convenient conditions and incentives to attract Chinese enterprises to invest in Uzbekistan. ”
In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Qatar's Vision 2030, and Oman's Vision 2040 have all given high strategic priority to the transformation of the digital economy, aiming to form a complete digital engine from government to business. The UAE's plan for the next 10 years is ambitious for new technologies represented by artificial intelligence, so as to attract global talent and investment.
Such drastic reforms are of great significance to Chinese companies that have always been at the forefront of the digital economy. Looking back, whether it is China's hard technology at the Qatar World Cup, or the cooperation between Uzbekistan and China in the whole energy and automobile industry chain, all reflect the positive expectations of the CP of the two sides and the long-term goal.
However, the difficulty of developing this new digital fertile ground should not be underestimated.
A Chinese who works in the communications industry in Saudi Arabia admitted, "Except for the infrastructure part, it feels like the early state of Shenzhen." In addition, the degree of digitalization of government affairs is low, and it often happens that things are broken. Another contrast lies in the fact that the design of regulations on data security and consumer rights protection has gone far, especially in cloud services. ”
And that's exactly what happened: last year, Saudi Arabia's Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) and Foreign Personal Data Transfer Regulations came into effect. There are also a number of foreign-funded car companies that have received "fines" issued by the Saudi Ministry of Commerce because of consumer rights issues. In the UAE, misuse of personal data can result in fines in the million-dollar range.
For overseas enterprises, if they want to get familiar with the "rules of the game" in the new region as soon as possible, an excellent leader is indispensable.
Huawei, which has been working in the Middle East and Central Asia for more than 25 years, is willing to come forward, which is undoubtedly encouraging news.
In her speech at the forum, Shi Jilin, President of HUAWEI CLOUD Global Marketing and Sales Service, said, "Over the past 20 years, Huawei has had a lot of development opportunities in the Middle East and Central Asia. In the process of going global, I realized that China's innovative technology should empower thousands of industries and benefit the development of all countries. It is expected that more Chinese companies will turn their digital stories and experiences into services in the future, bringing them to the world, so that countries and people in the Middle East and Central Asia can establish more and broader connections with China. ”
⌂ Shi Jilin, President of Global Marketing and Sales Service of HUAWEI CLOUD
Qi Xiao, President of HUAWEI CLOUD Middle East and Central Asia, mentioned that Huawei's business purpose in the Middle East and Central Asia region is "in local, for local", providing high-quality ICT solution products and services to customers in various industries such as carriers, government, finance, energy, Internet media and entertainment, e-commerce, and automobiles. In addition, HUAWEI CLOUD has successfully served more than 200 government customers, more than 30 financial customers, and 150 Internet customers in the Middle East and Central Asia region with cloud-native infrastructure, high-end services such as AI, big data, and databases, as well as localized professional services.
⌂Qi Xiao, President of HUAWEI CLOUD Middle East and Central Asia Region
In September last year, the 3AZ node of HUAWEI CLOUD Riyadh in Saudi Arabia was officially launched, creating a 25ms latency circle in Saudi Arabia, and the HUAWEI CLOUD Riyadh node also obtained the Class C license issued by CST, which is the highest security level. This means that HUAWEI CLOUD can provide cloud services that meet the highest level of data security regulations for governments and large state-owned enterprises without barriers.
With this layer of reliable data assurance, HUAWEI CLOUD partners can enjoy the node's low-latency and high-security capabilities without worries, and can call the node's supporting infrastructure, databases, containers, big data, AI services, and other full-stack cloud services at any time to accelerate digital intelligence.
2. From a solid cloud foundation to "localized" agile empowerment
If you want to win any sea destination, you can't bypass the keyword "localization".
In the past, companies could use the "Chinese experience" to extrapolate linearly to open up the Southeast Asian market. But when it comes to the Middle East and Central Asian markets, many things begin to "increase intensity". Fortunately, HUAWEI CLOUD is prepared to enhance the market competitiveness of cloud service products with a solid cloud foundation of continuous innovation, and to help partners accelerate localization through agile empowerment.
Zhang Lei, founder and CEO of Neuxnet, was very impressed that he first entered the Middle East market because a product that was accidentally invested here achieved considerable organic traffic, and even the product team was confused about this wave of explosion. Under this opportunity, the company began to officially lay out in the Middle East.
At the beginning, the team was full of confidence in this wave of "sky-high wealth", believing that their products have been competing in the global arena and will definitely be able to quickly open up the situation in the Middle East. The actual situation is that after coming, you have to face competitors from Europe, America, India and other countries, and have a deep understanding of local cultural characteristics. When entering the Saudi market and receiving the first cooperation, Zhang Lei summarized the customer's decision-making logic: "The customer is very interested in our past operation and delivery performance in the Middle East. ”
Perhaps it is based on this insight that Neuxnet and HUAWEI CLOUD have come together.
In Zhang Lei's view, data has always been the first moat of Neuxnet. Only with a stable and extensive data infrastructure can we give full play to our core competitiveness in big data management, operation and mining. HUAWEI CLOUD's distributed cloud infrastructure ensures that the cloud extends to every business location, amplifying the enterprise's own data and technical capabilities with ubiquitous cloud applications.
"For some enterprises in the Middle East, 100,000 concurrency and 1 million concurrency are equivalent to very strong technical capabilities, but in fact, in China, these are just the basic thresholds." Relying on HUAWEI CLOUD's solid cloud foundation, Neuxnet has been able to replicate its accumulated technical advantages in the Middle East.
When it comes to data and privacy compliance, HUAWEI CLOUD's valuable experience also comes in handy. Relying on Huawei's more than 140 security compliance certifications worldwide and the compliance analysis summarized by HUAWEI CLOUD's perennial operations, partners such as Neuxnet can fully learn from <合规要求梳理><数据与隐私管控现状><合规差距分析及风险评估><合规方案建议及落地协助>Huawei's four-step approach to provide various data services for governments and enterprises.
In the field of vehicle manufacturing, HUAWEI CLOUD's "localized" agile empowerment is also very representative.
Chery Automobile is one of the earliest car companies to deploy in the Middle East, and has opened stores in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and other places, and its market share is also rising. Compared with the early foreign trade export model, Chery Automobile is now more inclined to provide customized products and services according to the environmental characteristics of the Middle East and Central Asia, so as to further improve the brand mentality and product performance. For example, air conditioning and shading equipment are optimized for high temperature and sun exposure; In terms of after-sales service, we actively solve the pain points of consumers' car purchases through measures such as the layout of local spare parts warehouses.
Considering the high acceptance of innovative products such as intelligent driving and Internet of Vehicles in the Middle East, Chery has been actively deploying the Internet of Vehicles platform to achieve differentiated advantages through intelligence and better serve local customers. In this process, data compliance, the efficiency of the use of the Internet of Vehicles, and the coverage are the top priorities for whether the product can impress users.
To this end, HUAWEI CLOUD quickly launched the local public cloud in Saudi Arabia to meet the requirements of local project deployment and Saudi data protection laws. It provides excellent network coverage in Saudi Arabia and meets the low latency requirements of the Internet of Vehicles. Optimize the IPV6 network support capability, realize that all the Internet of Vehicles are connected to the platform through IPV6, and reduce the cost of Chery's in-vehicle SIM card. Cooperate with customers to provide local technical support in Saudi Arabia and provide high-quality professional services to end customers.
In addition to regular cooperation, HUAWEI CLOUD is also good at identifying market opportunities and proactively entering market opportunities for partners.
Qi Xiao, President of HUAWEI CLOUD Middle East and Central Asia, also mentioned that HUAWEI CLOUD will collect some customized project requirements for industries such as healthcare, education, energy such as oil and gas, and electric power. For example, when some new policies come out, the government needs a stable system to carry a large number of daily activities and provide services to citizens. At this time, we can jointly develop with our counterparts in overseas Chinese enterprises to win these difficult scenario applications, so as to enhance market visibility and competitiveness, and jointly expand the market.
3. With 25 years of "certainty", sweeping away the "uncertainty" of Chinese enterprises going overseas
Judging from the current market structure, the Middle East and Central Asia markets can be called a "three-country killing".
Chinese companies are valued by the market for their talent, product prices and digital experience. But two other forces should not be underestimated: Many companies in the Middle East rely on the West's powerful system of consulting firms, and this decision-making influence gives Western overseas power an advantage.
So how should Chinese enterprises deal with the uncertainty of competition when going overseas? Answer: Through Huawei's 25 years of precipitation, "certainty".
Qi Xiao, President of HUAWEI CLOUD Middle East and Central Asia Region, is a first-hand witness of this journey, and he admits that when HUAWEI CLOUD entered the Saudi cloud market, it started with two people, and there were many detours in the early stage of development. This empathy for entrepreneurship in the Middle East and Central Asia made him feel that serving Chinese companies should not be too utilitarian.
For example, in terms of consulting and ecological resource sharing, it is more in line with business rules to make standardized products. But he and his team still use dynamic refresh to make these empowerments into free information sharing.
"Through a sharing mechanism called Huawei Salon, we will regularly collide with Chinese enterprises, friends, and partners in the direction of going overseas, and build a communication bridge connecting the digital economy in the Middle East and Central Asia. If the government departments and policy makers you need to connect with happen to be HUAWEI CLOUD partners such as the Ministry of Communications and CST, we will also provide some links to the best of our ability. ”
In Uzbekistan, HUAWEI CLOUD has built an e-government cloud that has helped Uzbekistan rise 18 places in the United Nations e-government index. With the Qatari e-commerce company Ebdaa Digital Technology, HUAWEI CLOUD has reduced network latency and improved customer usage and hosting costs. In cooperation with Aljasser Group, a well-known Saudi manufacturer and leading retailer, HUAWEI CLOUD has greatly improved the monthly transaction processing capacity for customers and achieved zero service interruption... The existence of these benchmark projects enables HUAWEI CLOUD partners to win at the starting line.
In addition, HUAWEI CLOUD can share with partners 45,000+ partners, 10,000+ cloud marketplace products, and massive global media resources. For example, in the fields of smart agriculture, warehousing, and non-inductive payment, WenChao can work with multiple solution partners in the HUAWEI CLOUD ecosystem to find the most suitable scenario-based solution.
When dealing with unexpected problems, HUAWEI CLOUD is good at preventing problems before they occur through its deep technical foundation.
Based on years of practice, HUAWEI CLOUD has built a deterministic O&M capability system, including high-availability architecture, dynamic risk management, intelligent O&M, and quality culture, to ensure quality assurance throughout the entire process from design, development, launch, and O&M. At the same time, the stable and reliable global localization O&M team can cover all time zones and provide 24/7 uninterrupted services to ensure that the business of enterprises going overseas is always online.
For example, when serving industries such as the Internet, where transaction volume fluctuates greatly in emerging markets, HUAWEI CLOUD relies on network connections in 33 regions, 93 availability zones, and 2,400+ carriers around the world to ensure optimal network access paths and 100-fold traffic surges during peak hours.
Regarding this wave of overseas fever in the Middle East and Central Asia, Qi Xiao believes that the current time point is very delicate and it is a time to make up your mind. He said bluntly, "Don't take it for granted when you come here, and do it with a short-term and quick speculative color." Instead, we should bring the advantages of technology, service and talent to the local market. As long as you are willing to put down roots, there are opportunities in automobiles, games, audio and video, and the digital economy, and even China's milk tea business can open up space here. ”
In the new era of going overseas, competition in many fields is no longer a single battle, but the overall strength between countries and industrial chains. What HUAWEI CLOUD is doing is to unite the "power of China" and reshape the Silk Road in the cloud, so that Chinese enterprises can walk more steadily and faster on this journey.