Huawei Pestle & Swot Strategy Case Study
Key Learning Outcomes
By the end of the case, students should be able to:
- Understand the broad macro-environment of Huawei and the global smartphone industry in terms of political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors (PESTEL/PEST/STEEPLE).
- Use our swot analysis example to gain an overall understanding of Huawei's strengths and weaknesses and strategic options arising from the opportunities and threats that have been identified from the Pestle analysis example on it's business environment.
- Apply strategy business models and frameworks such as Pestle/Pest/Steeple, Swot etc to real company cases.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The PESTLE framework provides an overview of some of the factors that affect organisations in the macro environment. It identifies the possible factors that could influence the success or failure of particular strategies. (Johnson et al, 2008) The analysis explains the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors facing Huawei, how they are possibly changing and the possible future implications they may pose on the technology giant. SWOT analyses the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of Huawei that is, whether the strengths and weaknesses are able to deal with the changing business atmosphere as well as evaluate future strategies to respond to the opportunities and threats to the organization (Scarborough, 2016). It also helps in identifying strategies on how the Huawei can be competitive alongside competitors in the industry.
After facing multiple bans in some of its most critical markets in the West such as the United States, and UK, Huawei has also been contending with total bans in markets from other core Asian markets including Taiwan, Japan, Australia, New Zealand etc. Many of the western countries mentioned have security concerns about China and the possibility that it could use it’s 5G network equipment to spy on other countries (Buchholz 2020). Such bans have posed grave obstacles to Huawei’s production capacity so much that even with the technology giant developing its own operating system, finding good quality and original components will still be challenging. In addition, Huawei has lost market share of the 5G network in crucial European markets including the core UK market, leaving alternative suppliers like Nokia and Ericsson to quickly jump in to claim it. This is an example of political factors from the external business environment that can severely impact the operations of a business.
In the following sections, we will apply the strategic frameworks of PESTLE, and SWOT, to help us identify the major drivers of change behind Huawei’s external global environment, looking at the general trends and shifts driving the global mobile and telecommunications industry in general. This will help us understand not just how Huawei is being impacted by its external environment, but also how can it can utilise its brand competencies to help it take advantage of ever changing environmental opportunities while at the same time neutralising fatal threats that are continually threatening its very survival.