Huawei 2013 Annual Report Download - page 44

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Management Discussion and Analysis
Credit Risk
The company has established and implemented
globally consistent credit management policies
and practices, processes, IT systems, and credit
risk assessment tools. In addition, dedicated credit
management organizations have been established
across all regions and business units. The company
has used risk assessment models to determine
customer credit ratings and credit limits. It has also
implemented risk control points over key processes
along the end-to-end sales cycle to manage credit
risks in a closed-loop manner. Huawei’s Credit
Management Dept regularly assesses global credit
risk exposures, estimates potential losses, and
determines bad debt provisions as appropriate.
In the event that a credit risk for a specific
customer or outstanding trade receivable becomes
inappropriately high, a special handling process is
initiated to mitigate the risk.
Sales Financing
With global coverage, Huawei’s sales financing
team maintains close contact with customers to
understand their financing needs and taps into
diversified financing resources around the world.
As a bridge for communication and cooperation
between financial institutions and customers, the
sales financing team provides customers with
professional financing solutions that continuously
contribute to customer success. Third-party
financial institutions engage with Huawei in export
credit, leasing, and factoring activities to obtain
benefits and they bear the associated risks. Huawei
has established systematic financing policies and
project approval processes to strictly control
financing risk exposures. Huawei shares risks with
financial institutions only on certain projects and
makes provisions for risk contingencies, ensuring
that business risks are under control.
Research and Development
Huawei has set up 16 R&D centers in such countries
as Germany, Sweden, the US, India, Russia, Japan,
Canada, Turkey, and China. Huawei employs
approximately 70,000 product and solution R&D
employees, comprising 45% of our total global
workforce.
We focus investment in key technologies,
architectures, and standards in the ICT field with
the aim of providing broader, smarter, and more
energy-efficient pipes that require zero wait time
and create a better experience for users. We are
committed to continuous innovations, and have
made significant achievements in the fields of
future 5G communications, network architecture,
computing, and storage. We have worked closely
with partners from industry, academia, and
research institutes, enabling us to take the lead in
researching, innovating, and implementing future
networks. We have also set up 28 joint innovation
centers with leading carriers to translate leading
technologies into competitive edges and business
success for customers.
As of December 31, 2013, we had filed 44,168
patent applications in China, 18,791 outside China,
and 14,555 under the Patent Cooperation Treaty
(PCT). Of these applications, 36,511 have been
granted.
We apply mainstream international standards
from the industry, work closely with global tier-1
carriers, and contribute positively to expanding
the ICT industry. We actively proposed to
identify at least additional 500 MHz spectrum
for international mobile telephony (IMT) at the
World Radiocommunication Conference 2015
(WRC-15), and published a white paper titled 5G: A
Technology Vision. In addition, we worked to boost
such network capabilities as service exposure and
service chaining in the areas of System Architecture