In 2007, Weihua's global sales exceeded US$16 billion, a year-on-year increase of 45%, of which more than 70% of the revenue came from markets outside China.

The company has established partnerships with 35 of the world's top 50 operators; The market share in Latin America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa, Southern Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States has steadily increased, laying a dominant pattern; The brand has been established in Europe and Japan, and it has continuously achieved new recognition.

With more than 70,000 employees around the world, we are working with the company to overcome difficulties and share the fruits of the rapid development of the global business.

Qian Dan opened his eyes, and the first rays of sunlight in 2008 were penetrating the curtains and gently hitting his body. He said goodbye to last night of 2007 in Yemen, known as the "blessed land of Arabia", and in Sana'a, known as the "gate of Yemen", and woke up in a new year.

He didn't even know that Yemen's capital was called Sana'a, and he couldn't remember the name of the city he was going to when he booked his flights. He was told that Yemeni was the origin and center of the Arab world, and that Yemenis was the purest Arab.

The ancient city of Sana'a was declared a World Heritage Site in 1986 because "it is located in a valley at an altitude of 2,200 meters above sea level, where the local population has lived for more than 2,500 years." During the 7th and 8th centuries, the city became an important center for the spread of Christianity. Its political and cultural heritage includes one hundred and six mosques, twelve hamammu monasteries and 6,500 congregations, all built before the 11th century AD. ”

Qian Dan got up and opened the curtains after a while, it was a quiet morning, the sun was warm, there was no human figure in the narrow alley under the window, the houses on both sides of the alley were square shapes, brown walls, and then the outlines of the houses, windows, and doors were outlined with dazzling white, chic and dazzling.

He flew from Riyadh to Sana'a after the end of the Haji guarantee, stayed for a few days, and always felt that the city was lonely and stubborn.

He went to Stone Town outside Sana'a on a weekend, and he had never seen such a castle on large weathered stone pillars before, and it was completely rejecting from thousands of miles away.

After returning from Stone Town, he went to the ancient city of Sana'a, and the ancient city gate reminded Qian Dan of the city gate at the end of the movie "Journey to the West". Sitting on the city wall and basking in the sunset, I feel that I no longer stay in this world, but travel back thousands of years.

Sana'a impressed him the most with the people who lived in the city. On the day of arrival, the flight was full, and most of the people on board were returning home after the pilgrimage to Mecca. As soon as he walked out of the airport, he was startled by the crowd, and the roadside was crowded with people greeting relatives and friends, mostly men with rough faces, dark skin, and strong figures, each with a wide belt around his waist, and a sheathed scimitar in the belt.

The knife is the size of a woodcutter used at home when I was a child, and it goes straight down from the handle, and suddenly bends nearly 180 degrees in the middle, and the end is pointed upward, looking like a handicraft.

When he entered Sana'a City, he found that the most common attire of men on the street was a white robe, with a suit over the white robe, a loose scarf around his neck, a wide belt around his waist, and a sheathed scimitar in the belt.

It turns out that the scimitar is only one of the most important parts of the traditional clothing of Yemeni men, and it is important symbols of Yemeni culture, and it is said that this waist knife with the English name "jah" began to accompany Yemeni men in BC.

Men all over the world are traditionally good at swords, but nowadays most men just touch the pseudo-metal shell of their mobile phones, and then pinch a slender stylus and scratch the screen.

The "individuality" of Yemeni men does not stop there, and there are often locals in the streets and alleys with one side of the cheeks protruding and a small ball of meat bulging. When Qian Dan first saw it, he thought it was a congenitally deformed person, and he didn't dare to look at it for fear of being offended, but later found out that it was actually the most popular face in the city. They are the ones who are munching on the leaves of the Carter tree.

Qian Dan had seen the Carter tree growing on the edge of the ancient stone town, with a thin, straight and weak trunk and oval leaves, which looked no different from ordinary green trees. It is Yemen's most important cash crop, accounting for more than one-third of the country's crop output, and more than one million Yemenis make a living from growing Carter.

Chewing on the leaves of the Carter tree is the beautiful life of most Yemeni men, who often start to put the leaves in their mouths in the afternoon, chew them slowly, suck the juices, and roll the chewed residues on the side of the cheeks with their tongues.

The ephedrine substance rich in carter can stimulate the nerves and make people feel happy, and it is said that after chewing, people will be thirsty in the mouth and have a fever all over the body, but they can't stop it. Carter is listed as a contraband in a number of countries, and its popularity is only in Yemen.

Qian Dan was called to Yemen by Lu Wentao, the first temperament man in Sana'a.

Lu Wentao will also be transferred back to the regional department after the Spring Festival and return to Cairo.

He has long complained that Qian Dan did not come to Yemen on a business trip, and Qian Dan always said that with him Lu Wentao here, he is not worried about Yemen's business at all. Finally, Yemen's YT Telecom's SMS system had a minor accident due to a software bug, and Lu Wentao forced Qian Dan to come to Yemen to apologize to the customer.

They went to visit the CEO of YT Telecom, and the appointment time was 8 o'clock in the evening, they arrived 30 minutes early, parked their car in the parking lot of YT Telecom and waited in the car. Lu Wentao went to Eritrea on a business trip a few days ago and only returned to Yemen that day.

Lu Wentao said: "The CEO is very young, and he is only in his thirties when he studied at the University of Baghdad in Iraq. Nice people, very easy to deal with. He was one of the hard-working bureaucrats at YT Telecom, and we often came to his office at eight or nine o'clock in the evening for meetings. What are you going to say about him later? ”

Qian Dan turned his head and looked at Lu Wentao's serious appearance: "Isn't it?" Now I'm cramming, what do I plan to say? Didn't you say that you don't need to prepare materials to make the atmosphere a little more relaxed? I plan to listen to him more, and you will lead the two of us, so I will show our sincerity and attention. ”

Lu Wentao said: "You don't need to prepare materials, don't you have time now?" I'm still going to check your train of thought, what if you talk nonsense? ”

Qian Dan reported at a glance: "First, I would like to say that I am very sorry for the impact of this accident on YT Telecom, thank YT Telecom very much for his dissatisfaction and complaints about this accident, and express my sincere gratitude to the CEO himself for his long-term support to Weihua; Second, I will explain Weihua's quality principles and tell him that product quality has always been Weihua's self-esteem, and this accident is a very unfortunate, accidental, isolated failure, not a common problem; Third, I will ask him to confirm that this accident can be closed and become a thing of the past. And ask him if he still has any demands on Weihua? I'll just talk about these three points, how about it? Is Mr. Lu satisfied? ”

Lu Wentao said with satisfaction: "Yes, I have a lot of experience in apologies, it seems that your software has been trained by accidents at two ends in three days." ”

"Whew! Who said that our software has accidents at two ends in three days? Qian Dan was a little weak-hearted: "However, the feature of software products is that they have changed more, and they can be upgraded if they have nothing to do. ”

At two o'clock in eight, they walked into the CEO's office.

The room is spacious, with the CEO's desk at one end and a rectangular conference table in the middle. The CEO was indeed humble and did not call any of his subordinates, the three of them sat down at one end of the conference table, and their voices were not loud, so quiet that they could hear the hum of the fluorescent lamps overhead.

Although the theme of the visit was "apology", the CEO did not have any excuse to play, he quietly listened to Qian Dan finish his first, second and third, and gently expressed his satisfaction with Weihua's handling process, the accident can be closed, and then began to talk about some new business demands of YT Telecom without hurry.

Qian Dan listened, remembered, and occasionally wandered to see a small ant that appeared on the table.

When saying goodbye, the CEO walked to his desk and took out a plastic bag for Qian Dan to take away, which was actually full of peanuts, melon seeds and fruit candy.

Back in the dormitory, the two of them sat on the edge of the bed and hunched over the garbage basket eating peanuts and melon seeds, looking back on the exchange process just now, Qian Dan had the illusion that he was going back to the 80s and went to visit relatives.

The next afternoon, when Qian Dan was sitting in his office to "kill the mail", five local Yemeni employees of the representative office's software service appeared in front of him, and Khalid, led by him, stood a big step closer than the others, politely: "Boss, do you have time to communicate with us?" ”

The software service has a total of seven permanent employees in Yemen, two Chinese and five local. Qian Dan had discussed with their Chinese leader in Yemen that he would communicate with the local employees once every two days, but they couldn't wait. He muttered in his heart: "This is the first time I have met the local employees of the representative office who have taken the initiative and collectively come to him to communicate with him in so many business trips, what are their dissatisfaction and demands?" ”

Qian Dan followed them to a small conference room, and after sitting down, Khalid got his head, but: "Boss, what do you think of Yemen?" ”

"I think Yemen is a very attractive ancient country, with stone towns, ancient cities, scimitars, and," Chandan puffed out his cheeks, imitating people who chew carter leaves.

A few local employees laughed, and the atmosphere became a little more congenial.

"I visited the CEO of YT Telecom last night, and he is a hardworking, gentle and professional person, which makes me have a better impression of Yemenis. ”

Khalid's expression quickly became serious again: "However, we feel that the Chinese do not trust the Yemenis, and we do not have the opportunity to play a greater role." ”

Qian Dan was a little surprised: "Why do you think so?" ”

"We are always assigned to do simple work, important operations are always done by Chinese, and you would rather ask the headquarters for Chinese business travel support than give us more responsibilities," Khalid said. ”

Several others added: "Our regular meetings are always divided into two parts, and the Chinese will continue to meet in Chinese after we are gone, and a few times we find that the final conclusion is different from the conclusion when we left." ”

"We have two Chinese employees and five local employees in our team, and although there are more Yemenis and more familiar with customers, the two Chinese are always used to telling us what to do, and rarely let us discuss together why we do it?"

"We love working at Weiwah, we are not new employees anymore, and we want to be able to do more and more challenging things."

Qian Dan felt a little self-blame and a little annoyance, blaming himself for being the first time to communicate with local employees when he went to each representative office on a business trip, but this time he came to Yemen but dragged on, and he was annoyed that their leader in Yemen still made local employees feel so unappreciated?

"I'm surprised that you feel that way, we have always valued the building of local teams and believed in the capabilities of local employees," he said. In fact, in the regional department, in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Tunisia and other countries, local employees are not only able to carry out all the important technical operations independently, but have also begun to take on some business management tasks. ”

"Yes, we read the stories of growth shared by Ammar from the regional department, Sami from Iraq, etc., so we want to have the opportunity," Khalid said. ”

While comforting and encouraging several local employees, Qian Dan thought in his heart: The company has made great progress in overseas localization construction in recent years, but this progress is more pinned on people than on mechanisms.

For example, when Liu Tie in Iraq preconceived that the training cycle of local employees would take at least one year, his local employees grew slowly, and later, when he changed his thinking and believed that Iraqis were the same as Chinese, a group of backbone like Sami quickly emerged in his team.

For example, when he went to Saudi Arabia for the first time, the leader of the representative office at that time required everyone to speak English in the office area, and when he heard someone speaking Chinese, he was fined, and the local team in Saudi Arabia showed strong combat effectiveness, and when he went to Saudi Arabia this time, the leader of the new representative office did not have mandatory requirements for the working language, and the office returned to Chinese and English to talk separately, and he could feel that localization was somewhat regressive.

Although Weihua is becoming one of the most successful Chinese companies in the world, it is still lacking in foundation, and there is still a gap between it and the century-old stores in the West. Qian Dan's heart gave birth to a sense of mission and responsibility.

In the evening, Qian Dan took Wentao's car from the office back to the dormitory, and he talked about the exchange with local employees in the afternoon.

Lu Wentao said: "I have high requirements for 'no accidents', although I have local deputies, but I really did not force all the Chinese leaders in localization, some leaders are more bold in localization, the effect is better, and the leaders of your software are indeed the most cautious and conservative." I was most afraid that you would have an accident, so I didn't force him. ”

Qian Dan said: "In the future, we still dare to use them." In the past, when I went on a business trip to a representative office, I talked to the local employees about when would they get a raise? Now there is more focus on whether there is a greater opportunity? These brothers still have pursuits, and they chatted with me for almost two hours, but they didn't mention when the salary would be raised. ”

Lu Wentao said: "That was just a salary increase for them. We really need to reuse locals more, especially for positions with strong customer stickiness, and Chinese will always be mobile. ”

He changed the subject and said, "Don't talk about work, will you go back to Egypt the day after tomorrow?" I'll take you tomorrow to buy some Yemeni produce. ”

"What do you have in Yemen?"

"Yemen's coffee and honey are very good, Mocha coffee is a city in Yemen, there is a kind of honey here that is said to be aphrodisiac, you can buy more."

"Aphrodisiac? I bought it useless. You eat more yourself, why haven't you made it for two years? ”

Lu Wentao sighed: "Alas! How do I know? I didn't drink less honey water. Didn't you hear now that Egypt is a treasure of feng shui, and several colleagues succeeded in creating people in Egypt last year? I will be transferred back to Cairo after the Spring Festival to make people. ”

These days, Qian Dan has always felt that Lu Wentao is a little different from before, and he can't tell what is different, and at this moment he suddenly realized: "Hey, I always feel that you are a little abnormal, and I finally remembered, why don't you say 'stupid' now?" Changed Sven after coming to Yemen? ”

Lu Wentao said: "You don't allow me to keep pace with the times? Now that we're a big global company, I'm getting a little more specific, okay? ”

Their car continued to move forward, a bright moon shining on the road in front of the car, and the night in Sana'a seemed quiet.