I was encouraged to see that Huawei had a proper track session on its channel strategy during its 10th Global analyst summit in Shenzhen.  The track is another sign that the company’s enterprise division is maturing and taking the right steps to expand its activities in China as well as globally.

In 2012, Huawei recruited 1,289 distributors, VAPs, and tier 2 channel partners to reach around 3,789 worldwide, which represents growth of 52% in China, Europe, and 26 other key countries globally.  Huawei’s enterprise share of channel sales was around 55% (excludes Operator resale) of its total revenue in 2012, a 32% revenue growth through channels from 2011. Huawei is also starting to build its services and software ecosystems with 700 authorized service partners and 200 ISVs. 

Overall, three key things that stood out to me about Huawei’s partner programs are:  

• A more structured and well-defined partner program: The partner program has evolved considerably since last year and Huawei is working towards mapping its key accounts and streamlining the account management process.  Through the segregation of 5000+ named accounts (key accounts based on deal size) and defining the customer engagement model for high value accounts, Huawei can bring about the clearer channel architecture that will be required to build an open and successful channel ecosystem.

If you’ve been reading my blogs, you know that I love to write about sports analogies to help marketers get a new perspective on the issues they deal with. But, although we’re in the midst of what most likely will be our world champion Miami Heat’s march to its second NBA championship in 2013, I’m going to turn left and mix things up a bit in this post.

I’ve been married to an architect for 25 years (as of this May 29th), so it probably won’t surprise you that I also often think of things in terms of designing and building. Considering what goes into creating a building, it provides a fitting analogy to think about how you should approach building your relationship with your chief information officer (CIO); similar to the way architects needs to work with their clients.

Of course, one can’t construct a solid and sustainable building alone or with just anyone. It requires the unique contribution of a diverse group of professionals with specific areas of expertise — the creative vision of the architect; the construction team’s ability to execute; and the specialized skills of concrete workers, carpenters, roofers, and plasterers.  And let’s not forget the importance throughout the process of interior design experts as well as the technical insights from  structural engineers to ensure that the building is and remains hurricane- and/or quake-resistant.

So how does constructing a strong, yet flexible, building apply to CMOs and the relationship you should have with your CIO?

If you are at the deYoung museum in San Francisco and do a search on “painting,” you might be looking for a Van Gogh. If you are in Home Depot and do a search on “painting,” you likely need supplies for your weekend project.

I heard the term “invisible search terms” today at Google I/O in the Indoor Location session. While you may not type in “Impressionism” or “supplies” with paint, a smart application – or search function, in this case – can take a pretty good guess at what you want based on where you are.

In a report I wrote in 2011, I talked about layering intelligence on top of location – yes, you have my lat/long, but what does it mean? And how do you use that intelligence to make services and content relevant to me?

I’m at Google I/O, and the discussion continues around how to use context to make applications smarter. 

Mobile services must be contextual. Screens are small. Interfaces are limited. Consumers are task-oriented. “I want to pay a bill” or “I need to make this shopping list before my son is finished with soccer practice." Total context – the sum of everything you know about a consumer, including what he/she is experiencing now – must be used to create the relevancy in the delivery of content and services.

Context can help shorten the number of steps on a phone to complete a task. We already see this with companies like Apple – the application switches to “store mode.” Starwood Hotels switches its app to 'travel mode' when a guest is within 48 hours of a stay. Services we only envisioned two years ago are real today.

Why don’t more companies use mobile context? Our research tells us it's lack of bandwidth; executing on the basics keeps us busy enough. It’s also hard to do – and most enterprises don’t have the right analytics or metrics in place to measure the impact.

Google rolled out a number of tools/features for developers today to make using context easier. It’s exactly what we need.

Here’s the list:

1)  Geofencing within apps: This allows developers to set up 100 geofenced areas. It will be excellent for local services and smaller brands (plus media companies). Too few for large national brands with hundreds or thousands of locations.

2)  Google Activity: It abstracts the context of walking, running, cycling, making it easier for developers to use motion context.