‘Being connected has helped us through the pandemic’

For anyone involved in any kind of work that requires close collaboration, it’s been a year of change.

“We are truly living in unprecedented times. Have our lives on video calls become the new normal? Will the kitchen table be forever our new workspace? Are we entering a new era of working and collaboration?” asks Derek Collins, director of Industry and Academic Engagement at Huawei Technologies.

Despite the uncertainties, throughout the pandemic, one thing that has remained a constant, he says, is the need to stay connected. “Whether it is with family or friends or work colleagues, being connected has helped us through this,” he suggests.

'It has allowed busy executives who would have spent a lot of time travelling from country to country, to meet with a greater number of universities and academia, including in Ireland'

“In Huawei we continue to work with telecom operators to ensure mobile and broadband networks can deal with the increased demand, because now more than ever we see the value of staying connected.”

Though Collins is based in Ireland, Huawei Ireland Research Centre’s collaborations stretch into Europe, Asia and further afield, as befits a global operation with a presence in over 170 countries.

The company has more than 100,000 people working in research and development (R&D), of which 3,000 are in Europe.

“Global collaboration is at the heart of what we do in R&D at Huawei so this past 18 months has meant that I’m actually having more meetings than I would have had pre-pandemic, which means more ideas, more innovation, and more collaboration,” he says.

“It has allowed busy executives who would have spent a lot of time travelling from country to country, to meet with a greater number of universities and academia, including in Ireland.”

That said, the subtle nuances of meeting someone face-to-face and having that chat before a meeting is something that we all miss, “and I don’t think it’s just an Irish thing because I know colleagues across Europe are feeling the same way,” he adds.

In February of this year, Huawei announced that it will invest €80 million in Irish R&D over the next two years.

'To help with the mindfulness and wellbeing of colleagues and partners we had many social activities, quizzes, sport challenges, photography competitions'

“We are fully committed to growing our R&D here in Ireland and continuing to build on past success and deepen our collaboration with top Irish universities, researchers and companies,” says Collins.

“The R&D goals of Huawei remained steadfast throughout the pandemic and Huawei has increased its investment in basic research and theoretical breakthroughs to support the continued development of a digital, fully connected and intelligent world.”

To manage close collaboration, it worked to deliver remote video platform solutions to allow access to the various different media that universities utilise for sharing and presenting ideas.

“The global VPN (Virtual Private Networks) capacity was truly challenged and tested, with so much traffic over broadband linking to corporate networks, and in the Huawei Ireland Research Centre we looked at ways of improving this, for not only Ireland, but the company worldwide,” he says.

But successful remote working is not all about technology. Maintaining a strong company culture is important too. “To help with the mindfulness and wellbeing of colleagues and partners we had many social activities, quizzes, sport challenges, photography competitions,” he says.

In February 2021, Huawei committed to delivering a further 110 new jobs by the end of 2022. “Throughout the pandemic we hired over 90 highly skilled researchers from all across Europe, many of whom we have not met yet, so activities and team building is important for onboarding and attracting talent,” he adds.

The past 18 months have had a negative effect on some R&D activity however. Some university laboratories, for example, were closed for a period of time, meaning projects had to be “recalibrated in terms of timings and deliverables”, he points out.

But the shared experiences of the past year may equally have recalibrated attitudes too.

“I think this pandemic has given us all an appreciation of the challenges we all face, whether it is the dog barking on your video call or the children running in to be fed, flexibility and openness to new ways of working was required to continue this collaboration activity,” says Collins.

Indeed, a straw poll among businesses undertaken by John Burke, assistant tax manager at Mazars in Ireland, indicates that many, especially in the small and medium enterprise sector, found virtual tools provided good workarounds for collaborative work.

“Platforms such as Zoom, Teams and Slack have mitigated the effects of the pandemic and have enabled close collaboration,” he says.

Some found the new ways of working enables them to reduce overheads. “Several clients have reduced their office footprint and are conducting R&D activities remotely,” says Burke.

“I reached out to a number of clients, of varying sizes, and smaller ones in particular said no, we don’t see us going back into the office at all, we don’t see the value of it because all the tools are there and collaborative work functions perfectly using them.”