pRoFILES
Smoothing Things over Gilles Thierry
Supply Chain Director
Nivea (Shanghai)
Gilles Thierry talks about the meticulous methods of his German headquar-
ters and China’s “wait until it’s a problem” mindset.
You’ve built factories all over the world, most recently there is never one completely sustainable improvement – we’ve made
the new one in Qingpu, right outside of Shanghai. How do a bunch of improvements but nevertheless, there are problems.
your experiences in China compare?
Building a factory is a really long journey in any country, but it’s an Two years ago, Nivea acquired C-BONS, a Chinese hair care
even bigger job when you work with a German company in China. company, any big changes happening there?
Western cultures like Germany’s want to plan everything and want In the first 2 years, we have changed nothing over at C-BONS - no
to be able to anticipate all risks. The Chinese likes to work more management has switched - nothing. This is because we wanted to
reactively - they are trained to solve problems when the problems first understand their Chinese market and their way of working – we
arise – with my French roots I am a little more flexible because I’m are convinced that the western recipe (in terms of behavior) can not
used to a more Latin way of life – but getting these two groups to be completely copied in a Chinese company, so we will be manag-
work together can come to real clashes in perspective. However, my ing any changes very carefully – we want to first understand C-Bons
Chinese colleagues like the support because the Germans bring new before acting in a any sort of deep way – of the four brands Slek and
tools and new skills. Maestro will be the most key.
Also when building there is always try to
Chinese
How do you see your supply chain
balance building fast with being organized
consumers are
changing in the future?
– it is so essential for be organized, but if Logistics has definitely has a big future in
you’re not quick then you loose out. In China,
demanding –
China for a lot of different reasons – it’s a
it’s difficult to know how to deal with a big huge country that is developing more and
construction company and suppliers and it’s
if a cosmetic more infrastructure –at the same time the
difficult to get a reliable supply from suppli-
ers, to ensure effective quality checks on the
product is less
requirements of the customers like Carre-
four and Tesco is moving in the same direc-
construction –things like concrete quality, size
than one year,
tion as western countries. People are starting
of the walls, basement depth – these are very to want very short lead times for deliveries
important to get right the first time to avoid
no one will
– they don’t want stock – they want fresh
massive losses later. products – I mean, we’re not even the food
buy it on the industry, but consumers still want fresh
How do you deal with quality control now
that your factory is in full operation?
shelf
products. The life of our products is 3 years,
but retail doesn’t expect the product to sell
I organize a weekly meeting with my man- if the remaining shelf life is less than a year.
agement and I absolutely always follow the decision In fact, Chinese consumers are even more demand-
of my quality managers – I will never go against ing – if the cosmetic product is less than one
their decisions. It is so important for interna- year, no one will buy it on the shelf– that
tional brands to be especially clear with our rules, means that we must be very flexible in order
and in Beiersdorf, we have international rules, re- to fill supplies.
quirements and systems. The products you find
here in China must be made in exactly the same The year 2010 – good, bad, average?
conditions as they are all over the world. I think it will be a very difficult year for us in
China because all the big cosmetics brands are in Chi-
Is this difficult to ensure? na now and they are investing a lot in advertising, promotions.
In China it is more difficult and I don’t understand why. Chinese Some of these players like P&G and Unilever are much bigger than
people are very used to following the rules, they get taught in school Beiersdorf– Our strengths are that we will be more flexible and reac-
to follow the rules very strictly. But when it comes to quality control, tive than they will be – so the main point for next year is that we are
we train the factory. They can follow the rules for a week or two – facing a lot of competition. Another point of difficulty deals with the
then at the end of the 3rd week, they don’t follow the rules anymore. threat of oil price increases – we do cosmetics obviously, but a lot of
This means you have to repeat and repeat our policies in order to en- our raw materials and packaging materials could be directly affected
sure the rules are always being followed– which in turns means that by the oil prices – for example, all of our plastic tubing and bottles.
www.chainaonline.com JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 31
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