Emerging from a fortnight in quarantine after returning from his home country Malaysia, Tien-long Woon is eager to get back to business in Thailand. “Fantastic” is the word he uses to describe his first reaction to the world outside and a taste of local ice-cream to celebrate.
Now he’s ready to roll up his sleeves to deliver on the “purple promise” as managing director of FedEx Express Thailand. At a time when people worldwide are relying more than ever on logistics providers to deliver everything from food to essential medical supplies, it’s a big promise to keep.
“Covid-19 has proven to be an unprecedented global health and humanitarian crisis, and an economic shock that we have not experienced since World War II,” Mr Woon says, referring to a recent World Economic Forum report.
In his view, the prolonged pandemic has highlighted the importance of logistics in bringing relief to those who need it most, as well as supporting the resumption of customers’ businesses as economies gradually open up.
With a footprint in more than 220 countries and territories, FedEx began operations in Thailand in 1983 and started freight service in 1999. With two airplanes and a 410-vehicle fleet, it now operates in 12 World Service Centres and eight FedEx stations. FedEx Thailand’s international operations are also a part of and connected to other Asia Pacific hubs in Guangzhou, Osaka and Singapore.
Given the company’s role as an “essential service provider”, FedEx has been operating throughout the pandemic, with an extra emphasis on safety for all concerned. “When Covid-19 hit our country, our first priority was to ensure the health and safety of all our employees,” he tells Asia Focus.
The company has protective measures in place for its 1,400 employees in the country, including allocating supplies of face masks, personal protective equipment and hand sanitiser. Social distancing measures apply for onsite workers, and those who are able to work from home are being allowed to do so.
Now that the pandemic is under control in Thailand, FedEx is looking to serve the drivers of recovery, including overseas trade, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and last-mile delivery for e-commerce.
“The implementation of the state of emergency led to temporary suspensions or slowdowns of many retail businesses across Thailand,” Mr Woon recalls of the early days of the outbreak, noting that business hurried to re-strategise and explore options that would allow them to carry on amid the uncertainty.
As the lockdown took hold, so too did digitisation, especially among SME customers of FedEx, Mr Woon observes. The company quickly prepared additional storage space to ensure capacity for increased inbound volumes, and began offering contactless delivery to limit risk when accepting packages.
FedEx, he says, also had to monitor frequent changes in customs regulations and shipping guidelines amid the upheaval in international transport, and keep customers updated on changes that would affect their shipments.
With e-commerce adoption increasing, FedEx is also helping more e-tailer customers to navigate regulatory and compliance issues that are new to them, as well as and facilitating secure payment processing, says Mr Woon.
Other customers, meanwhile, are asking FedEx to help them as they shift their business model from brick-and-mortar to online. They need sustainable solutions that can be scaled up as needed.
Having its own fleet enables FedEx to increase flights to and from Asia Pacific hubs. In April, its flight operations between Asia and Europe increased by 50%, and they continued to increase in May and June as manufacturing and business reopened across Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
CAREER JOURNEY
“My career started very conventionally in terms of engineering,” says Mr Woon, 35. After obtaining his engineering degree in Australia, he began as a mechanical engineer and later as a process engineer at a hard disk manufacturer in Kuala Lumpur.
After three years in the manufacturing sector, he says, he decided to “really give some thought to what I wanted to do next”.
That thought process led him to logistics, which he described as an “interesting (and) fast-changing environment” when he joined FedEx a decade ago as the world and global trade were changing. However, he admits that “I didn’t foresee it would be as fast-changing as it is”, as a result of disruption by digitisation and e-commerce in recent years.
Mr Woon started off as a process engineer who oversaw operational simulations, which he described as “how best to improve efficiency”. He did “a little bit of budgeting” as well. Then he moved to Operations Excellence where he oversaw quality and compliance services of FedEx Malaysia.
After spending two years based in Penang and Kuala Lumpur as senior manager of operations, Mr Woon was promoted to managing director to supervise the FedEx Express business in Thailand.
Given his strong engineering background, Mr Woon says he can apply the knowledge and experience of his early years to the position he occupies now.
Problem-solving is among those skills and it is one that he views as essential, not only for himself but for helping his team to drive the business forward.
“We are at a very interesting period in time where I think we really need a lot of interesting solutions,” says Mr Woon. It is important to identify what customers need and to find the right solutions, particularly digital ones, to prepare for the future down the road.
Though he has been in the industry for 10 years, Mr Woon says everything about it still excites him and he learns new things every day. “If someone says ‘we know everything’ at FedEx, they’re just kidding themselves a little bit,” he says.
“Over the last 10 years, I’ve seen the business evolve tremendously,” Mr Woon continues. “We evolve along with our customers who are from all walks of life.”
Not only does the company have to evolve to keep up with its customers, it needs to stay ahead and make sure that it’s ready for the next big change, he adds.
“I’m still learning,” he says humbly.
LOGISTICS FUTURE
Looking at how the logistics field has been disrupted by digitisation and e-commerce, and now a global pandemic, Mr Woon believes that swift digital transformation is the most obvious consequence of Covid-19 and “it is here to stay”. It will define the future of the industry for both consumers and businesses.
“Embracing digitisation was already well under way before the onset of Covid-19 but with the pandemic it has now leapfrogged many years ahead for both B2B (business to business) purchasers and consumers due to market shifts,” he says. In his view, the world vaulted five years forward in around eight weeks this year.
There are three phases — short, medium and long-term — to note with regard to the future landscape of the logistics industry, Mr Woon believes.
“In the short term, the industry must deal with market shifts in freight capacity demand,” he explains, adding that as different economies emerge from Covid-19 at different times, that demand will vary across many trade lanes.
Peak shipping volumes are already at capacity. Emerging markets such as the Philippines and developed economies such as Australia have experienced earlier peak seasons thanks to Covid-19.
Since “recovery is not going to be the same everywhere” in the medium term, in which a resurgence of the virus around the world is possible, the direction toward recovery might be reversed, says Mr Woon.
“Building resilience in terms of business strategy and operations will be critical for all industry players,” he points out.
In the longer term, he says, “we will likely see production shifts and more diversified trade lanes as businesses reduce dependence on one country or one production location or a single supplier, which could shut down business in times of crisis”.
As countries like Japan, South Korea and the US are looking beyond one market for goods and services, other Asian economies including Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand stand to benefit from this trend.
“This will change the pattern of how goods move and will create a need for trade lane diversification,” says Mr Woon.
Increased adoption of e-commerce, meanwhile, has emerged as “a key long-term driver of change in the industry” as consumers increase their online spending.
In the first three months of 2020, global e-commerce revenue grew 20% year-on-year as Covid-19 began to spread and people started to do more consuming from the safety of their homes. In the second quarter, the growth figure jumped to 71%. In Thailand, e-commerce revenue is expected to hit 220 billion baht by the end of this year, compared with about 160 billion in 2019.
As more brick-and-mortar stores migrate their operations to online channels, there will be huge opportunities for logistics providers. “We must be prepared to support these businesses through scalable solutions to support these new digital-based forms of trade,” says Mr Woon.
SMEs have always been FedEx’s primary focus, Mr Woon highlights, noting that in Thailand, they are the backbone of the economy accounting for more than 90% of enterprises and employing approximately two-thirds of the national workforce.
Despite being the key players in the market, many SMEs have been forced to shut down, resulting in mass unemployment and disruption of supply and value chains.
FedEx has been offering support to SMEs including webinars throughout Asia Pacific to equip owners with essential knowledge, discuss shipping services and how to build resilient supply chains to adapt their business models to new customer demands and market shifts.
The company is using technology to support e-commerce growth, particularly for SMEs, to help customers be more agile, dynamic and responsive to the new normal. Solutions can range from customising delivery preferences such as delivery times and locations, online billing, mobile payment and order tracking.
“For SMEs involved in e-commerce who rely on customers getting their goods on time and in the right location, this service will be a game-changer,” says Mr Woon.
Small businesses are also getting more help to successfully navigate customs clearance and regulatory procedures.
In a highly competitive field with a handful of multinational delivery powerhouses and scores of smaller newcomers, Mr Woon believes that what makes FedEx stand out is its philosophy, people and service.
“Every FedEx member, regardless of our positions, has taken the pledge to make every FedEx experience outstanding, and that is FedEx’s purple promise.”
Keeping that promise has helped transform the 47-year-old company into a global giant, ranked 70th in the Fortune 500, with more than 500,000 employees worldwide, nearly 400 of its own aircraft and another 280 contracted planes. In 2019 the company reported revenue of US$69.7 billion and net profit of $540 million.
LESSONS LEARNED
Covid-19 has pushed businesses into new territory where everything is changing constantly, so business leaders around the world have been learning on the fly to navigate through unknown skies. Day by day, new insights and understandings are gained.
For Mr Woon, the first of three lessons he says he has learned is adaptability. Having to revise standard operating procedures (SOP) and processes daily, everything has to be “very clear”, he says. The team “must be quick” to move on from things that don’t work, then ask, “What should we try next?”
“Adaptability helps you with your customers. And it helps you with your people.”
As the company adapts, customers are still at the heart of the operation, and that is the second lesson: “How is this affecting our customers?” Every solution, therefore, must be implemented with customers in mind.
“The last is open communication,” Mr Woon says, adding that in times of uncertainty, people always look up to their leaders for answers. However, the pandemic has taught him that there are no right answers.
“So, open communication and the ability to tell people that we do not know are important,” he adds. “Communicate as much as we know” is his advice. And for the things he doesn’t know? “Say we don’t know” and “we will get back to you as soon as possible.”
“It is important to ensure that our people remain confident with the decisions that we make,” he adds. Also, “don’t be too upset about the planning” because everything changes. “Be ready to change once you are ready for the change, it makes it easier.”
This aligns with Mr Woon’s management style, which he says “is really based on transparency and trust”, as he tries to share as much information as possible with his team.
When there is disagreement, he says it’s normal and the important thing is that “we agree to disagree”.
“It’s important to hear the viewpoints of each other,” Mr Woon says, and once the team has come to a conclusion, “we move forward as a team”.
Away from the office, Mr Woon says his “absolute joy” is a good game of badminton, which he plays two hours a week. “I do enjoy the sweat.”
He also loves music. Growing up with his father’s tracks, he is more into “60s to 70s old soul” sounds. “I’m young, I need to clarify that first,” the millennial executive quips, even though his regular playlist includes the Beatles and “dad rock” standards like Hotel California — “I really enjoy and love to listen to that song.”
Adjusting to life in Thailand, he adds, has not been that difficult, though the cuisine has turned out to be more of a challenge than he thought it would be.
“As Malaysians, we like to pride ourselves on being able to eat spicy food,” he says. But after more than a year in Thailand, “I have learned not to say that I can eat spicy food,” he jokes, explaining that what passes for “spicy” in each country is quite different.
What a local might consider a normal spicy level could be a “disaster” for him in the second half of the day, so Mr Woon tends to order meals that are slightly less spicy.
Nevertheless, he says of Thai cuisine, “I love it”, mentioning green curry, massamun, tom yum and som tam as favourites.
“I feel like having lunch, again,” he jokes at the end of our conversation.