Meet Tiffany Luo – Strategic Procurement & Supply Excellence Transformation Expert!

How did you end up here? What is your professional background? 

With a solid technical background as a Master of Science in Electricity, Electronics, and Mechanical, strengthened by Finance MBA Leadership, I had 18 years of focus in procurement, supply chain, and digital transformation experiences in World 500 High-tech Industry-leading Public-listed Mega MNCs, and undertaken roles as Director of Strategic Sourcing & New Global Platform Products Innovation Advanced Procurement, Head of Supply Excellence & Digital Transformation, Business Partner of Pillar Mobility Product Line, Head of Supply Base Quality & Agility Reform, Member of North Asia Supply Council, Senior Global Commodity Management. I studied for my CPSM, Certified Expert DFX & LEAN, Certified PMP, and Certified Global Leading Complex Negotiator over the years while doing extremely hands-on practices, leading strategic sourcing & supply chain transformation projects, which served as a great foundation for the brand-new chapter of my career in ArcBlue.

My industry experiences radiate to New Mobility Automotive, Aerospace & Marine, Healthcare & Medical, AI Digital, 5G/6G IoT Cloud, Robotics, Interactive Connectivity, Consumer Electronics Smart City Smart Home, while my major focus is how to transform sustainable supply resilience through a highly customized process and strategic methodology under the currently fast-changing & challenging environment. While in MNC Corporates, I won the CEO Award as Top Leader in APAC Digital Transformation project & Change Management projects and won Customer-Selection Champion Award in global procurement cost prime reform & supply excellence resilience competitions three years in a row, which enabled me to be more agile and to master what ArcBlue’s clients really want. I am embracing a spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation and customer-focused commitment to join ArcBlue, exploring with curiosity as a pioneer.

How do you spend most of your days?

My day normally starts with a double espresso oat latte and basil cheese bagel or cinnamon roll, and my calendar is full of meeting schedules for different clients in all time zones. Working days are always full of internal workshops and external client meetings, frequent interactions with consulting colleagues and with clients. Those brainstorms really contribute to creative solutions based on industry standards and best practices.

Most of my time is spent on understanding what the most challenging bottlenecks are that end-customer Executives are facing now, and providing tailor-made solutions per distinct problem end-customers get bogged down in a dead circle. I’m quite hands-on in daily deliverables with high quality and sharp commitment, managing clients’ expectations well, proactively enhancing relationships with partners through business proposal development, and also sparing some energy on supporting my consulting colleagues on other projects.

What are you working on at the moment?

As a senior consultant at ArcBlue, I‘m so lucky to be engaged with a diverse portfolio of projects with Bain.

I am currently working on a couple of interesting projects; one is helping an Automotive Tier1 Mega MNC to increase competition through enhanced sourcing strategies and a comprehensive contract management framework upgrade, which is a very fast-paced project. Many deliverables range from contract diagnosis, figuring out improvement opportunities, providing recommendations on achievable renewals of all contracts/frame agreements, and designing highly-customized negotiation strategies and quantified financial impacts per initiative. The client and Bain team are highly motivated while I manage with proven experiences in industry best practices and hands-on advisory action plan details. I feel a sense of pride when I hear that the client fully bought into my ideas and is satisfied to continue to the next chapter of the project extension. I poured all my heart and soul into this project; the recognition from the client is worth all effort.

The second project is working for a leading Semiconductor Foundry MNC, providing market intelligence fact-base for a Wafer category, to set up a category strategy approach through more-in-depth analysis, focusing on long-term outcomes with outside-in views, mapping silicon wafer value chain through angles like a strategic lens, comprehensive evaluation, and value creation, further providing likely impacts and feasibility of industry-generic initiatives. During the client Executive review meeting, I also provided a full coverage gaps diagnosis and suggested a methodology by highlighting that the procurement team should be moving away from rules-based roles and moving more to a broader commercial role as a value enabler. It’s interesting to see the different levels of procurement capacity in different regions and it is challenging to identify reforms that are both implementable and will bring real sustainable reform, however, the determination has been enhanced when we identified that the improvement opportunities were integrated into the way Procurement operates and engages with the front-end sales marketing and trailing end supply chain planning, and my expertise was comprehensively interpreted and applied.

What project has been the most fun / the meatiest to work on at ArcBlue?

Lots of interesting projects so far! The most fun to work on are two projects:

One is for restructuring the vertically integrated relationships between Tier2/Tier3 chip IDM makers with Automotive OEM Giant through innovative value chain build-up. I fully supported OEM customers with different levers around demand, supply and product design, by enabling an ecosystem, digging deeper into the value chain, and bringing functions in-house. It is interesting that almost the most creative brains have been pulled together for this project business proposal presentation in front of the OEM customer, who was so rigorous and challenging with questions, however, although I didn’t meet other consultants in person, we really work like a super-genius team, hand in hand, fearlessly; Immersed in the right rhythms.

The other unique project I would pick then is helping a Singapore local but globally leading Aerospace/Marine/Domestic Defense manufacturer towards a new transformation journey. This project brought together the best consultants from ArcBlue, and it is so much fun to join every brainstorming session, through which all our brains bounced the most creative but practical ideas, identifying gaps, customizing solutions, illustrating each category strategic improvement and developing digital optimization through the full value chain. This is the rarest opportunity that we, the ArcBlue team, extremely endeavour for our own project. When the whole team completed the final presentation and sat down for reflection, I still felt excited and very proud that I had been a part of this project.

What trends do you see in your work?

The most significant trend, I would say, is the increasing speed of high-tech development, highly interconnected, intense 6G Internet of Things, the overwhelming Artificial Intelligence, and end-to-end linkage of full value chain throughout the whole industry, while procurement and supply chain inevitably become a profit enabler from a commercial perspective. Because of COVID-19, which created deep disruptions to global supply chains, also created huge opportunities for us at ArcBlue to work for enterprises who are eager to create value through procurement transformation and supply chain excellence reform in resilience improvement.

Either supplier or purchaser, if unilaterally act, will be eliminated by the progressing times. The significant trend is bilateral cooperation and increased interaction throughout the whole value chain; Strategic suppliers’ early engagement in advanced procurement for innovating global platform product design-in, periodical joint management business review with product line roadmap sharing, supplier senior executives temporarily being hired as expert or consultant, for competition incentives.

Energy-saved is the greenest. Another trend is the increasing sense and sensibility globally to protect the environment and to keep the pace towards sustainable development. Laws and regulations will be more restrictive regarding green supply.

What do you love best about procurement?

Procurement is the most strategic catalyst for enterprise innovations, with the end-to-end value flowing, transformational procurement leadership needs to work with startups, thought leaders, interact networks, outsourced suppliers, and internal stakeholders. The diversity of activities and engagements range from globally complex negotiations, vision and strategies, continuous improvement with supplier collaboration, sustainable procurement, and supply risk mitigation, while the essence of which includes experiment, planned adventure and uncertainty, all of which drive positively business reshaping.

What is the one thing you wish everyone would understand about procurement?

The ultimate goal of value-driven procurement transformation is to achieve three excellence and one innovation: excellent organized procurement team management, excellent strategic category management, excellent non-copyable supply base and agile supplier group, and innovative integration and empowerment of practical scene design and digitalization.

At this stage, the procurement function has been given more important expectations, which has gone beyond “simple price reduction” and has become a “weapon” for enterprise development and competition. The procurement personnel should have “the ability to change, strategic thinking and influence others”. They can establish a stable relationship with suppliers, especially those with complementary resources. They can also implement governance, reduce risks, and provide innovative products and services.

Supplier management resources should be more focused on the interaction mode of key suppliers with great strategic potential in the future, rather than the traditional focus on the historical performance of suppliers. These suppliers with high strategic potential can help enterprises establish competitive advantages.

What are you currently trying to upskill in?

Coming to Y2023, my focused upskilling is all related to high-tech innovation, which helps me a lot while providing the most suitable supply base with the best cost components.

Over the last 10 months, I have been proactively participating in Executive Summit Forum, focusing on the Automotive new materials application, the development of low-carbon materials, the research on magnesium-lithium alloy materials, the application progress of carbon fiber composite precision structural parts, the auto industry supply chain security in the wave of anti-globalization, and I have been confident to touch the pulse of reconstruction of industrial ecology of automotive industry chain under “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals” while creating a green, low-carbon and circular economy. I am now capable of evaluating whether a specific enterprise is competitive or not while developing a future supply base with the strategic roadmap, along with Y2023-Y2025 Automotive’s new supply chain core technological development blueprints.

I am so lucky to be selected to participate in the 6G Terahertz Research & AI Workshops in a leading University since June, while understanding how relevant radio frequency chips and baseband chips developed to satisfy the future needs of 6G, together with the evolution of Semiconductor packaging technology adaptable to 6G. I have been learning Artificial Intelligence solutions which Nvidia has been promoting comprehensively among building automatic manufacturing plants, simulating home decoration layouts for large retail business, and innovating more centralized and reliable auto-on-board computer systems.

What’s the reason you love to work at ArcBlue? What made you join us?  

Destiny made me join ArcBlue😊

There are two major positive reasons for me to love to work at ArcBlue.

People are always the core, colleagues here are senior, brilliant, hands-on, and down-to-earth, while the leadership team is encouraging authenticity and uniqueness.

The other major factor is, ArcBlue is emerging and developing fast in APAC with significant growth opportunities, which is like a fertile high-quality soil, with new visions, and new career development opportunities as an entrepreneur.

What’s something not many people know about you?

I am enthusiastic about world-class museums and am a bit of a museum painting fanatic when travelling around the world! During the past 24 years of international travelling, I have devoted all the time at my disposal to the Musée du Louvre, the British Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, while those fine arts in the museum brought me great feelings of humanity and peace.

The other thing many people might not know is, that I am qualified and certified as a Legal Practicing Professional under P.R.C. and specialize in civil law and civil suits. I always hold the perception that the law is obliged to shine a light into the darkness of human nature and that legal aid shall be accessible to more ordinary people.

I am also a certified psychological therapist for helping depression patients who are pregnant or are just after the maternity period. I will devote myself to fully supporting 24-hour on-call medical assistance, especially to heal and take care of the emotional health of pregnant women and women who just delivered babies.