Operations Director, ASIA

Overview

The Operations Director is a key member of the Asian Leadership Team and a critical contributor to the APAC Operations team to align to strategic direction, work on local and regional objectives, and drive company success. This is to be achieved through effective leadership, building a highly engaged, empowered and talented workforce who uphold the company’s values, vision, mission and brand in their daily activity.

This role is responsible for managing the effective operations across the 12 countries and 15 entities within the Asian Supply Chain, including warehousing and logistics, inventory planning and open orders management, facilities and support to drive Westcon Comstor’s ESG & ISO programme across ASIA.

The role is Singapore based and will lead an established team of 10 Operations leaders and their teams based across multiple locations across ASIA. This will be in line with established processes across APAC and require collaboration with other regional peers. In addition, the role will need to act as a conduit between other departments, lead their team in all personal development initiatives, and develop, implement and manage change, whilst continually driving business improvement.

Responsibilities

• Take an active role as a senior leader in the business across all areas and contribute to the leadership team proactively and constructively.
• Be the SME (Subject Matter Expert) for the ASIAN Operations.
• Ensure proper cascading of organisational objectives to all levels of the team so they are enabled to fulfil our vision as a region and company.
• Act as an escalation point for the business, customers and vendors around operational objectives, and be actively involved in resolving issues where required at a strategic and executive level.
• Actively develop and coach direct reports on all areas of performance including business acumen, people leadership and achievement of goals.
• Review talent quarterly and ensure development actions are set in place and executed within agreed timeline.
• Take an active role in team resourcing and talent acquisition.
• Develop strong relationships and open communication channels with vendors, resellers and relevant customs officials.
• Day-to-day achievement of MBOs, ensuring service levels (productivity, quality and service) and working capital (DIO, aging, EBITDA) objectives are achieved.
• Analyze team procedures, practices, and processes on a regular basis to improve team efficiency and increase customer and employee satisfaction.
• Create and implement action plans to achieve objectives in alignment with regional peers and APAC Operations Director.
• Responsible for development and optimisation of the ASIAN supply chain identifying opportunities for improvement in utilisation and reduction in costs.
• Responsible for the ASIAN regions Distribution Centres and 3rd party logistics facilities. Work with country Operations leads to ensure KPI targets are met through best practice lean methodology to achieve high outputs whilst managing costs.
• Responsible for the ASIAN regions freight carriers. Manage costs and drive carriers to ensure the company KPI targets are met.
• Responsible for in-country order support team and open order book.
• Responsible for Import team ensuring imports are correctly classified, lodged accurately and have relevant licenses in place (Postel, Sirim, etc).
• Responsible for all RMAs back to Westcon including the process of returns to vendors and resupply to customers.
• Oversight and management of all facilities across ASIA, including lease management, facility security and maintenance.
• Oversight of annual audits related to inventory and supply chain.
• ASIA ownership of ISO certification for Quality, Health and Safety and Environment. Actively participate in audits, IMS and strategic reviews.
• Enforce and drive awareness and compliance with the policies, processes, procedures, and requirements, ensuring operations are compliant with Health and Safety, local regulations, MOAs, Shipping (Export) and Procurement policies and BCP requirements.
• Prepare business analytics for monthly, quarterly and annual Ops reviews.
• Work with local sales teams, vendors and customers to ensure all orders are delivered to the central sale operations team in a clean manner and to the agreed SLAs.
• Collaborate with sales on order forecasting, prioritisation and escalations.
• Drive complete order shipments to reduce aging.
• SME to support and drive Supply Chain Solutions.
• Create, monitor and manage Supply Chain P&L.
• Actively participate in scoping, quoting and presenting Supply Chain opportunities.
• Customer operational onboarding inclusive of SOW revision, Tollgate sign-off for new projects.
• Support supply chain revenue growth across APAC and in collaboration with the Global Customer Sales division.
• Manage and develop value-adding configuration services.
• Plan product inventory levels based on past sales history in collaboration with the global owner.
• Own stock rotation process and maximise stock rotations to reduce aged and slow-moving products.
• Work with vendors to ensure high levels of performance in product quality, delivery lead-times, order accuracy and other areas.
• Run inventory analytical reporting to manage inventory age, availability and health.
• Forecast inventory levels for quarter-ends and rolling 3–6-month periods and ensure inventory levels meet targets.
• Forecast open orders due and invoiced; prepare for QBR with vendors; track SLAs; conduct Monthly Management Operational reviews for APAC leadership.

Key relationships

The Operations Director must interact regularly with many groups and exhibit a high level of professionalism and interpersonal skills. Internal: Employees; Operations Team; Sales Leads; Leadership Team. External: Vendors; Resellers.

Qualifications / Requirements

• Supply Chain Certification and/or other relevant tertiary qualifications highly regarded.
• Relevant Operations Management experience.

Skills And Knowledge

• High level knowledge of integrated ERP systems (SAP plus) - WMS and PTP modules
• Understanding of the IT distribution business
• Expertise in global customs frameworks, including harmonized tariff schedules, customs valuations, import VAT, and strategic goods licensing.
• Facilities and lease management
• Excellent customer service ethic
• Ability to engage employees in a customer and vendor focused culture
• Ability to analyse and improve processes and procedures
• Ability to lead rather than manage
• Microsoft Excel skills at an intermediate level
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Experience

• 10+ years’ experience in supply chain management and associated functions at a senior level – regional position preferable.
• Direct experience in coaching and managing people
• Experience in IT distribution industry would be a distinct advantage

Personal Attributes

• Independent worker with little supervision
• Customer-first philosophy
• Self-motivated with high energy
• Approachable and supportive of staff
• Sense of urgency; willing to challenge the status quo
• Ability and desire to coach staff members
• Excellent communication skills

About Us

Westcon-Comstor is a global technology distributor with capabilities in Cloud, Global Deployment and Services, and security, networking and data center practices. The company collaborates with partners to deliver results and offers a strong portfolio of vendors. With teams in 110 offices in 70+ countries, Westcon-Comstor supports customers across 170+ countries.

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