Tofan Yudianto

Tofan Yudianto is Head of Logistics, Asia, for consumer goods manufacturer PZ Cussons. Alongside his logistics experience, he has extensive knowledge of differing parts of the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry thanks to previous roles. “I started in my current role in 2015, but before that I was working with another multinational FMCG company, Unilever,” he says. “There I played several roles, working as the business system manager, working with a staff on projects, and also in the marketing and sales area.”

Yudianto is realistic about the challenges inherent to moving from a longstanding job at one organisation to another entirely, yet enthused by the opportunities for knowledge sharing it presents. “For the role that I have, in the beginning I definitely found it a challenge to adapt to this organisation. Previously I was working for another company for almost 25 years. I was excited to move to PZ Cussons, but having been in one organisation for 25 years, it wasn’t necessarily easy for me to move on and to adapt - because of the culture, the things that I might do differently.”

Yudianto is a believer in three crucial pillars to keep in mind in the business of logistics, as he explains. “These pillars enable logistics and the growth of the business. The first is focusing on customer service. Second is focusing on the costs. And third is focusing on the cash. Customer service is about giving you sustainable growth within the business. A focus on cost will give you competitive growth for the business, and as for cash, it’s about providing profitable growth for the business.”

While these three pillars naturally play into each other, Yudianto also believes in the importance of focusing on each pillar individually. “The customer service refers to how you give a high service level product to your customers to provide more sustainable growth. For the cost you have to consider how you can be more efficient as a business, something which logistics should always keep in mind. The third one is cash, which is based around how effectively you’re utilising working capital and managing inventory.”

Thanks to his extensive experience in the APAC region, Yudianto is well placed to provide insight into how the market is changing and the part logistics will come to play going forwards. “The way I see it in the future for Asia is for logistics to work together with the procurement function,” he says. “Logistics and procurement have to be close, because the challenge is going to be aligning with the manufacturing strategy as the market changes. Previously, manufacturers have been working on producing big volumes sourced from one area. But with consumers changing their behaviour and the ways that they perceive products, I’m anticipating smaller amounts sourced from many locations. Procurement and logistics will need to work together to respond to the market and enable speedy execution.”

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