Information technology and business services management trainee

"The opportunity of working for the best beer company in the world is always the grandest dream for me, a beer lover. What has attracted me most to work at Budweiser APAC are the company's unique dream, its culture, and its people."

After graduating from the City University of Hong Kong with a Master's degree in Operations and Supply Chain Management, I joined Budweiser APAC's Xiamen Business Shared Services Centre as a Solutions MT in 2019.

With a culture that encourages us to take on challenges and bring people together for a better world, I felt that my project in Demand Planning allowed me to do both. For many years, Demand Planning has relied on human hunch and some simple univariate statistical models.

However, in today's rapidly changing business environment, existing methods don't meet our requirements. Especially, the critical role of big data and artificial intelligence can't be neglected. I took on this challenge to apply cutting-edge technologies to improve our demand planning operations.

Once I took this on, we revamped the statistical modelling process parameters from considering only historical sales data to a more multivariate machine learning model that considered external and internal demand drivers such as prices, discounts, brand promotions, sales targets and holidays.

To take a process head-on and then see how we can improve it – is a core tenet of the Budweiser APAC's approach and my work with Demand Planning allowed us to make our operation more intelligent and efficient by applying cutting-edge technologies.

After graduating from Xiamen University with a Master's degree in Chemistry, I joined Budweiser APAC in the Shanghai HQ as a B2B product manager in 2018. What attracted me most to work here was the inclusive working environment and approachable leaders. The company always provides young talents a chance to grow and a big platform to launch their careers.

During my role, there was a challenge for the project team to deliver KPIs which seemed unrealistic, when we started. However, we were confident and willing to take it up. We started off with defining a goal achievement strategy, broke down the KPIs into smaller achievable sub-units and made a detailed plan. We kept the plan flexible to introduce modifications, as and when, it was necessary.

Even then, the most difficult part was when the project encountered obstacles that derailed or hindered our progress. In such occasions, our team re-looked at the strategy to adjust it at key milestones, and pursued communication with relevant stakeholders.

Even after the project, this spirit of persistence and ownership has stayed with us. We became confident in our ability to take up challenges – regardless of their scale – and felt that through our boldness, confidence and strategies we could work through any challenge.

"At the start, my idea of Budweiser APAC was limited to Budweiser being the biggest beer brand in the world. However, compared to other FMCG companies, Budweiser products are ever-present and the brand goes beyond a mere beer brand to almost become a lifestyle choice. This is the most exciting and interesting part for me."

I graduated from the University of Manchester with a BSc degree. Later, I obtained a master's degree from the University of Southampton. I joined Budweiser APAC as a Solutions Management Trainee in 2017. In my current position, I work as the Expansion & Franchisee PMO in the Shanghai HQ in the ZX Ventures team.

At Budweiser APAC, we are proud to dream big, take risks and never be satisfied. In a way, we are a company of owners. We demonstrated this aspect during one of the challenges we faced due to Covid-19. We were expected to build a concept bar in Shenzhen during Covid-19.

As the project owner of this concept bar project, I had to work in conjunction with the government, building managements, and landlords at the project site. There was a lot of business uncertainty due to Covid-19 and we had to constantly adapt to changing measures and laws. Faced with the grim reality that - if we can't complete the project, we stand to lose a great deal of money, we worked together as a team with the Shanghai office and the local team.

In doing so, we realized the valuable lesson – of how ownership can make things happen.