Business Leadership & Strategy
Sham Majid
05 Nov 2015
Tell me about yourself. Who inspires you? What are your career aims?
I’ve been living in Singapore for about 14 months. I actually grew up in Singapore from the age of nine to 15, so I’m very happy to be back in my childhood stomping ground. In terms of what inspires me, I think it’s all about building businesses. I love building businesses through capable organisations that deliver value back to our customers.
What is your leadership style?
I think my leadership style is very dependent on the situation. I’ve got a situational leadership style. A lot of the time, I like to think of myself as a coach and as a bit of a mentor to those around me. But I’m also very directive from time to time. So when I need to be directive, when things slow down, I’ll be very forceful in my opinions.
You have been in supply chain operations (or logistics) for more than 26 years. How did you find yourself working in this line?
I actually started off many years ago in the engineering field as an engineer. That grew to running very large factories and a part of running large factories is a warehouse that is attached. That was actually very interesting and quite different from running just a facility.
When I did my Masters, I actually focused on logistics management as it sparked my interest. I think the good thing about logistics, particularly in a third-party logistics provider world is that you get to run the logistics of hundreds of multinational companies. What we generally do is that we go into large multinationals and we’ll take over the running of their supply chains.
For us to provide value in their space, we need to be able to run their supply chain more effectively and more efficiently than they can themselves. So, you have quite a varied array of supply chain facilities and how you link them all up in the most effective way is part of the challenge. There is a lot of maths involved in logistics.
How would your employees describe you?
One of our values that we talk about in this organisation is being open and transparent. I would like to think that my staff can come to me with any issue at any time and not feel bad about doing that.
I certainly think that within our Australian operations, they probably have had a few years ahead of this journey of what I call an operational excellence journey.
In our Asian countries, they are catching up but it is starting to happen very quickly, so people now are willing to share with me their true feelings about an issue rather than just trying to give me the answer that they think I want to hear.
How do you stay a step ahead of your competitors?
Operational excellence for me is all about the culture of an organisation; so how do you create an organisation that has a high-performing culture? That’s around training everybody in your organisation, the value of the customer, and continually driving value-add back to the customer.
It’s a high-performing culture where we enable our teams to get involved in the business and to improve results to make things quicker, to provide a better quality of service, and of course, to ensure that we’re the best we can be in terms of safety. So what differentiates us in the marketplace? It is our culture.
Can you describe that company culture?
We are very focused as an organisation on continuous improvement, so that is a key part of who we are and we provide a lot of training to our people at all levels in the organisation to drive continuous improvement.
For us, it’s no longer acceptable just to provide a service to a customer. Unless you’re continuously looking at ways to change their supply chain and to ensure that they’re ahead of the pack in their particular industry, you are probably not providing a lot of value back to them.
We have the type of culture where it’s actually okay to come in and take a bit of risk and get it wrong. We don’t hang people for that. We are around people being authorised to go out there, take an educated risk on an issue, knowing that if it doesn’t exactly work out 100%, then we will learn from that and we’ll move on to the next challenge.
Please tell us more about Toll’s behaviours programme: The Toll Way
The Toll Way describes the way we do things at Toll. It talks about what is important to us and how we will achieve our goals. “SCOTI” has been introduced as a simple way to remember the Toll Way values. SCOTI is defined as: Safety, Continuous Improvement, being Open and Transparent, Teamwork, as well as Trust and Integrity.
SCOTI is our values and behaviour programme. What it does is ensure all of our employees in the organisation understand what is expected of them when they come to work. And not only our employees, but also myself as a leader. I often say to my team members that they’ve got to hold me accountable for the same values and behaviours that I hold them accountable for.
What kind of career progression programme do you have in place?
We do have graduate programmes to ensure that we’re bringing in new talent from polytechnics and universities. We have succession planning throughout the business. So we ensure that if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, we’ve got talent who can take my role.
We have a whole heap of internal programmes around account management and how we deal with our customers and how we continually drive value back to them.
We have internal training programmes around safety. We focus a lot around safety; it’s the number one priority in our business. Everybody has a right to go home safely and I’d never want that not to be the case in any business that I run.
We have a whole range of management development programmes that ensure we get some of our managers over the line in terms of what they understand about the business. We also run a huge amount of programmes around continuous improvement. So, we use lean programmes like Six Sigma, and 5s+1 to ensure we continually drive the value back to the customers.
What do you consider to be the most challenging aspect of your role?
I think the most challenging part of my role is helping people understand that we are actually a service-based business. We are not a logistics-based business. For me, we move stuff; so that’s the physical attribute of what we do. But really, we’re in the service industry. We’ve got to make sure that we’re providing the very best service to our clients and to our clients’ customers. I keep on talking about ensuring that we’re getting that value creation driven back to our customers.
What is your talent acquisition strategy? How else do you groom talent?
I think talent management in any organisation is one of the greatest challenges that we all face. Trying to make sure that you’ve got the best people in there to ensure you’re driving the right culture in an organisation is absolutely key.
How we do that is by home-grown talent and making sure that we’ve got the best of the best from polytechnics and universities and then grooming them into the Toll Way.
But also, from time to time, we recognise that we will need to go out into the marketplace and get professionals, either through headhunters or through organisations that can actually go out there and acquire the right talent for us in areas that we are maybe a little weak in.
But my preference is to generally get home-grown talent where we can. That’s particularly because it’s around the culture in which we work. So, you can get a lot of technical people out there; that’s a relatively easy thing to do, but getting technical people with the right cultural mindset is really important. It’s not just about getting results; it’s about how you get those results.
What is your top tip for aspiring leaders?
Always, always believe in yourself. There’s absolutely nothing in this world that is impossible. If you believe in it, the only thing you have got to work out is the path to achieve it.
Bio Brief
Over the past 26 years, Chris Pearce has managed multiple and complex end-to-end supply chain operations for a number of different industries, from raw material procurement through to manufacturing and delivery for large multinational companies.
Pearce’s career at Toll commenced in 2005, as the General Manager of Toll Contract Logistics. Through that business unit, he became more involved in the greater Toll business, and in 2008, Pearce was offered the challenge of working within Toll’s organically grown logistics business Toll in2store.
Managing the business units, Pearce’s main focus was delivering a service that enabled its customised solutions to be the lead provider in the market.
Prior to joining Toll, Pearce managed the Southern Region Operations and Supply Chain for Pepsi Co (Smiths Snackfoods).
Sowing the seeds of Toll City logistics hub
On July 27, Toll Group launched its blueprint for Toll City – a 100,000 square metre logistics hub in Tuas, Singapore.
The $228m five-level, ramp-up facility will house state-of-the-art automation systems to improve productivity and operating efficiency for Toll and its customers in Singapore and the region.
Toll Global Logistics CEO Chris Pearce says the development is a key part of Toll’s strategy to strengthen its presence in the region and to continue providing best-in-class supply chain solutions across different market sectors.
“The size and scope of this investment is a testament to Toll’s intent to achieve supply chain excellence in Asia-Pacific for its customers,” he says.
“Toll City will redefine warehousing solution options for its customers through leading-edge technology and innovation in a world class facility. We will be ready to increase Toll’s productivity and meet warehousing capacity demand in a region that is set to become one of the largest economic blocs in the world.”
Some of the high-tech options being reviewed for the Toll City development include high-speed unit picking, voice picking and intelligent conveyor systems. The integrated transport and warehouse systems are complemented by energy-efficient initiatives including rain water harvesting and energy monitoring.
In partnership with the Workforce Development Agency (WDA), Toll has developed core and advanced training segments to meet the demands of Singapore’s “Smart Nation” vision.
As part of the move into Toll City, Toll will continue its work as a WDA in-house approved training operation (ATO) which will provide a framework for reviewing the use of technology and automation, thereby designing jobs that attract more young and mature locals to the logistics industry.
“This enables us to internally create training programmes for all levels in our organisation. It enables us to standardise processes, it enables us to undertake tasks in the most cost-effective ways possible, enables us to do that safely, and it also provides education and career pathways within the logistics sector,” explains Pearce.
Toll City logistics hub will be completed in mid-2017.
Me Myself I
I love: I love to be competitive - in all areas at work, and in my free time through various sports.
I dislike: I dislike complacency and laziness.
My inspiration is: To go as far as I can – at work and in life as a person.
My biggest weakness is: “Giving people a lot of ropes; and then (they) hang themselves.” (Figuratively speaking)
In five years’ time I’d like to be: I’d like all developments to come true in my work environment; and to have achieved my personal goals.
Favourite quote: “Leadership is not an entitlement.” (A statement I heard somewhere that has stuck with me.)
C-Suite
Article Summary:
Despite being in the business of moving things, Toll is actually not a logistics-based business. According to Chris Pearce, Divisional Director and CEO of Toll Global Logistics, the organisation prides itself on consistently delivering value-added initiatives back to its clients.
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Leadership