Lazadian Legend: A Decade of Building Lazada’s Logistics Capabilities

Our “Humans of Lazada” series takes a look at the professional and personal lives of more than 9,000 people who work at Lazada. As part of our 10th-anniversary celebrations, we are also profiling employees who have been with us for over the last decade in a new subseries called “Lazadian Legend.”

“My first role in Lazada was chief operating officer – or, head of logistics – with Lazada Vietnam, where I was responsible for setting up and building the entire logistics team in the country in the early days. When I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City in 2012, it was my first time in Vietnam and in Asia in general. I had no prior experience in eCommerce and no idea how big or small my team would be. I only had ideas and ambitions to bring our envisioned eCommerce platform to life. The first warehouse in Vietnam that we could afford even had holes in the roof as well as snakes slithering about!

The idea to build our own delivery fleet (now called LEX) was actually born in Vietnam before it was rolled out to other markets. Ten years ago, when eCommerce was virtually non-existent in the region, there were countless infrastructure challenges that we had to deal with and many times where we felt like giving up. But we pressed on, understanding the importance of having a strong and robust logistics network as the foundation to building a successful and fast-growing eCommerce platform. It was fundamental to building trust among customers and sellers during the early days.

After spending five years in Vietnam, I have taken on new logistics assignments with Lazada Singapore and RedMart. I’m now back in the regional team to drive the digital transformation of our logistics procedures. In my role, my focus is to digitalize certain processes and leverage data and visualization tools so that we can better manage the entire logistics journey, reduce human errors and ultimately pass on the savings in costs and time to our customers and sellers.

One of the biggest achievements during my time with Lazada was my work with Project Apollo, a holistic re-platforming initiative of our logistics systems that we launched in the middle of the pandemic in 2020. Apollo enables us to automate certain logistics processes and streamline the entire logistics journey. Today, around 85% of the parcels Lazada merchants sell are handled in-house, with around 50% of orders delivered by LEX. Lazada has end-to-end logistics capabilities and complete control over our supply chain, with fulfillment centers across 17 Southeast Asian cities.

I am also proud of the teams that I have built and the people I have had the chance to cross paths with. I think this is a sentiment echoed by many long-term employees like myself. Over the last decade, I have had the luck and privilege to be mentored by inspiring leaders who walk the talk. I’ve also worked alongside very bright, motivated and great people, and it has been great to see how some of the people who started their professional journeys on my team have progressed to become senior leaders themselves. And had I not embarked on this adventure with Lazada and moved to Vietnam 10 years ago, I would not have met my wonderful wife and started my own family.

My work over the last 10 years has never been boring. Working in logistics, I get to see the results and impact of our improvements very visibly, which is always satisfying. I hope to continue my work at Lazada and see us through the next phase of growth. Despite some unfavorable market conditions and global uncertainty right now, I believe that this period also presents opportunities where we can leverage our competitive advantage in logistics and our strong teams and people to rise to the top. A lot has happened in the last 10 years, but this is only the beginning. A lot more will happen in the next decade, and I’m excited to see what the future holds for Lazada and the wider eCommerce industry.”