Luxasia Group in Asia with Dr Wolfgang Baier

Dr Wolfgang Baier, group CEO of Luxasia Group joined us in a conversation to discuss the corporate transformation of the company and its current business footprint across Asia Pacific. Wolfgang shared his background as a consultant in McKinsey from Europe till his former role as Singpost CEO and narrate the backstory how he brought Alibaba Group to invest into Singpost. He also discuss the current trends of ecommerce, logistics and retail across Asia and shared how young millennials are valuable and can help in any company transformation.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Wolfgang Baier (@wpbaier, LinkedIn), Group CEO of Luxasia Group and former Group CEO of SingPost and former partner in McKinsey. [0:25]
  • How did you start your career? [1:08]
  • What are your reflections on the business enviroments and culture when you move from Europe to Asia? [1:58]
  • In your career journey, what are the most interesting lessons you can share with my audience? [4:14]
  • The backstory of Alibaba Group’s investment to SingPost [6:19]
    • In our past lives, you have engineered one of the major transformations in Singapore with your past role as Group CEO of SingPost. They say in our lives, we have only the opportunities to work in a few great teams, and this is one of the best senior management teams which I have worked for and you are our captain for that journey, can you talk about how you managed to convince Alibaba Group to investment US$300M into SingPost? [6:44]
• Luxasia Group [9:53]
  • Introduction: Luxasia Group is the leading omnichannel partner for beauty and luxury lifestyle brand distribution, retail, and e-commerce in Asia Pacific founded by Patrick Chong, the current chairman of the group. Luxasia has an impressive list of trusted business partners with major prestige, masstige and niche brands in this space from LVMH Group, Hermes and etc.
  • Can you introduce the backstory behind Luxasia Group and the mission and vision of the company? [10:25]
  • Do you see the company going towards vertical integration with brick and mortar retail? [14:40]
  • What is your current mandate and focus for the company? [15:42]
  • As the group CEO of the company, can you briefly share the values and the culture of the company? [16:34]
  • How does Luxasia go deeper with the major brands to provide an omnichannel distribution across the region? [18:34]
  • What are the major products and services that Luxasia provide for the customers? [20:30]
  • Who are the customers for Luxasia? [22:04]
  • What is the geographical footprint of Luxasia Group? [23:15]
  • Can LuxAsia take the concept of smart retail, the combination of online and offline retail from China and export to the region? [25:28]
  • In your current journey to transform Luxasia group, what are the most important priorities to take them to the next stage? [26:25]
  • From SingPost to Luxasia, what are your current thoughts on ecommerce and omnichannel retail? What are the most interesting trends that dominating this area? [26:51]
  • Wolfgang’s thoughts on how retail is going from mass targeting to mass customisation via AI. [29:08]
  • You have talked about why millenials and transforming companies are a match, what are the key traits you look for in millenials and how you put them together with companies who are seeking to transform and patch the age difference? [29:57]
  • Do you look to millenials for inspiration to how they use social media to communicate and reach customers in the business? [32:30]
  • Where do you see the influence of China, US-China ongoing trade tensions and other events shaping Asia and how they will impact logistics, ecommerce and retail in Asia Pacific? [33:12]
• Closing [35:13]
  • Can you recommend a book, podcast or anything else that has impact to your work and personal life recently? [35:31]
    • Wolfgang’s recommendations: “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari and “Tools of Titans” by Tim Ferriss
    • BL’s recommendations: “21 lessons for 21st Century” by Yuval Noah Harari and “Blitzscaling” by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh
  • How do my audience find you? [37:47]

Podcast Information:

• Feed
• iTunes
• Libsyn
• Google Play
• Spotify
• TuneIn
• Overcast FM
• SoundCloud
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Google+
• Linkedin
• Stitcher
• Acast

The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.