theceomagazine.com | 101“The incredible affiliation journey with Agilent is UWC’s
utmost honour. Since 2005, our exceptional partnership
in sheet metal, machining parts, chassis boxes, machine
structures and pump assembly has brought UWC to great
heights. Our sincerest thank you goes to Agilent.” – Dato’ Ng
Chai Eng, Group Managing Director, UWC IndustrialGeneral Manager in 2015. Regardless of whether Woai
Sheng is leading a geographical region or an operational
function of a company, he says both play critical roles in
delivering the best customer experience.
“In a country, it might be much more broadly focused.
For example, figuring out what the keys are to marketing
effectively to government officials, or looking at the end-to-
end supply chain from manufacturing to production, or
determining how the sales
team is actually closing those
deals and following up with
customer support.”
Further, Agilent provides
technology and solutions
equipment to the National
University of Singapore, and
collaborates with many of the
institution’s leading scientists.
Additionally, the country
is fast becoming a popular
food-testing hub in Asia–
Pacific. “Agilent plays very
well in Singapore,” he says.
“Partly it is because of the
reputation that Singapore has built up over time as being
a no-nonsense, zero-tolerance place for corruption, with
a strict respect for intellectual property.”
As for his role running the Global Supply Chain and
Logistics function, it’s more about the finer details of specific
processes. “As an example, from a procurement standpoint,
with all the contracts that we’re managing – the 4,000-plus
suppliers that we are licensed with – we need to ensure
there’s no supply disruption. Or, from a logistics standpoint,
we need to ensure that when any customer orders our
product, they get it at the time we’ve promised them, with
perfect quality,” says Woai Sheng.
A mechanical engineer by profession, Woai Sheng has
plenty of technical know-how. However, he also realises that
further up the organisational ladder, knowledge becomes less
important. It becomes more about emotional intelligence.
He quickly summarises his approach.
“Inspiration always trumps incentive,” he remarks.
“When you’re dealing with a group of people, you can’t
use money to buy their loyalty, their commitment or their
hard work. It must be something that is inherent within the
role that explains why they want to get up in the morning
and go to work.”
Describing what he believes is crucial to business success,
Woai Sheng refers to what he calls his ‘six E’s’. The first five
are pretty self-explanatory: expectations, empowerment,
empathy, equal opportunity and excitement. The last one,however – epic failures – is pretty much
counterintuitive. Except it’s not. “I think
experiencing epic failures is important to
future success. As long as you’re honest with
yourself, you can really learn from them,”
he says.
Like in 2015 when Agilent had a hiccup
in its warehouse operation during the second
quarter, resulting in a loss in revenue. It gave
Woai Sheng the impetus to immediately fix
Agilent’s supply chain operation. “Clearly this
was a big opportunity. The good news was
that we had recovered by the third quarter,
and were back to meeting Wall Street
expectations,” he says.
Most importantly, in sticking to the ‘six
E’s’, Woai Sheng adheres to two simple rules:
“First, always have fun. Second, never forget
the first rule,” he laughs.“ I think experiencing
epic failures is
important to future
success. As long
as you’re honest
with yourself, you
can really learn
from them.”
WOAI SHENG’S
SIX E’S TO
BUSINESS SUCCESSExpectations
Empowerment
Empathy
Equal opportunity
Excitement
Epic failures
Interview | INNOVATE