CEO Insights Magazine

Passion. Determination. Vision. Innovation. Successful leaders bring these and more to the table. CEO Insights’ exclusive team rendezvous with one such innovative leader who is reputedly known for helping businesses break through the glass ceiling to greater success. Craig Wheeler, the Chief Customer Officer of Shipper, has been playing a significant role in the growth of Shipper, bringing a focus on building long-lasting (and profitable) customer relationships, partnering closely with the product team to drive the digital supply chain with easy UX in Shipper and launching/heading the Aloshop e-commerce enabler while leveraging from his 20+ years of omnichannel retail experience.

Prior to joining Shipper, Craig led the digital and omnichannel transformation program at Kanmo, resulting in digital sales growing by over 40 times within two years. Before coming to Indonesia in 2020, Craig had been a key team player at many retail/e-commerce startups and major retailers in the UK and selling across Europe, the US, and Asia. This included a couple of years driving Rakuten's European and the US expansion in logistics and marketplace selling.

Craig considers himself a retailer at heart, having driven organizations and digital change-optimized operations, and helped many retailers cope with rapid growth. He still shares this passion in his role at Shipper/Aloshop, helping retailers and FMCG brands grow their omnichannel operations through their enablement, operational, product, and supply chain expertise. Let’s hear it from Craig!

Define Shipper as an organization & tell us about its flagship offerings.

Shipper is a supply chain enabler with operations in Indonesia, Thailand, and China. We touch every point of the supply chain whether it is freight forwarding, transportation, fulfilment, contract logistics or last mile delivery. On the e-commerce side, we run e-fulfillment for some of the largest retailers in Indonesia and have managed their distribution as well through our carrier networks, managing the supply chain faster with powerful and inclusive APIs. We offer our customers the power to unlock the benefit of Shipper's end-to-end supply chain enablement solution with four interconnected flagship offerings - store, pack, ship, and track, driven by Shipper360. The other part of our business, Aloshop, is an omnichannel commerce enabler in which we provide bespoke solutions for businesses and help them escalate their growth through online store management solutions and livestream services.

With the commitment to support businesses from any scale to optimize their logistic operations through technology, Shipper has 300+ working warehouse networks across the nation, 4000+ trusted business partners, and 500000+ customers served every month.

What are the latest strategic plans you have adopted to expand or optimize operations and engage new audiences in the market? How do you develop a customer-centric culture in the organization?

Throughout my career, in all my roles, I have always viewed every person I meet as my customer. I have always believed that if people can run relationships considering them as their customers, they can always create positive and winning situations for themselves and the business. This has been my ethos for leading a business. So, every time we are looking at developing a product or solution to improve a customer’s supply chain, the question we focus on isn't what we build, the question is what our customers want or need. At the same time, I also believe that often what a customer wants isn't necessarily what they need. Hence, we spend a lot of time looking at the market, understanding what the customers need, and trying to focus on making sure that's what we build. Understanding the market drivers, we are focusing on operating  regional warehouses as people focus on speed and cost of delivery, meaning product needs to be where the customer is. We have reduced delivery time and costs and created an increase in the speed of delivery by helping clients utilise multiple regional warehouses. We have developed products that match the requirements, giving people a true 360 suite of solutions, and partnered with businesses to work together and leverage each other's skills and uniqueness.

What is your leadership style?

Over the years, I have been associated with businesses across different markets which include the UK, Europe, the US, and now Asia. Different regions required me to apply different approaches to build relationships across many different cultures. But three core things that I have always looked for in a team have been strong moral values, lifelong learners, and strong communicators. I look for people who value customers and colleagues, and who want to do things in the right way parallelly learning and evolving through it all. It is also important to communicate strongly, both internally and externally, and for that businesses need strong communicators.

What is the future roadmap for Shipper?

We are looking to continue to be the number one supply chain and e-commerce enabler within not just Indonesia, but we expect to grow in China, and Southeast Asia as well. It is important for businesses to be profitable, and we plan to do that by creating customer value over an integrated set of services while balancing the customer portfolio from working in sectors like lumber and oil through to FMCG and retail. We are constantly looking for opportunities to build our specialist areas and grow our business.

Craig Wheeler, CCO, Shipper

With over 25 years of experience in omnichannel retail, marketplace, and B2B businesses, Craig is supporting omnichannel sellers in growing their business through innovative logistics solutions, SaaS platforms, seller support, live streaming, and store management services. As a leader, he is focused on Shipper’s values, including customer first, whilst building and developing a strong experienced team to ensure Shipper adapts quickly to change in the market and builds skill sets that are unparalleled in the supply chain sector.