“Agility, engagement and operational excellence: the keys to Operations’ success as they rise to the challenges of the pandemic and support L’Oréal’s growth”

Throughout this year of unprecedented global upheaval, L’Oréal Operations played an even more crucial role in overcoming the challenges facing the Group, first and foremost, to protect all of our employees, but also to satisfy our consumers and ensure deliveries worldwide. Operations teams mobilised across the globe to participate in the solidarity programme rolled out by the Group to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

Health, Safety and Security teams sprang into action from the first day of the outbreak in China. Working closely with Human Resources, they joined forces with all operational teams to focus on our absolute priority: protecting every Group employee worldwide. To that end, they rolled out targeted instructions, delivered personal protective equipment, reorganised workspaces, performed audits, and set up a crisis management committee that worked round the clock to coordinate the roll-out of new regulations in each country and implement our even stricter protocols.

At the same time, Operations teams immediately adapted their manufacturing facilities to produce over 5.8 million litres of hand sanitiser at more than 70% of L’Oréal’s plants around the globe. They then went on to organise its distribution to frontline healthcare workers. Teams in the field showed remarkable solidarity and resilience from day one as they continued to produce and distribute beauty and well-being products to our consumers throughout the different lockdown periods in the countries where the Group operates.

Thanks to technological advancements at L’Oréal Operations and their ability to achieve agile transformation, teams were able to rise to the challenge of dual acceleration created by this year’s unforeseeable circumstances. They made effective use of digital solutions—which lie at the heart of our teams’ daily work—to keep all industrial and logistical activities operational using virtual reality tools to conduct maintenance and install new equipment remotely, along with 3D printing to design our future launches. They also successfully coped with an unprecedented acceleration in e-commerce that saw four times the usual number of orders in some months. In 2020, they prepared two deliveries per second. This acceleration also forced Operations to adapt in real time to the specific needs of consumers during the crisis, including a dramatic rise in home hair colour orders and an unprecedented increase in demand for hand moisturizers. Once again, our teams displayed remarkable engagement throughout the year.

Solidarity—the strength of longstanding ties with our supplier ecosystem—was also key during this crisis. Our network proved its critical importance in the way suppliers consistently supported us by providing all the materials needed to manufacture hand sanitiser while adapting supply flows to new order profiles. In return, we supported our suppliers by reducing payment times for those facing difficult situations and by maintaining our business and our launches, providing them with steady revenue streams throughout the year. We also succeeded in extending our Solidarity Sourcing programme despite the public health context, reaching over 81,000 beneficiaries in vulnerable communities.

In addition to this unprecedented mobilisation in the face of the Covid-19 crisis, L’Oréal Operations pursued their engagement and investment in building a more sustainable world: 50 plants and wholly owned distribution centres were carbon neutral in 2020 and the Group boasts five Waterloop  plants. The year also saw new responsible innovations in packaging, with the launch of the first cosmetics tube including certified cardboard and the production of a world first—a packaging prototype made of polyethylene produced using industrial carbon emissions.

Yet again this year, L’Oréal Operations have proven their expertise, engagement, ability to constantly adapt, and operational excellence in a volatile context, all while working towards the L’Oréal for the Future programme to achieve the Group’s ambitious new sustainable development goals for 2030.

Antoine Vanlaeys—who took over as Chief Operations Officer at L’Oréal from 1 February 2021—will continue to rise to these challenges and support the Group’s growth. He brings remarkable expertise spanning every aspect of the L’Oréal Operations value chain and has gained in-depth experience of e-commerce acceleration in Asia Pacific over the past four years. I am certain that Antoine will lead the Operations teams to new successes. As for me, I am honoured to head the Group’s newly created Research, Innovation, Technologies department. I look forward to working closely with the Operations teams, who are important stakeholders in innovations and technologies.