By: Henry Thompson
In January of this year, McDonald’s supply chain digitalization construction has been continuously advancing in China since its strategic cooperation agreement was signed with Cainiao as a subsidiary of Alibaba. Ming Xu, playing a crucial and central role in this project, has led his team to successfully promote the implementation of Cainiao’s RFID solution in McDonald’s supply chain while jointly exploring cooperation in supply chain digitization and automation. This project can not only improve the efficiency of the supply chain as well as traceability capabilities but also improve the experience of both customers and employees. More importantly, Ming Xu has brought digitalization-oriented industrial upgrading into the industry’s vision, which is based on the Internet of Things.
In the current era of informatization, the Internet of Things (IoT), as one of the significant development engines leading economic development and social progress, has whetted more and more people’s concern in frontier domains around the world with the general improvement of social informatization level. The logistics industry, in the process of deep integration between the digital economy and the real economy, has been accelerating into the era of digitalization, automation, and intelligence. Cainiao has become a global leader in the e-commerce logistics industry with its technical advantages. It is a large cross-border e-commerce logistics provider and a leading comprehensive e-commerce supply chain provider in China. Ming Xu, as the General Manager of IoT Business of Cainiao Network, has played a pivotal role in Cainiao’s development and has been leading the digital upgrading of industries, including the FMCG industry with the application of IoT Technology.
Ming Xu has been destined for his industry since his college years and has continuously accumulated abundant experience for his future work. He graduated from Fudan University with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and then gained an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. After his graduation, he worked in numerous famous multinational companies such as BASF, Air Products, Convestro Polymers (formerly known as Bayer Material Science), Strategy & (PwC) New York Branch, and Roland Berger. During this period, he has accumulated copious experience in business management and management consulting from his practical work. He is currently the General Manager of IoT Business of Cainiao Network and has dedicated himself to the field of supply chain digitization.
In the consulting industry, Ming Xu has achieved great success by participating in or leading a large number of enterprise management consulting projects, laying a solid foundation for his later deep plowing in the field of the Internet of Things. For instance, after obtaining a Master’s degree in Business Administration in the United States, he received an offer from Strategy & (PwC) New York Branch and then he worked as the Senior Consultant in this company. While Chinese international students faced employment difficulties after studying in the United States at that time, he still worked in mergers and acquisitions at this renowned consulting industry company. He was engaged in the global M&A integration of two multinational chemical enterprises, which received recognition from the Wall Street Capital Market, to realize synergies through the integration of their procurement and supply chains. In this process, he assisted them in developing the chain integration plans between procurement and supply and supported regional leaders in their implementation. As a result, he successfully helped the project reach the expected more than ten million USD and promoted the common development of the two enterprises.
After his rising experience in the consulting industry, Ming Xu was invited by Alibaba to serve as the General Manager of the IoT Business of Cainiao Network, and then he began his grand prospect in the field of the Internet of Things. At first, facing the dilemma of scarce team talent and insufficient manpower, he established a team of more than 70 elite talents in just three years from scratch with the orientation of self-developed technologies as well as related businesses and projects. After that, he pushed the developing focus of Cainiao towards the IoT market and has designed a multitude of innovative products that can meet the growing demands of the market together with his team. His department has made significant contributions to the development of both IoT Technology and the consulting industry.
Along with the development of Internet of Things, Ming Xu has strived to contribute to the development of new markets, especially in the field of RFID technology, to integrate AI, automation, and IoT Technology throughout the global smart logistics network and develop economically efficient as well as practical technologies to perfectly solve logistics problems in real life, and quickly iterate to meet the complex and constantly increasing needs of the market. The radio frequency identification technology (RFID), as the third generation of identification technology following the bar code and the QR code, has been widely used in the circulation of goods in the supply chain. For this emerging technology, he has led the team to successfully break through a series of technical bottlenecks and has become Cainiao’s exploration pioneer in the field of RFID.
During the 2023 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit held in November 2023, the independently developed ultra-high frequency RFID product ecosystem by Cainiao officially made its debut, which has whetted widespread attention and recognition from the world. Under Ming Xu’s extraordinary leadership, Cainiao has developed multitudes of innovative products, including station light strips, discrete readers, store anti-theft devices, inventory carts, and workshop electronic ink screens, which can provide customers with digital supply chain services from solution consulting and planning to project implementation and after-sales service.
In addition, resorting to the RFID technology, Ming Xu, together with his team, also provided integrated digital supply chain solutions based on Internet of Things technology for top brand customers such as Nestle, McDonald’s, Midea, Dell, Geely, etc. He led his team to successfully overcome the challenge of RFID reading in metal and liquid scenarios, providing Nestle with a comprehensive supply chain digital solution based on RFID technology, from packaging factories to workshops, warehouses, and dealer warehouses. This was also the first large-scale RFID application case in the Chinese food industry. Cainiao’s RFID technology, under Ming Xu’s leadership, has been adopted by more and more leading companies in various fields across the world.
In the future, Ming Xu will constantly run his way to further promote RFID technology and solutions, and he has been committed to developing more RFID products based on IoT Technology so as to connect the digital upgrading of related industries with the growing demands of consumers.
Published by: Khy Talara
