How L'Oréal Meets Viral Product Demand Challenges

Barcelona’s SCM Leaders Forum gathered top minds from manufacturing, supply chain and sustainability across two days of industry deep-dives and insight-sharing. 

Hosted by Industry IoT at the HP Innovation Center in Barcelona, the event welcomed leadership from some of the world’s largest companies including Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Danone, L'Oréal and more.

Among those sharing expertise was Sandrine Torandell, Global Supply Chain Director Europe for the Consumer Product Division at L'Oréal. 

Speaking with our sister publication, Supply Chain Digital, Sandrine talked about the success that can come from adapting to the 'new normal', as well as her work across manufacturing and supply chain at the global beauty leader.

Sandrine's role in L'Oréal's manufacturing and supply chain

Sandrine manages a large-scale supply chain operation that covers manufacturing and production, through to retail relationships. 

Her responsibilities extend both upstream and downstream, touching manufacturing and planning, supplier collaboration, retailer connections and order fulfilment.

"L'Oréal is, of course, the leader in beauty," said Sandrine. "My role in the global supply chain covers the upstream parts, to manufacturing, including planification and collaboration with suppliers."

Describing her position as akin to "control tower," Sandrine discussed how Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is centralised at L'Oréal's headquarters. She handles the catalogue and business relations across the Europe Zone, ensuring a seamless link from production to marketplace.

Downstream activities under Sandrine's remit include go-to-market strategies, collaboration with retailers, managing the order-to-cash process, credit handling and forecasting demand.

Customer-first transformation

Taking to the stage at the forum, Sandrine outlined two key transformation initiatives presently shaping L'Oréal’s global manufacturing and supply chain operations: 'Customer first' and 'responsiveness for growth'.

The first of these puts client satisfaction at the heart of operational planning, adjusting processes to be even more customer-centric. 

'Responsiveness for Growth' focuses on strengthening organisational agility.

Sandrine said: "It's a way to be more agile, at speed and at scale, within global operations, which is also an interesting lever for customer satisfaction."

Both initiatives are designed to equip L'Oréal with the flexibility needed in its operations and production to meet customer expectations quickly and efficiently – an essential facet in a business environment where change is constant.

Meeting viral demand manufacturing challenges

Highlighting the impact of an increasingly complex business landscape, Sandrine stressed the importance of adapting to the 'new normal'. 

The COVID-19 pandemic and global geopolitical tensions have tested production and manufacturing operations worldwide.

"We all suffer with pandemic issues, which completely disturbed supply chain execution," she said, pointing to the opportunities created by emerging digital trends and consumer adoption. 

In particular, new media channels, including social platforms like TikTok, have transformed how products reach consumers.

Social media's power to spark sudden product demand has created unique challenges for L'Oréal’s manufacturing and supply chain operations, Sandrine noted, explaining that traditional forecasting struggles to predict when a product might go viral.

"When we see a shift in terms of activation from usual media to online media, a big part of it is under control," Sandrine observes. "But, another part comes from organic activations on the new network, like TikTok, for example."

Managing these surges requires a flexible, responsive business model. Sandrine explained that within the 'Responsiveness for Growth' programme, L’Oreal’s teams are working to track signals from across the supply chain. 

This includes assessing production and manufacturing capacity, supplier flexibility and real-time data monitoring.

"The idea is to try to measure and anticipate,” she said, “but also to assess the capacity we have in end-to-end aspects – in our factory, but also with suppliers – and monitor the signals in that information to be sure we have the right answers. So, it's a nice challenge."

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