Meet Rajesh & Kevin — Outbound Control Tower

Get to know the Outbound Control Tower team and its unwavering focus on customer satisfaction 

Hi Rajesh & Kevin, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves? 

Rajesh: Hello, my name is Rajesh, and I lead the Outbound Control Tower team (OBCT). I’ve been working with Coupang for about two years, and I have a beautiful 8-year-old daughter.  

Kevin: Hello, I am Kevin, and I am responsible for internal automation, data management, and other similar tasks that automate manual tasks in the OBCT team. I’ve been with Coupang for about four years and have been with OBCT since it was formed.  

Can you share your career background? How do you think they help with your current responsibilities? 

Rajesh: I have more than 10 years of SCM experience working with an E-commerce and an automobile company. The companies I worked in shared similarities with Coupang’s leadership principles, so operations were alike. I think that is one of the reasons why I was able to adapt so quickly to the work environment of Coupang. The reason I joined Coupang was because I thought it would be a good opportunity to deliver customer satisfaction in a geographically and culturally different environment. I believe Coupang holds a firm position in e-commerce. The innovations and the values from customer satisfaction brought about by Coupang are some of the best in the world on a 6Sigma level. Furthermore, as Coupang is one of the few that profits from the Fresh products business, that experience is on a whole different level of surprising.   

Kevin: Before I joined Coupang, I was in a 3PL forwarding company based in California, US. At the time, I managed more than 50 projects involving imports, where each project had different deadlines. My responsibilities at the time required a high level of multitasking skills, and each decision I made had an impact on the expenses. Through the process, I experienced checking for risks and balancing costs and services. I believe I was able to join Coupang through those experiences of meticulously managing various projects.  

Rajesh at work  

What are the exact responsibilities of the OBCT team? How does the team contribute to the growth of Coupang?   

Rajesh: In a nutshell, our team works to remove the risk from the delivery service. We work to close the gap in fulfillment services from the delivery perspective, wherein many sellers offer their products through Coupang and provide a wide selection of goods to the customers. In other words, we present and execute a promise of trust and consistency for a continued high-level service.  

Kevin: Like what Rajesh said, the OBCT team acts as the first stepping-stone for the delivery of products to our customers. One of our main duties for a better customer experience is discerning the daily, weekly, and monthly trends. Then we analyze those trends to figure out ways to reduce risks and bring about customer satisfaction by providing logistics services in cooperation with the relevant teams.   

Does the OBCT team have a work culture of its own? 

Rajesh: The most unique thing about our team is that every member prioritizes the team. When I hold 1:1 sessions as a manager, our team members often give plenty of opinions on the growth of our team. I believe that the feedback from the team members serves as a form of nourishment for our team’s development.  

Kevin: Due to the nature of our team, we work in shifts, and it can be difficult to meet each other in person. But we still meet up voluntarily about once every two months and sometimes also have dinners with people from teams we’re cooperating with, which I believe contributes to bolstering the cooperative spirit and the bonds within the team. In addition, we are also receiving regular requests for sessions from cooperating teams. During those sessions, we explain how the tools we frequently use work, how we predict volume orders, and so on. As our manager, Rajesh, also tries to make the time to attend these sessions as much as possible.  

Kevin, you work in shifts, are there any physically or mentally challenging aspects to it? 

Kevin: To be honest, as our team works in shifts, there were some physical difficulties back in the day. Rajesh was very understanding of this and considered many different options, and we’ve now settled on a much more improved shift system. Currently, we work 10 hours a day, four days a week, and the shifts change at least once every two months. I believe making those internal changes to the shift system within the team for a more appropriate and reasonable shift made my job much easier.  

Kevin during the interview    

What merits are there, in terms of career paths, in joining the OBCT team?  

Rajesh: What we do is very special. Our tasks overlap with those of all teams that have a hand in the customer delivery service. For example, because we work with various teams responsible for managing the supply network, fulfillment, demand predictions, inventory, manpower management, operations, process improvements, logistics design, and so on, your career could extend to any one of those fields from OBCT. I believe that OBCT provides the grounds for you to grow in as many career paths.  

Kevin: Coupang is making innovations in the field of e-commerce and is challenging itself to create new solutions. It was the first to introduce new solutions to the country and experiment with them. The OBCT team is in the middle, analyzing and improving on small and large risks, and that is a career you can only have in Coupang.   

Rajesh, how do you find working with Koreans? And how are you communicating with your Korean teammates? 

Rajesh: Thanks to the excellent interpreters of Coupang, I get a lot of support for communications. There are plenty of really talented interpreters here, and they are of tremendous help. Mostly, I communicate using messages and chat rooms, and most Koreans are very capable of using English as a text form to communicate. With the advances in translation technology, I often feel that I can connect with my teammates despite the difference in our first language.  

Rajesh during the interview    

Do you have any advice for applicants interested in joining your team? Could you share some ideal work experiences for your team?  

Rajesh: I would want someone who is passionate about the fulfillment operation process to join our team. Someone interested in all the involved actions, from the moment the customer places the order to when the product is delivered by Coupang friends, would fit right into our team. The ideal work experience would be someone who majored in logistics and built his or her career as a generalist. In addition, one of the most important factors is a mindset that prioritizes the customer, just like Coupang’s leadership principle, “Wow the Customer.” So, in our interviews, we ask a lot about whether the applicants have put the customer first when performing their tasks and how much effort they put into customer satisfaction.  

Kevin: Most of OBCT's duties are risk resolution and relevant reporting. As you need to monitor about 70 FCs (Fulfillment Center), it would help to have some multi-tasking skills. Also, as you need to analyze risks from various perspectives for the reports, it helps to be meticulous.  

Do you have a memory that stands out to you after joining OBCT? 

Rajesh: I remember solving a recurring issue in our team. To give an example, there was a gap between the expected demand of the customers and the expected supply. This was something that could not be solved without changing the existing plan. So, we identified all variables that could be considered, analyzed them, and made improvements by persuading relevant teams on what needed changing. In the end, we improved the system and prevented today’s problem from becoming tomorrows.   

Kevin: The COVID-19 epidemic started not too long after I joined. At the time, when there was a confirmed case in an FC, the entire FC was shut down to prevent the spread of the virus and opened 1-2 weeks later after the disinfection was complete. I remember those not even on the clock helping with the shutdown. It was a very difficult time, but it was also when I experienced first-hand that there were a lot of good people in Coupang, and as a result, I got to have a lot more faith in our teammates.  

Do you have a goal that you want to achieve in Coupang? 

Rajesh: I have two. One is to improve the risk system with regard to customer order distributions, and the other is to expand the scope of the OBCT team’s duties. Ultimately, I want to create an optimal logistics process.  

Kevin: I’ve been with the OBCT team for over four years, and as I’ve coordinated with other teams, I’ve learned more about the tasks of other teams too. I want to become an expert in not only OB processes but all processes. I also want to manage a project for the overall OB process. I’d like to bring about a meaningful and quantifiable improvement with the cooperation of relevant teams in terms of productivity or equipment.  

A conversation between Rajesh and Kevin