L'Oreal: credit management for the beauty sector

Aims

A major trade credit insurance aim of L’Oréal Hong Kong is to minimise risk while growing their business.

Tony Hui, Supply Chain Manager L’Oréal Hong Kong explained: “As an international company, we have multiple fields to deal with. Partnering with Atradius allows us to be more focused on our core beauty business. 

From a financial point of view, it means we also have someone to help minimise our credit risk and help ensure that our business is more sustainable.”

He added: “Atradius gives us confidence when it comes to trade
development and allows us to grow the business. Whenever we start working with a new customer, Atradius helps us to assess the customer and check that the company is healthy. This in turn allows us the confidence to further expand our business.”

Our role

We pride ourselves on our promise to put our customers first and have worked closely with L’Oréal in Hong Kong for more than five years.

 
Magdalena Fok, Assistant Credit Control Manager, at L’Oréal, says: “I feel very comfortable with Atradius and our account manager. We stay in regular contact over any potential issues we might have with our customers. The response time is very good whenever we have had any requests or questions.”

Tony Hui adds: “After we changed our insurance company to Atradius, we saw the difference, as they are more attentive with regards to customer follow-ups. In general I would say Atradius is much more customer-oriented”.

From providing coverage to assisting in evaluating businesses, our service is comprehensive, right down to making sure any claims are processed smoothly and efficiently.
“We made a claim in Hong Kong and everything was settled within a month. We were very satisfied with the service,” says Fok.

Results

Running a successful business such as L’Oréal involves ensuring continuity and laying the groundwork for sustained success in the future. A major aspect of this is making sure the company’s partners are adhering to the trade policies they have in place to ensure that their business is conducted responsibly. In order to support L’Oréal in achieving these aims, we provide risk coverage and help them to assess potential new customers and how they do business.

“Atradius has been particularly helpful when it comes to new customers,” says Fok. “One example was when Atradius was able to provide us with some background information,” she explains. 

“After assessing one of our customers, Atradius helped us realise that the customer was trading our products overseas as opposed to retailing them locally. As a result we took relevant action against that customer in order to avoid our products being exported onwards, which could have had a negative impact on our local branch in that region.”

At Atradius we ensure that we understand our partners and their businesses. In the case of L’Oréal we give them the freedom to focus on what matters and help them to monitor the trading practices of their customers.

About L’ Oréal

L’Oréal is the number one beauty group with an international portfolio of 32 brands serving women and men worldwide. Its brands range from luxury names to drugstore goods while its products include perfumes, make-up, skincare and hair products.

L’Oréal is headquartered in Paris and established in 1909. With a history of over a century, it is now present in 130 countries on five continents. To be as close to its consumers as possible, the group established its expertise in all the major geographical zones.

L’Oréal celebrated 30 years of local presence in Hong Kong and Macau in 2013. It is the leading beauty products company in Hong Kong and is ranked No. 1 in makeup, men’s skincare and hair colour.

Twenty-one complementary international brands comprise the L’Oréal Hong Kong portfolio. Based on the brands’ business strategies and sales channels, they are grouped into four business divisions, namely Professional Products Division, Consumer Products Division, Active Cosmetics Division and L’Oréal Luxe Division. They distribute to a network of 5,600 points of sales, including around 60 branded retail boutiques.