Role: Lead consultant and design thinking expert.

A leading high-end beverage manufacturer in China, selling through a traditional manufacturer–distributor–consumer model, had limited supply-chain visibility. Fragmented data, counterfeit risk around its flagship product, unreliable product coding, and off-channel distributor sales made origin and authenticity hard to verify.

Led research and cross-functional collaboration across IT, supply chain, marketing, and sales. Applied design thinking to define an integrated smart-code solution: unique secure digital labels, a standardized labelling and coding system, and IoT (RFID, NB-IoT, and QR codes) for real-time tracking from manufacturing to the consumer. The work covered functional architecture and an implementation roadmap, with training and change management to support adoption.

Consumers could verify authenticity and provenance; distributors used the same system to stay within authorized channels. Greater transparency became a standout feature of the flagship product and contributed to a 22.65% increase in sales.