Preparing future supply chain workforces for the new digital environment
How can universities equip graduates with the skills and experience to improve the operational effectiveness of supply chains? Dr Kamila Walters, lecturer in Supply Chain and Operations, explores the changing world of supply chain management in a digital age, and how universities can equip graduates with skills to improve the operational effectiveness of supply chains.
The evolution of supply chain management in a digital age
Like many of my supply chain colleagues, I didn’t study supply chain management (SMC) – for me, a degree in physics provided the transferrable skills I needed to work in this industry.
Having worked on both sides, in industry and academia, I have seen there’s a paradox. Employers often struggle to find candidates with the right skills, while some SCM graduates have trouble finding suitable work. Bridging this gap depends on close collaboration between industry and universities, with hands-on experience vital to ensuring graduates can apply their knowledge to real-life scenarios.
Along with a sound understanding of how supply chains work – in terms of planning, procurement, inventory management and so on – they also need to develop the mindset and digital capabilities required for supply chain 4.0.
While talent shortages are nothing new, it’s not only the numbers businesses are concerned about today. As supply chains become more dynamic and complex, shaped by technology, society, politics and economics, the knowledge and skills needed to manage them has also changed.
SCM too has evolved as a result of new methodologies developed to improve efficiency and meet customers’ expectations; first there was lean, then agile and most recently, green sustainability.
We’ve come a long way from the days when the focus was on improving relatively simple, though labour-intensive, processes to the present day when we’re designing and managing complex global networks.
SCM is not only growing in span across the business, but also importance. It’s a business-enabler, it drives revenue, it’s a point of differentiation, and many businesses now compete on their supply chain capabilities as much as their product.
The skillsets needed for today's supply chain management workforce
Digital technology has changed supply chain activities from manual and transactional to strategic – which has led to a move away from ‘hard’ technical knowledge to ‘soft’ business skills.
Strong leadership and communication are sought-after skills, particularly when navigating a crisis like Covid-19, while an aptitude for self-development ensures people keep pace with the changes throughout their career.
Growing complexity of the supply chain is negatively impacting the labour availability at the moment because workers must have more skills to fulfil the minimum requirements. Currently, the growth of this talent pool is not fast enough for the industry.
The advent of SaaS (Software as a Service) might have removed large amounts of manual processing, but digital capabilities are more in-demand than ever. These will only increase further in the coming years as AI, big data analytics, robotics and other technologies are applied to SCM.
One common misconception is that young people, or digital natives, use technology instinctively but that’s not always true. While they might navigate social media with ease, some are unable to use even simple tools like Excel or PowerPoint.
Although programming skills aren’t usually necessary for SCM, data analysis certainly is. Data is one of the most valuable assets in the digital supply chain and can lead to major improvements across all aspects of it.
As its scope and scale continues to grow, supply chain professionals will need to be able to read large amounts of data, identify trends, present their findings and understand what it means for the business.
How universities can equip graduates with skills to improve the operational effectiveness of supply chains
1. Provide live project experience
Students who have no direct experience of the supply chain sometimes struggle to understand the concepts. Those who’ve been exposed to it in some way, whether working in a warehouse or for a food manufacturer, tend to have a head start because they can relate to it, which only underlines the importance of hands-on experience.
As educators, we must therefore work closely with industry to nurture talent and provide opportunities to work on real-life projects. During this time, businesses will know whether they have a potential employee, who’s ready to start at the end of the academic year, without a long search, interview and onboarding process.
Working on live projects is far more engaging for students and they often contribute interesting ideas. Close co-operation between industry and universities is particularly important for SMEs, who cannot afford to pay over the odds for talent. They need a good supply of people coming through the system to safeguard their future.
2. Focus on the move towards a digital future
As the baby-boomers retire, the danger is that businesses are going to lose that tacit knowledge that’s never been written down. This is a major problem for those looking to expand in the future and some don’t think about the void that will be left, nor the opportunities to improve or streamline processes.
Digital technology helps to eliminate some of this tacit knowledge and reduce the labour requirements, especially as more tasks are automated. We can take much of the mundane decision-making away from people – most software works on exception management, so you only need to take action when there’s a problem though you still have to understand why something has gone wrong.
You don’t have to know how the software has been written, or what algorithm has been used but you do need to understand why something has happened and what it might mean for other areas of the business, such as finance. Dealing with change has become one of the most sought-after skills.
3. Prepare them for an ever-changing landscape
Supply chain professionals today need a combination of hands-on experience, knowledge of supply chain fundamentals and an understanding of how to use emerging technology to the company’s advantage.
We create, re-evaluate and amend our programmes based on current industrial needs, so they reflect the latest changes. Some universities struggle to design their curriculum to incorporate cross-functional process integration in SCM today and there’s also too much emphasis on developing the academic skills that are unlikely to be used again in the workplace. Universities depend on support, collaboration and co-operation from industry and in return, they can deliver the talent.
Dr Kamila Walters is a lecturer in Supply Chain and Operations at the Brighton Business School, part of the University of Brighton, and has a wealth of industry experience, particularly in the FMCG sector. Her roles have included planning, operations, supply chain management and finance.
