As the name suggests, supply chain management is the management and improvement of a whole cycle of a product or service, from raw materials to the delivery of the finished product. It focuses on planning and implementing business processes such as raw materials purchase, storing the raw materials, converting the raw materials into finished goods, storing finished goods, and finally delivering the finished goods to the consumers.
It is the management of the logistics of a business. Supply chain management has five major activities; Planning, Sourcing, Manufacturing, Delivering to the consumers, Managing Returns. In return for these activities, companies receive a lot of data, which will give a business a competitive edge in the market if analyzed correctly. This data can enable a trade to sort out its potential problems very effectively and timely.
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Importance
In these modern times and advanced technologies, supply chain management is crucial to a business’s success. After managing these processes, companies obtain information that helps them gauge and forecast future activities. Some of these are
- Reducing Operation Costs; managing the order time and quantity helps the businesses avoid holding costs.
- Happy Customers; Designing a good operational supply chain enables orders to be delivered as soon as possible.
- Good Financial Position; With cash going in and out of business, a healthy supply chain with fewer errors will aid the business’s cash flow.
Becoming a Supply Chain Manager
With the importance of supply chain management laid out, businesses often prefer managers with a Master’s in Logistics or Business Administration. These degrees are becoming common among universities, and you can earn your supply chain management MBA fast, as fast as within a year.
With knowledge of current practices and skills provided through the degree, a candidate can only fulfill the needs of an organization’s supply chain in today’s fast-paced environment. Universities train the students in different settings and through various projects and assessments to ensure that when they graduate, they are ready to meet the needs and requirements of their employers. Business leaders and entrepreneurs frequently revise the Projects and assessments to ensure that the practices align with industry standards and that the course is never outdated.
If you’re someone looking to opt for this profession or this degree, here are a few reasons to give it some thought.
Good Salary Package
Supply chain professionals earn a reported salary of around $100,000 a year in the US, the highest amount was about $130,000, and the lowest was (for a bachelor degree holder) $75,000. The median reported salary was around $60,000, which amplifies the importance of this role even more.
Multiple Opportunities
Before entering a field, some people think about the scope and application of that degree; well, supply chain management is a rapidly growing field. Additionally, the introduction of e-commerce, supply chain management is the key to their success. There are different roles even in the supply chain management section. As for larger companies, this cannot be handled by a single person.
Career Varieties
There are many career options for a candidate in this field.
- Logistics Manager: Logistics and distribution managers are responsible for getting goods to the right place at the right time.
- Purchasing Manager: A buying manager or a purchasing director also heads a department responsible for procuring products and services for use or resale by their organization.
- Operations Manager: In charge of planning and executing an organization’s routine functions and activities.
- Logistics Analyst: Logistics analysts are responsible for the entire production life of a product.
- Purchasing Agent: Finds and purchases products for a company to use or resell.
- Distribution Manager: Determines when product is distributed, where it is sent, and what volume is to be distributed.
- Supply Chain Manager: Manages and oversees every stage of the production flow.
With each position’s name clarifying the duties given out, there is a role at every step of the supply cycle waiting to be fulfilled by a separate individual.
Societal Roles
A Supply Chain is present even in the organizations that deliver the necessities of life. Supply chain management is necessary because the public depends on entities to fulfill their needs on time. Supply chain management plays a role in keeping people satisfied with their necessities. The public depends upon the supply chain to deliver their day-to-day goods, their everyday use of electricity, and many more items.
Low Barriers to Entry
When a career is established, and it proves its worth, over time, that career starts to fill up, and then after some time, it isn’t easy to get into that career. Well, in Supply chain management, that is not an issue. There are a lot of opportunities for interns, and there are fewer entry barriers for people from all sides. Supply Chain Management is rising quickly, but supply chain managers have not saturated the market yet.
Industrial Variety
There is a supply chain in almost every industry, whether services or products. So individuals can choose a sector that favors them and where they would be happy to work. Individuals have various choices like SME’s, Large Organizations or Organization Chains, and even government or public sector in terms of size. Individuals also have many other options about the product or service they wish to work for; Transportation, Food, Defense, Military, Health care, Automotive, Electronics, Software, and IT.
Side Skills
With the main supply chain management, an individual learns or should know a lot of other skills that he can further use to improve his decision-making in the planning and implementation stage. These skills include accounting and finance, critical thinking and evaluation, data analytics, process building, and many more. These side skills ensure that the supply chain management is managed and run through informed decisions.
Bright Future
With automation being a core principle around most processes, job opportunities in supply chain management have risen—options for supply chain managers.
Conclusion
Supply chain management is an emerging field. Supply chain managers will enjoy a secured future for quite a long time because the current changes and dynamics have determined that supply chain management is necessary for a business. From the individual point of view, it is also very flexible because it offers so many choices in so many regards. Supply chain management provides options, roles, sectors, and even remote working opportunities.
