Thoughts on Developing Supply Chain Professionals

As I progress in my career with Manhattan Associates as part of Asia-Pacific operations, I regularly try to revisit some of the concepts and principles that I feel should guide me in developing the experience and skills that are required of a supply chain professional.

I would say that many in the supply chain industry, when framing what they require in their people, still focus on the traditional, functional roles of supply chain--transportation, warehousing, procurement, shipping, etc. I believe that this causes managers to fall into the trap of building an inflexible workforce and organizational structure that will struggle to adapt to supply chain initiatives that require working cross-functionally across these areas of business.

This scenario puts strain on supply chain people because they find themselves in "stretch roles" that consistently push them outside the range of responsibilities originally intended for and communicated to them based on an antiquated, narrow and traditional approach to human resources management. It would be nice if at least these stretch roles were recognized in hindsight and properly rewarded, but many organizations both lack the ability to properly evaluate their people in this situation and will often just happily accept these efforts as what was expected all along.

The above can be avoided by approaching the supply chain of a business, including its people, from the standpoint of supply chain architectures rather than functional roles and responsibilities. I have discussed these architectures extensively on this blog, but their importance has hit home for me again in the past few days as I have talked to a variety of supply chain people, both within Manhattan and those working for our clients.

Human architecture, the supply chain people, underlies every initiative a business can put forth--whether it is an investment in equipment, facilities, technology, new services or product development, etc. For a 3PL, an integrated logistics services solution may sound great as a pitch to customers, but all the technology, facilities and equipment in the world will mean nothing if your people aren't in place to deploy such a solution.

After people, a business should start its people thinking about how its physical and financial resources, or architectures, are deployed rather than zeroing in on trucks, warehouses, facilities, budgets, etc. off the bat. The whole idea is that resources are rationalized across a supply chain and not piece-meal, where imbalances can occur that negatively impact the end result of services and products provided to customers.

It is advances in and the procurement of informational architecture, primarily supply chain technology, that is driving the effort by many companies to challenge employees to think cross-functionally, to think in terms of general supply chain architecture rather than in terms of individual supply chain components. The problem with this is that technology can quickly get ahead of companies and their employees to the point that human resources management ends up "chasing the tail" of end-to-end supply chain restructuring. In the end, the progress of technology deployment will be as slow as the slowest caboose--which unfortunately in many cases is the constraint faced by under-developed competencies and capabilities of your supply chain people.

Only when the above hurdles are overcome can a business truly think about making advances in relational (think relationships with supply chain partners) and innovational (think new approaches to products and services via cross-functional analysis and critical thinking) architecture. But as long as the foundation of your supply chain activities, your supply chain people, have made the paradigm shift to understanding supply chain architecture, versus knowing simply the individual components of warehousing, transportation, shipping, etc. with the traditional overlaps, reaching this pinnacle is much closer to realisation.

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As can be inferred above, mindset and attitude are key factors in developing supply chain professionals for the new paradigms of today's supply chain challenges. Cultivating this mindset means taking every opportunity available to illustrate the concepts that underly architecture-oriented thinking in supply chain. One simple and probably obvious concept is that, when providing a specialised service, a supply chain professional must be ahead of, or at least keep pace with, their customers' and clients' (both internal and external) knowledge in the field. Continued attention to detail of customer and client needs will ensure you keep pace with the services or products required. But it is innovation driven by analysis and critical thinking in response to daily issues and challenges that will allow you to provide additional value above and beyond that level.

I once drew this in a simple graph for a young Japanese colleague that had just left the university for a job with the 3PL I worked for in Tokyo. The graph posited the progression of time against the progression of knowledge, as shown below:

I told her that it was possible one could spend a few years in the wrong business environment and actually lose ground relative to peers across the supply chain industry (the Fall Behind line).  The next best case would be that you kept pace with not only your peers but the clients and customers demanding your product or services. Far better, you would stay ahead of that curve through seeking challenges, maintaining a learning curiosity both inside and outside of work, and making the necessary changes when it seemed like you were falling back to the "Keep Pace" line. I saw firsthand a friend in the same company realise only too late that they had been tracking along the "Fall Behind" line and thus presented a huge wake-up call when they had left the company and looked for new jobs. Some others in this category simply remained in the company because they new it was safer.

One comment by the president of that Japanese 3PL always stuck with me and summarised part of the problem he faced with his workforce at that time: If you are taking the same approach to your work today that was used last year, or in the years before, then you are that many years behind the curve.

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I personally keep an eye on not only new opportunities at work but also new opportunities and ideas from outside work that will add value to my professional growth and provide that spark which takes me to the next level. Although what each of us chooses to do in developing as a supply chain professional may sometimes seem unorthodox as compared to traditional approaches, as long as our activities result in enhancing our understanding of the supply chain architectures that underly successful businesses today, we are well on our way to fulfilling our desired goals and vision for the future.

Update: Steve DeAngelis at the Enterprise Resilience Management Blog has more thoughts on this topic.

Comments

[Ho]

I guess the supply chain has to be evolved along with the web 2.0 generation of businesses

[implied volatility]

Analysis plays very important role, it distinguishes smart work from hard work, reviewing basics is good way to start and I will take a note of that.