DC Velocity - September 2012

natter on about, interrupting their focus on the task at hand.

Many, but not nearly enough, members of senior management teams get what supply chain is all about, and there is an unhealthy residual focus on supply chain activities as costs to be reduced, rather than as investments to be leveraged for corporate success.

Further, peer organizations within the company usually have no clue about the role, power, and contribution of supply chain management, and how it needs to interact with them, even how it can work with them for collaborative cross-functional solutions.

The next wave of leaders, practitioners, analysts, managers, and other associates shows promise, but is far from promising a solution.

WELL-EDUCATED YET ILL-PREPARED

Although there are more logistics and supply chain management curricula in colleges, universities, community colleges, and even high schools than ever before, the output is not filling all of the industry’s needs. We are turning out graduates with incredible analytic skills and tools, and unprecedented exposure to advanced supply chain and logistics concepts. Yet industry is not completely happy with these resources.

Perhaps the solution lies in more and better collaboration between business and academia. Certainly, there are roles for both in developing supply chain talent for now and for the future. But where do today’s graduates fail to meet either needs or expectations?

For starters, they don’t grasp the big picture, in two significant dimensions. One is that end-to-end supply chain concept. They can say the words, but they too often look at the supply chain as a collection of functions, rather than as an integrated whole.

Then there’s the woeful under-appreciation of how, where, and to what extent supply chain management contributes to corporate performance—and ultimately, success or failure. This partly reflects innocence of how and why supply chain management needs to link into the corporate mission and with the strategies that support it.

It also reveals an abysmal lack of familiarity and comfort with the language of finance and enterprise performance. Things like ROA, ROI, ROE, EBITD, and free cash flow. This severely limits the practitioner’s comprehension of the full value of his or her efforts and the ability to communicate effectively with senior management.

Reflecting a failing of the incumbent generation, the highly educated newcomers don’t get the difference between management and leadership, and they have not learned the roles and value of each. They, sadly, gravitate more toward a management perspective.

In a possibly related development, the elements of sus-

tainable change management are not among their skill sets, and change is more often seen as a matter of announcement than a problem with cultural, behavioral, and attitudinal dimensions.

While the newbies may be reasonably good at working in teams, they have very little in the way of skills or appreciation in relationship building and maintenance. This is deadly enough internally, but is doubly destructive in external relationships with customers, suppliers, and service providers.

In general, young people are coming out of school prepared to rely extensively on brainpower and analytic skills to succeed, to the near-exclusion of the so-called “soft” skills that are becoming essential to individual and organizational success in the 21st century.

Finally, and not surprisingly, the new kids are short on experience. Maybe more corporate projects as part of curricula could help, and perhaps more internships could take the edge off its perception. But many young people don’t take the time to gain employment experience between picking up a B.S. and an M.B.A.

ADDRESSING THE CONTENT SHORTFALL

As for how to solve the content shortfall problem, the answers are not completely obvious. We might make a case for addressing more of the gaps outlined above in academic curricula. But at what cost? With time provided by the elimination or de-emphasis of what?

Certainly, individual companies could build many of the needed skills in individualized development programs. But on what schedule, given the immediacy of the need? And at what investment level, given imperatives for performance and productivity?

External education and training to cover many of the issues is also a possibility but raises many of the same questions.

IN CONCLUSION

So, here we are. Not enough people to meet resource needs in supply chain management. People on the job who aren’t measuring up to today’s needs. A new generation that needs both new skills and seasoning to take us into the future.

Our work is cut out for us. And this is a set of challenges that we must meet if we are to truly lead in a global environment.

Whoops! That gap is a little bigger than we might have imagined. Maybe it could swallow us up. ;

Art van Bodegraven, practice leader at S4 Consulting, may be reached at (614) 336-0346 or avan@columbus.rr.com. You can read his blog at http://blogs.dcve-locity.com/the_art_of_art/. Kenneth B. Ackerman, president of The Ackerman Company, can be reached at (614) 488-3165 or ken@warehousing-forum.com.