MHI Solutions Improving Supply Chain Performance
Having difficulty finding the necessary talent for your supply chain team? It’s time for a new approach. “The supply chain has evolved over the last decade or so into a complex orientation that combines a number of different traditional functions together and asks them to work together to not only operate the business for low cost but also to provide good service and to drive revenue,” said Shay Scott, managing director of the Global Supply Chain Institute at The University of Tennessee (UT). Supply chain employees today need significantly different skills than they did in the past, including the ability to see the big picture and to manage the increased risks and complexity in the global supply chain.
Scott said that requires a talent management strategy.
“This is when a group of corporate leaders sits down and decides ‘This is how we’re going to position ourselves in the marketplace; this is how we’re going to be successful as a company,’” Scott said. The company needs to honestly assess whether it has the talent and the skill sets necessary to achieve this goal, or if it’s willing to invest to go out and get them. If leaders are not willing to spend that money, they need to go back and modify the strategy so it works with the skill sets their employees already have.
“I think that’s one of the areas where companies get hung up. Within supply chain organizations, they’re not used to having to go out and invest in talent, whether developing it internally or getting it externally,” said Scott.
By Mary Lou Jay