Video Transcript

Host:

Question: What Can You Do With A Logistics or Supply Chain Management Degree?

Corben, Supply Chain Manager:
Answer: Yes, so you could be a supply chain manager. And that means you probably work your way up through the company a couple of rungs and you’re coordinating everything. But when we get things to the warehouse in time and deciding on the proper label inventory, talking to vendors, all of that, you can also maybe as more of an entry level role start as a logistics analyst. And so that means you’re just going to figure out and what are some of the best routes to get product to where we need it to go. And so that might mean you’re on the phone a lot, might mean you’re mapping out the best routes. And then another option in the industry is a purchasing agent. So then you’re actually placing orders with suppliers, you’re tracking POS or purchase orders, and there’s maybe some negotiation in there too. So there is a bit of a sales component if you’re interested in that. There is a way to go into a supply chain with a sales emphasis. But if you’re scared of that, you don’t want to do sales, you can totally avoid it as well. One comment there is a lot of people start their careers and management in general, but especially in supply chain as a trainee or an intern. So a lot of times you’ll be an intern over the summer in college, maybe. But then after you graduate, you’ll be a trainee for nine months or maybe a year. And that’s really their incubator program at a company to help you survey the different fields and really find where you want to land. So if you hear about those, go for it. They’re usually pretty good, pretty helpful. And let you get a feel for the company and they get a feel for you.

Jacob, Host – Logistics Degree:
Question: What different things can you do with the supply chain management degree? I know there’s a ton of different paths, a ton of different job types, but could you just high level give us, you know, three or four different jobs or career paths you could go down with a supply chain degree?

Alexander, Supply Chain And Procurement Professional:
Answer: Yeah, I think the biggest going down supply chain could be supply chain, demand planner or supply planner, which is essentially somebody who they plan out the week or two weeks or three weeks worth of production schedules to create their product. Then you also have operations management, which is a little bit more the back side of things, handling kind of those business processes. And how to get things done rather than the actual manufacturing of product. You also have logistics management too, which is a little bit more on the side of handling all your logistics strategies and routes and partners. Then that brings me into the fourth category, which is procurement, which is basically anything of acquiring material or acquiring finished goods for your company.

Nathan, Logistician:
Answer: Any job within supply chain is going to be tasked with finding ways to optimize, save money or decrease risk to common paths for supply chain. Graduates are an analyst or a planner, so that’s a data analyst, a global supply analyst, a material planner or a demand planner. Those are the common ones. The other side of this is that you could be a customer service rep if the company that you’re working for provides supply chain services such as a logistics provider. I would say that any job at UPS or FedEx is a supply chain job because ultimately the product is a supply chain service. So there are a few different ways that you could approach that, but those are two different paths that you could go down.

Haley, Logistics Project Manager:
Answer: So I’ll first touch on what I do. I’m kind of more in the project management space, so I’m focusing on looking at processes, projects and how you can make them better and more efficient. And I feel like a lot of people go into that and kind of tie to that, but not as much on a project program level is the actual supply chain management where you’re not necessarily looking at a general project or a general program, but more looking at the flow of goods in the flow of goods and services, and how to make that more smooth and efficient starting from the beginning. And getting that to the end. Customer another one that’s really, really big right now, maybe more so than even 5 to 10 years ago, is data analytics, which is a huge part of any supply chain operation. So you are dealing with the supply chain component still, but focusing on very large data sets and using those data sets to make business driven decisions. So that’s really, really big right now. And another one that I’ll touch on is procurement, which summing that all up is how can you obtain things and how can you obtain them in the best way possible at the cheapest price? So those are some of the many areas that you can go into.

William, Director of Operations Logistics:
Answer: I’ll start with procurement because it’s the necessary evil. Obviously logistics. And then in logistics. There’s a ton. So for instance, I love rail inventory is a big one, especially if you’re at a manufacturing company. Planning is also a very large part of manufacturing company systems. There are a lot of people who are in supply chain systems and that’s all they look at. And then my favorite is analysis. You know, you have just a wide scope. We have data analysts. Supply chain analysts. Supply chain finance analyst. So it depends on what you like. But there is definitely a lot of subgroups within the ones I need.