A New Direction For Executive Education? The State of the Classroom

By John Kerr -- Supply Chain Management Review, 4/1/2008

Previous page: Introduction: A New Direction for Executive Education?

A decade ago, executive education in supply chain and logistics was effectively a niche market—the province of talented specialists at schools such as Georgia Institute of Technology, Arizona State University, University of Tennessee, Michigan State University, and Penn State. “Today, managers can learn from web sites, from customer user groups, and from programs that companies offer, often for free,” says Harvey Donaldson, director of the Supply Chain & Logistics Institute at Georgia Tech. And that doesn't take account of the comprehensive professional development initiatives offered internally at many companies.

At the same time, the leading groups for the profession have stepped up their education roles. In May 2008, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) launches its new Certified Professional in Supply Management (CPSM) program, described more fully below. And the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) offers a rich array of workshops, roundtables, conferences, and online courses.

While figures are hard to come by, there are clearly still plenty of managers attending those events, travel budget clamp-downs or no. “I encourage my managers to go to a couple of conferences and other events each year,” says Shelley Stewart, Jr., senior vice president, operational excellence, and chief procurement officer at Tyco International (US). “Getting out of the office and sitting in the classroom, you get to meet good people and share experiences.” Welch Foods, makers of grape jelly and juices, regularly sends its senior managers and its high-potential middle managers to programs at the University of Tennessee (UT) as well as to the grocery sector's GMA/FMI Logistics Conference, says Dee Biggs, director of sales logistics. Other Welch supply chain managers will go to CSCMP workshops.

Several external forces are keeping supply chain professors at the blackboard. “This profession is changing so rapidly that you've constantly got to absorb new ideas,” says Tyco's Stewart. He cites his 30,000-vehicle fleet category as an area ripe with new opportunities and techniques for saving money as energy costs soar and environmental regulations tighten. “Having specific training around green issues is invaluable,” says Stewart. “Ten years ago we wouldn't even have been having a conversation about emissions.”

But the big propulsive factor is the rising recognition of the leverage that the supply chain has—or can have—not only on the next year's results but also on long-term shareholder value. The widely publicized supply chain successes of leaders such as Wal-Mart, P&G, Toyota, and Zara have put supply chain excellence high on the list of critical-path factors at many businesses. “The competitive nature of many industries has ratcheted to a new level—more intense than just two years ago,” says P&G's Barr. “Much of this is driven by the continuing compression of product lifecycles, making it crucial that businesses achieve maximum performance in the short window between product launch and its removal from the market.”

The consequence is that supply chain professionals as a whole must have far stronger analytical skills, a wider understanding of other national cultures, better tools for evaluating business options, and greater ability to communicate and to formally present the business relevance of required supply system changes. Add the need for broader yet more flexible spans of control—staff dispersed worldwide and more outsourcing relationships, for a start—and it's easy to see the size of the education challenge.

However, it's not clear that the challenge is always clearly understood, much less acted upon. “Learning and human resource development still don't have senior management's attention,” contends Robert Rudzki, president of Greybeard Advisors, a consultancy specializing in operations excellence. “In all candor, what I continue to see is not enough commitment and resources to training. Do you have a minimum expectation of hours of training? Everybody should have a minimum level.” When Rudzki headed procurement at Bethlehem Steel, the specific training objective was 40 hours a year minimum—or just 2 percent of the working year.

Rudzki advocates a heavy emphasis on education to enrich functional process expertise. He adds that it has to happen early in a career. “I've seen career professionals fall on their faces during training,” he says. “It was just too late—they were in their 40s and they were so regimented in their thinking that they were fish out of water.” He also urges structured rotations among departments, which is all the more critical as supply chain becomes more cross-functional. “Finance is a great area for candidates to come from and great area for people in procurement to get some experience,” says Rudzki, himself a former finance professional.

Part of the overall education challenge, Rudzki believes, is that business leaders are unclear on the skills needed at different levels of supply chain management, particularly at middle management levels and among high-potentials. There is a clear bias toward so-called “soft-side skills” as seniority climbs in functions such as procurement. Exhibit 1 is a graphic developed by Rudzki that shows the relative distribution of skills applicable as an individual progresses up the management ladder.

Tim Carroll, for one, gets it. The vice president of global operations in IBM integrated supply chain activities is quite clear about the shift for senior supply chain professionals away from the manufacturing-specific skills of a decade ago to a broader portfolio of attributes. “As we've become more global, it's becoming more and more imperative to have an understanding beyond your capability and function, whether it's experience in a brand or how to manage in a matrix,” he says. “You've also got to have very deep fact-based problem-solving skills.”

That helps explain why, like Rudzki, Carroll is a big proponent of rotations. “We select who we think is our best top talent five years out, and then we put them in six-month rotating engagements—with the intention that they're IBM's supply chain leaders of the future,” he says.

Continue to: Academia Under Pressure to Deliver

In this article:

• Introduction
• The State of the Classroom
• Academia Under Pressure to Deliver
• Certification Gets Renewed Attention
• Online Education Finds Its Place
• More Interest in Customized Programs
• Continuing Challenges for Exec Ed

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