“Supply chain professionals are increasingly leaders – and influencers – themselves.”
Lora Cecere, Supply Chain Insights: ‘We see growing frustration among millennials about the speed with which new processes are being embraced.’
Michele Sterlecchini, Grundfos: ‘People must be able to put them- selves in someone else’s shoes to understand the risks associated with their own decisions.’
Wouter van Hunnik, Philips: ‘It doesn’t matter where the talent is, as long as it provides the value we need.’
Allison Bales, Henkel: ‘We want to improve the digital skills of all employ- ees, regardless of their position or level.’
signed to stimulate even more interac- tion. We now have far fewer presenta- tions and more case studies, plus we also provide training in personal skills rather than just functional competen- cies. We still include functional presen- tations as a valuable part of the learning process, but we now offer them prior to the academy as e-learning modules. That enables us to focus on the interactive part during the academy itself.” The feedback shows that this has fur- ther improved the participant experi- ence and increased involvement, not least thanks to the introduction of case studies. In one case study, one of the toi- let care product groups is being moved from one location to another and par- ticipants have to decide where they want to set up the production activities based on a new demand pattern. “When it comes to personal skills, it’s about lead- ership. For example, we have now added a workshop in which we reflect on how the high potentials’ personal motivations match the company’s missions.” The biggest challenge for Bales is to ensure that talent development contin- ues to receive sufficient attention. Espe- cially after the outbreak of the coronavi- rus pandemic, the supply chain organi- zation was mainly focused on solving all the operational problems. “That’s under-
standable, of course. But that’s precisely why it’s good that we have a strategy & development team with a long-term focus. We make sure that it remains a high priority,” says Bales.
Big gaps
The initiatives at Grundfos, Philips and Henkel confirm that talent development is more important than ever. New com- petencies are needed to make supply chains future-proof, but they are scarce, according to a recent survey by Supply Chain Insights among 368 supply chain professionals. “There are big gaps in the availability and quality of candidates in the fields of supply chain planning and data science. Companies that want to close those gaps will need to set to work on talent development programmes. Because demand is greater than supply, it is easier to improve the competen- cies of existing employees than to bring in new employees from outside,” con- cludes Lora Cecere, founder of Supply Chain Insights, in her analysis of the findings. Van Hunnik endorses Cecere’s conclu- sion. “As I already mentioned, we want to use artificial intelligence to optimize our planning processes, but there is certainly not a lot of talent around in that area. And if we do find a specialist,
it remains to be seen whether he or she will want to put his or her qualities to use in supply chain. The consequence of the talent shortage is that we are looking for the right people globally. For exam- ple, the head of our data science depart- ment lives and works in Sydney. That’s fine as far as we’re concerned, because he has the knowledge leadership that we need. It doesn’t matter where the talent is, as long as it can provide the value we need.”
Sterlecchini from Grundfos agrees that there is a shortage of talent, but only in certain parts of the world: “We are now strengthening our competencies in East- ern Europe, where the labour market is very dynamic. However, it’s a very dif- ferent situation in China, where it takes longer to find the right people, especially for planning roles. And once you’ve found talent it’s even more difficult to retain it, so we need to put more energy into keeping high potentials motivated – not only by rewarding them well finan- cially, but also by giving them challeng- ing projects with organizational impact.”
Tunnel vision
Cecere argues that data scientists are increasingly important in supply chain, but their ‘soft skills’ are often weak. “As a result, many companies are struggling
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SUPPLY CHAIN MOVEMENT, No.40, Q1 2021
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