Dr Muddassir Ahmed is the Founder & CEO of SCMDOJO. He is a global speaker, vlogger and supply chain industry expert with 17 years of experience in the manufacturing industry in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia in various supply chain leadership roles. He founded the leading supply chain platform SCMDOJO to enable supply chain professionals and supply chain teams to thrive by providing best-in-class knowledge content, tools and access to experts.
With 51,000 visitors and 77,000 page views a month, 47,000 active newsletter subscribers, and a tribe of over 105,000 social media followers it looks like he might be on to something!
With supply chain continuing to receive lots of column inches in the mainstream media, we were delighted to get his thoughts on how supply chain can become a ‘real’ career of choice.
Muddassir, what do you love about Supply Chain?
The supply chain is crazy fun! Supply chain offers the opportunity to solve complex planning, procurement, logistics or operations challenges, drive efficiency, and make a global impact on commerce. Its dynamic nature, diverse responsibilities, and continuous learning opportunities make it a compelling field for those who enjoy problem-solving and collaboration. And I like these two things very much!
How do you feel supply chain is perceived in general? Why is this?
I feel supply chain still perceived as a ‘complex phrase’ and industry to many outside of the field. There is still some way to go to break these barriers down so we can attract raw talent and the key Is to continue to relay this information in a simplified and innovative manner to everyone.
What should supply chain do better?
I think, as a huge industry, it is hidden. There needs to be more focussed recruitment strategies with clear and defined career paths with growth outlined. We need to continue to capatalise on the exposure supply chain received in the media at the peak of the pandemic to attract up and coming talent. Maybe, in the near future, we can develop a working partnership with schools and colleges to provide careers guidance talks so we can create grass root level visibility that starts at the point when students are thinking about what they want to pursue.
Supply Chain is not perceived as the most glamourous of careers. Together with lack of defined career path, and often a lack of visibility educationally compared to roles such as sales, marketing, finance etc, attracting a new generation of professionals is a challenge. What should supply chain do about this?
Well at SCMDOJO, we have already identified this gap in the market and are actively working on our SCMDOJO Academy where we have created and designed courses which aim to define a clear supply chain focused curriculum within the subject of business management. This is then linked to defined career paths that this leads to.
The pandemic thrust supply chain into the spotlight. Global supply chain disruptions has taken the majority of the headlines but what benefits has this exposure created for supply chain functions?
Before the pandemic, supply chain was very much a phrase reserved for those in the industry only. No one really paid attention to what it really meant and probably did not realise how much of an impact a break in supply chain can have not just individually but within communities and further afield.
The biggest benefit of the exposure supply chain received was the headlines and focus it received in the media who in turn simplified in understandable language for their largely layman audience of what it is, the various disciplines and industries it covers and how it affected them directly.
It was not just a one-off news story either, exposure to supply chain is still continuing today.
This has opened up a new level of interest with many now looking into successful career changes into supply chain as they understand that it largely requires skills that many professionals already have and can be transferable from whatever background they are from.
Do you feel supply chain should do more in order to attract new talent? What should it do?
Absolutely! But let’s be honest, supply chain does not outwardly sound glamourous or exciting! So, I would say, it is almost our ‘responsibility’, as individuals passionate about the constant potential this industry holds, to keep thinking outside the box and understand how to grab the attention of new talent and audience.
For example, at SCMDOJO we are constantly innovating fun ways to bring exposure to what supply chain is. So we created our SCMDOJO Rap which achieved viral status and I received a lot of enquiries as a direct result of people from many unrelated backgrounds, of all ages, wanting to look into this industry. There is so much to offer and explore and with the ever-changing methods and demands globally, we must accept that we need to continually be on the lookout for new talent.
Do you need to be a qualified supply chain practitioner to be a successful member of a supply chain team?
Supply chain does not necessarily require you to be a qualified or even a practicing practitioner specifically in supply chain to make the move into the industry or limit your success and growth. It does require you to have the desire to learn and be ready to train. The qualifications and professional development can be built upon side by side.
It is a unique industry where many facets, such as warehouse management, procurement, manufacturing actually require broader disciplines and qualifications. The beauty of supply chain is that it is all around us, and whether we realise it or not, all of us are actually a part of it in some way or other. At the very least, all of us are consumers! So, it’s not as daunting as it seems to explore this.