1 [email protected] | Join our Supply Chain Talent Community | 877-236-0420 Scale the Supply Chain Leadership Ranks Competencies to Master to Advance to Supply Chain Executive
1 [email protected] | Join our Supply Chain Talent Community | 877-236-0420
Scale the Supply Chain Leadership Ranks
Competencies to Master to Advance to Supply Chain Executive
2 [email protected] | Join our Supply Chain Talent Community | 877-236-0420
About the Author
Rodney Apple President & Founder | SCM Talent Group
• Completely specialized in end-to-end supply chain recruitment since 2001
• Built the very first supply chain department for The Home Depot (Fortune 13 at time)
• Spanning 10+ years, led supply chain recruitment for 4 corporations that made the Gartner Top 25 SupplyChain list:
The Home Depot Kimberly-Clark Cummins The Coca-Cola Company
• Personally filled more than 1,000 professional to executive supply chain positions
• ASCM (formerly APICS) Career Coach since 2014
• ASCM Magazine Author for “Professional Development”
• Presenter at CSCMP and APICS global conferences on supply chain talent topics
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Contents
4 Introduction
5 Ways to Set Yourself Up for Success
7 Key Skills to Develop Early in Career
12 How to Obtain Your First Leadership Role
13 The Importance of Networking
14 10 Skills to Reach Executive Level
18 Conclusion
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Introduction Having recruited exclusively within the supply chain sector for about 2 decades, which includes many
years of experience recruiting on the inside of several large multinational corporations in addition to
running my own executive search firm, I have gained a lot of insights into the world of supply chain
hiring and career advancement.
Over the course of my career I have closely followed the careers of thousands of supply chain
professionals that I have recruited. One group that I have paid close attention to are top supply chain
leaders. These are professionals that have managed to accelerate their career development within
supply chain, often times reaching their top career goals long before their peers with the same tenue.
In this guide, I will share with you what these top leaders have in common and techniques they utilize
to achieve rapid success in their careers. Whether you’re an experienced supply chain professional or
a college student, I’m hoping that you’ll discover some new techniques and advice that can help you
with accelerating your leadership career in supply chain.
Section One
Ways to Set Yourself Up for Success
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Set Career Goals That Motivate You
Staying motivated is the key to achieving career goals. When
you set career goals for yourself, they must be deemed as
“important” and there must be “value” associated with
achieving them. Focus on establishing goals that match the
highest priorities within your career first – goals that you
know will create a strong sense of urgency to fulfill and will
add value once achieved.
Be sure to write down each goal along with why it’s
important to you and the value you expect to receive from
achieving the goal. If you have established a professional
mentor it would be a wise idea to share your career goals
with this person as this can be a great way to generate
inspiration when needed.
Set SMART Career Goals
In order for a career goal to be deemed qualified it needs to
be a SMART goal. SMART stands for:
Specific – the career goal must be well defined and describe
in precise detail what it is you want to achieve.
Measurable – if your goals don’t include numbers,
dates, amounts or percentages you won’t be able to track
and measure your progress.
Achievable – avoid setting goals that are near impossible to
achieve or you’ll be setting yourself up for disappointment
and frustration. You should avoid setting goals that are too
easy to achieve as well. The best approach is to set stretch
goals – something that’s realistic and challenging.
Relevant – closely align your goals with the direction you
want your career to go in as this will help maintain the
proper focus you’ll need to stay ahead.
Timely – all career goals should have a deadline. Deadlines
help to create and maintain a sense of urgency.
Section One
Ways to Set Yourself Up for Success
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Develop Career Action Steps
Career goals are focused on achieving a desired outcome
by an established deadline. Action steps are prioritized
work tasks and milestones that you need to achieve in
order to obtain your goal by the established deadline.
Write down these action steps and better yet, embed
them into your favorite task management system such as
Outlook for example.
Review And Track Your Progress
Write Down Your Career Goals
If you fail to write down your career goals you simply won’t
succeed (unless you get lucky). It is imperative that you not
only write down your career goals but that you keep them in
a highly visible place such as your desk, mirror and/or glued
to your laptop. Be sure to frame the goal positively e.g. “I will
complete my APICS CSCP in 12 months versus “I will try to
complete my APICS CPIM in the next 1-2 years”. Lastly, I’m
sure you keep a To Do List so be sure to keep your goals
written at the top of the list as a constant reminder.
Working towards achieving your career goals is a steady,
ongoing process that requires a lot focus and commitment.
I encourage you to set up recurring appointments/
reminders on your calendar each week to track progress
made towards achieving your goals. Sometimes you’ll
need to make adjustments to your goals when unexpected
events pop up in your life or career so know that this okay
and perfectly normal.
With that being said, always strive to keep your goal
deadlines in place as pushing them back can lead to bad
habits such as procrastination. If you do miss a deadline
then set aside some time to reevaluate what when wrong
and put a corrective action plan in place.
Section Two
Key Skills to Develop Early in Career
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Communication
For many supply chain leadership roles, strong
communication skills can be equally as important as having
deep expertise in a particular field. Here are few skills to
develop or sharpen as it relates to becoming an effective
communicator:
Active Listening – listen with the intent to understand, as opposed to reply
Empathy – putting yourself into others shoes to understand and act genuinely
Adaptability – tailor your communication style to align with the audience or situation
Clarity – succinct, to-the-point communication style, avoiding rambling and tangents
Confidence – firmly believing in yourself and exuding confidence
Constructive Feedback – being able to both give and receive helpful feedback
Emotional Intelligence – identifying and managing others emotions and your own
Interpersonal Skills – building rapport and developing relationships with others
Non-Verbal Communication – understanding and responding to non-verbal cues
Open-Mindedness – understanding differing perspectives and the ability to change your mind
Simplifying – converting technical or complex topics into layman’s terms
Storytelling – engaging and captivating your audience through telling genuine stories
Section Two
Key Skills to Develop Early in Career
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Project Management Chops
Supply chain professionals must be highly organized as
it relates to managing their time effectively and making
the right level of progress towards assigned goals and
objectives.
A great way to strengthen your people leadership abilities
is to improve your project management skills, especially as
it relates to motivating and leading cross-functional teams,
assigning and prioritizing work tasks, and achieving key
milestones and budget targets.
If you lack project management experience, then you need
to position yourself to gain this. A great place to start is
to inform your superiors that you would like to support
future projects for your department or the overall supply
chain organization. In addition, you should check out the
training and certification programs offered by the Project
Management Institute (PMI) such as the PMP (Project
Management Professional) certification.
Section Two
Key Skills to Develop Early in Career
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Understanding And Adapting To Supply Chain And Industry Trends
If there’s anything that’s constant within the field of supply
chain, it’s rapid change. Many supply chain professionals
make the mistake of focusing too much time on their day-
to-day jobs, and not enough time reading up on supply
chain trends or researching what leading companies in their
industry are doing from a supply chain perspective.
Your ability to both spot and adapt to trends can be a
powerful tactic for accelerating your leadership skills and
gaining attention from leaders within your supply chain
organization, which in turn can help propel your career.
Here a few ways to keep a strong pulse on trends occurring
within supply chain and your industry:
Networking – join supply chain associations and industry-
related associations such as ASCM where you can digest
their content and engage in networking activities.
Supply Chain Blogs and Trade Journals – subscribe to the
top supply chain blogs, newsletters and trade journals as
well as blogs that are related to your industry. I’ve been
using a free tool called Feedly.com to keep track of the
main supply chain blogs, news and trends in one central
place that syncs across all of my devices.
Conduct Market Research – Go straight to the source for
information, including contacting your customers, suppliers
and service providers to ask questions as well as sending out
surveys and polls through social media, email, etc.
Follow Supply Chain Influencers and Topics –
LinkedIn makes it very simple to follow key influencers
and topics within your industry and the supply chain
field. You can also follow #hashtags on LinkedIn by
simply typing in a hashtag in the main search bar e.g.
#supplychain.
As you discover new trends and ideas, determine which
ones are applicable to your company, and socialize them
with your manager and other supply chain leaders. If they
have an interest in implementing the ideas you’ve brought to
the table, you’ll likely receive an opportunity to help bring
them to fruition.
Section Two
Key Skills to Develop Early in Career
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Go Above And Beyond
Overachievers are the ones that move up the career
ladder the quickest. In addition to fulfilling the basic
responsibilities you were hired to do, always strive to go
above and beyond. When your boss asks the team for a
volunteer to work on a project or to knock out a difficult
task, raise your hand and volunteer. This will earn some
respect points with your manager, so that when an
opportunity comes up for a promotion you just might get
the nod ahead of your peers.
One of the most important things you’ll need to do is to
gain a detailed understanding of the key deliverables that
are expected of you in your job as well as any metrics and
KPIs that you are expected to track and improve.
Ask your manager what you need to do to get to the next
level and strive to exceed expectations. If possible, aim to
schedule a few update meetings throughout the year to
go over how you’re tracking against your key deliverables,
discuss any opportunities, gaps or problems, etc.
When it comes time to sit down with your manager to con-
duct an annual review, you’ll want to come fully prepared
with a list of accomplishments documenting the value you
delivered to the organization. Be sure that you quantify the
results for each major accomplishment e.g. cost reduction
savings, percentage points you improved against KPIs, etc.
Also, keep any emails you receive from customers, clients,
executives, etc. so you can show off what others have said
about your work.
Section Two
Key Skills to Develop Early in Career
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Invest In Your Future
Another great way to accelerate the movement from
individual contributor to supply chain leader is to invest in
your future. If your employer offers courses take advantage
of them. If not, there are other ways to learn such as
taking online courses, attending courses at your
community college, reading books and blogs, etc.
At some point in your career you may decide that you
would like to go back to college to obtain an advanced
degree such as MS, MBA or even a PhD degree. Be sure
to check with your employer to see if they offer tuition
reimbursement as this could be an excellent way to obtain
an additional degree at a deep discount. Last but not
least, obtaining professional supply chain certifications
e.g. APICS CSCP can absolutely help with making your
more promotable within and outside of your current
employer.
Seek Out Mentorships
A strong mentor can help advance your career in many
ways especially as it relates to improving your leadership
acumen. Here are some of the top benefits that can be
gained from mentorships:
• Access to untapped networks by facilitating introductions
• Help with identifying skills gaps and advice
for how to best close them
• Increased visibility within your company
• Better understanding of how to navigate company politics
• Exposure to new ideas and ways of thinking
To get started, you’ll want to establish your goals and
objectives with a mentorship. From here, you’ll want to
conduct research to identify the right mentor that can help
achieve your goals. If your organization offers a formal
mentorship program, sign up and strive to identify a mentor
that’s well known for being a strong leader. If not, engage
your HR partner and/or boss in efforts to help identify the
right mentor for you to engage with.
Section Three
How to Obtain Your First Leadership Role
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Establish Strong Relations With Your Boss
First and foremost, you’ll want to establish a strong
relationship with your direct supervisor as this person
typically holds the keys to your promotion. Even if
your direct supervisor isn’t the final decision maker on
promotions, he or she will certainly have influence on these
types of decisions.
One of the most important things you’ll need to do is to
gain a detailed understanding of the key deliverables that
are expected of you in your job as well as any metrics and
KPIs that you are expected to track and improve. Ask your
manager what you need to do to get to the next level and
strive to be an over-achiever. If possible, aim to schedule a
few update meetings throughout the year to go over how
you’re tracking against your key deliverables, discuss any
opportunities or problems, etc.
Always strive to maintain a positive attitude and never
complain as this will do you no good. Be proactive
versus reactive when it comes to communicating routine
updates as you don’t want your boss having to ask you for
something that’s frequently expected of you. If you do get
overwhelmed with work or a fire pops up that you can’t
extinguish, be sure to alert your manager as it’s better to get
help than to let something blow up which can make you
look bad as well as your manager. Last but not least, make it
your mission to make your boss look good and shine. When
you contribute towards the success of your manager this will
get noticed and can lead to faster promotions.
Ways to Set Yourself Up for Success
When it comes time to sit down with your manager
to conduct an annual review you’ll want to come fully
prepared with a list of accomplishments documenting the
value you delivered to the organization. Be sure that you
quantify the results for each major accomplishment e.g. cost
reduction savings, percentage points you improved against
KPIs, etc. Also keep any emails you receive from customers,
clients, executives, etc. so you can show off what others have
said about your work.
Other important reasons for maintaining a list of
accomplishments are to have good content for keeping your
supply chain resume updated and to have plenty of good
information to share for when you go on your next job
interview, whether it be for an internal position or with
another company.
Section Four
The Importance of Networking
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While developing a strong network of supply chain
professionals throughout your career is important, building
meaningful relationships with supply chain professionals
and others that you work with is even more important. I like
to think of business relationships as the “glue” that holds
companies together because people are the most important
asset of any company and without them, companies cannot
survive.
Your goal should be to develop mutually beneficial
relationships (as in provide value and help when needed)
to one another. Relationships that you’ll want to focus
on building throughout your career should include your
immediate peers and coworkers, employees, customers,
suppliers, vendors, your manager(s), senior leadership within
supply chain, your HR partner and anyone else that you feel
would benefit from knowing you and vice versa.
Successful supply chain practitioners focus on building and
developing relationships with a broad group of professionals
and they rely on these individuals for advice, insights, support,
feedback, career guidance, etc. throughout the course of
their careers. When you focus on growing your supply chain
network and building meaningful business relationships, you
will put yourself in a position to accelerate your career while
helping others do the same.
Section Five
10 Skills to Reach Executive Level
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marketing to I.T. to sales, and beyond. This will improve your
ability to serve as a trusted, impactful business partner across
the enterprise. Engaging mentors from other departments
while building relationships across the enterprise can help
achieve a comprehensive understanding of your business.
The role of Executive Leader continues to grow in popularity
as more companies recognize that supply chain management
is central to success and a key differentiator for adding value
and driving revenue growth. Executive leaders of today aren’t
just focused on coordinating the company’s end-to-end supply
chain and cutting costs. They are also involved with developing
and supporting core business strategies, product and service
innovations, customer retention programs, leading due
diligence and integrations for mergers & acquisitions, margin
enhancement initiatives, and more.
There is no magic formula to reach this position, as every
company’s supply chain is unique, requiring varying degrees of
experience, qualifications and skills. However, there are several
core competencies to develop in efforts to increase their
chances of obtaining this coveted position:
Deep and Broad Understanding of the Business
Supply chain touches, influences, and impacts almost all
aspects of a business. It’s imperative to develop a solid
understanding of the overall business- from finance to
Impeccable Leadership and Talent Development
This one is a given, seeing that Executive leaders typically
oversee the largest teams within most companies, especially
companies that manufacture and distribute their own
products. Practice and embrace servant leadership with
all stakeholders within and outside of the enterprise while
focusing on building relationships, driving decisions to
consensus for the betterment of the company, and helping
others achieve success.
A relentless focus on hiring, developing and retaining the next
generation of leaders is essential for the long-term success
of companies, especially in light of talent gaps that exist in
many areas of the supply chain. Executive leaders and their
leadership teams are encouraged to constantly evaluate their
organization’s talent gaps and focus on closing gaps through
training, stretch assignments, cross-functional assignments,
certifications such as the APICS CSCP and CPIM, and other
continuous education programs.
Section Five
10 Skills to Reach Executive Level
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Cross-Functional Supply Chain Expertise
Executive leaders are expected to have solid knowledge and
experience across all functional areas of their company’s
supply chain, regardless of whether the company outsources
manufacturing or logistics to third parties or handles
everything in-house. The ability to connect all of the dots from
your suppliers’ suppliers to your customers’ customers and
integrate all departments and functions into one team with one
vision is critical for success.
To obtain broader, end-to-end supply chain experience,
you need to be a top performer and purposely seek out
opportunities that allow you to work across the supply chain,
from operations roles to corporate headquarters to customer-
facing positions. Gaining employment with a growing
company that has progressive talent development practices is
ideal to accelerate learning and development across the supply
chain.
Global Experience
Strategic Thinking
Lacking the ability to think strategically has been a common
impediment to the career growth of many supply chain
practitioners. The typical culprit involves allocating too much
time to keeping up with the day-to-day work tasks and failing
to think and act ahead. Supply chain leaders must develop this
critical skill set in efforts to shape their organizations to be able
to proactively tackle future business challenges while enabling
and sustaining growth. Engaging a mentor with solid strategic
planning and development chops is a great place to start.
Technology & Innovation
In today’s digital era, customers demand a high degree
of personalization and expect a rapid turnaround with
every order placed. Executive leaders need to have the
strategic ability and know-how to deploy digital, innovative
technologies that continuously improve and optimize their
supply chains, enabling and sustaining revenue growth.
Executive leaders that successfully integrate emerging
technologies such as blockchain, robotics, artificial
intelligence, advanced planning systems, the internet of things,
etc. will become more marketable than those that don’t. This
doesn’t mean that you need to become an I.T. expert, but
you must be able to partner closely with your company’s I.T.
department, internal stakeholders, external vendors, etc.
to successfully implement and optimize various tools and
technologies across your supply chain.
Gaining experience within multiple developed and developing
countries is important in order to understand how to adapt
to different cultures, languages, geopolitical challenges, and
supply chain risk scenarios. Seek out global opportunities early
on with your employer to include global sourcing roles, setting
up operations in foreign countries, expat assignments, and the
like.
Section Five
10 Skills to Reach Executive Level
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Strategic Relationship Building & Communication Skills
As advancements in technology brings more automation
and sophistication to the supply chain, executive leaders
must have excellent collaboration and relationship building
abilities in efforts to form strong alliances across global,
interconnected and interdependent networks. These networks
can consist of suppliers, internal stakeholders, service
providers, customers, colleagues and in some cases their
direct competitors (my firm recently recruited several supply
chain leaders for a new start-up client that was formed by two
direct competitors, both Fortune 500 companies). Executive
leaders must be able to leverage their collective relationships
to cut through bureaucracy, influence and motivate others,
and lead through constant change.
Strong communication skills are critical in efforts to gain trust
and respect across the company, from shop-floor associates
to the board of directors, as well as externally, from suppliers
to investors to foreign governments. Presentation skills, from
speaking at supply chain conferences to leading town halls to
articulating business strategy to the board, are very important
too.
Leveraging Data Analytics
Today companies have access to a treasure trove of data across
their enterprises and are leveraging this data in new ways to
gain market share, create new products and service offerings,
and radically improve service levels to their customers. As
more supply chains go digital, the ability to capture, interpret
and measure the right data becomes far more important
to the long-term success of their businesses. Therefore,
executive leaders must constantly evaluate trends occurring in
the marketplace as it relates to data analytics and adapt
accordingly. While executive leaders certainly aren’t expected
to become subject matter experts in data analytics, their ability
to hire the right analytical talent and deploy the right tools
and solutions are critical for creating a proactive, visible and
adaptable supply chain organization.
Section Five
10 Skills to Reach Executive Level
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A Relentless Focus on Continuous Improvement
Having recruited and built several continuous improvement
teams throughout my career, I have witnessed the enormous
value that a solid CI organization can deliver for their
companies, ranging from efficiency gains to cost savings to
reduced waste to empowering high performing work teams.
When I led supply chain recruitment for The Coca-Cola
Company, their CI programs were so successful within the
supply chain organization that they deployed CI resources
across all functions within the company, leading to even
greater achievements.
Executive leaders should always seek out ways to continuously
improve their supply chain organizations as maintaining
the status quo can become the death of any company,
especially in today’s rapidly evolving digital business climate.
Executive leaders must have the right CI leader (keyword:
leader) that can create and deploy the right CI resources,
tools and methodologies, with the ability to develop and
sustain a culture of continuous improvement throughout the
organization.
Supply Chain Sustainability
Gone are the days of making every business decision
based on what’s best for the company’s bottom line while
not considering the impacts to our social and natural
environments. This can be credited to increased transparency
within global supply chains along with stepped up pressure
from consumers and other advocates of creating a cleaner,
safer, healthier and more ethical planet.
With this in mind, executive leaders must focus on creating and
deploying sustainability programs and initiatives throughout all
aspects of their supply chain, both internally within their
operations and externally with their supplier base and end
customers. Not only is it the right thing to do, for the sake of
our environment and human welfare, but there’s a lot of value
that can be extracted through reducing wastes, lowering energy
consumption, reusing and recycling, and so forth.
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In Conclusion
When it comes to your supply chain career, you and only you are in charge. Every major decision you make can have a
positive or negative impact and you will be making numerous career-related decisions beginning in college until you
retire. While this may sound a bit daunting, the good news is that you have an abundant amount of resources to tap into
to help with making wise career decisions.
From the time you launch your career until you retire, it is imperative that you take a proactive career management
approach. Think and act strategically about your career and get good at goal setting, organization and planning. Forming
good habits and routines early on will set you up for success.
Seek out as much career advice as you possibly can through the network that you build, the relationships that you
develop, and the mentors that you engage. Take intelligent risks and don’t be afraid of failing or making mistakes
especially early on. Every successful business person will tell you that they’ve failed and made plenty of mistakes
throughout their career and this is what made them stronger and more successful.
While it’s always important to achieve results and deliver value in each and every job you hold, it’s also important to have a
strong network of contacts and relationships. Your experience and background can only take you so far. It’s “who you
know” that can help lead you to your career destinations and open up doors of opportunity.
Last but not least, there’s a long line of supply chain professionals that aspire to reach the senior-most leadership level
within the field of supply chain such as Chief Supply Chain Officer, for example. The reality is that only a small
percentage make it to this level. If you want to reach this level, you must develop impeccable leadership skills that extend
beyond being a great leader of teams. You must be able to influence at all levels within an organization, lead through
constant change and turbulent times, and be able to field and build world-class supply chain organizations.
Questions? Contact Us:
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SCM Talent Group
When it comes to recruiting and placing top supply chain talent, SCM Talent Group has a long history of delivering
strong dating back to 2002 when our Founder, Rodney Apple, recruited and built the very first supply chain
department for The Home Depot – a Fortune 13 company at the time.
Since then, we have filled more than 1,000 professional to executive supply chain positions for numerous industries
and companies throughout the United States.
Why SCM Talent Group? • Deep functional knowledge and recruiting expertise of the end-to-end supply chain discipline
• A vast, ever expanding network of supply chain contacts and relationships across most major industries
• A robust recruiting process with a history of delivering candidates that match or exceed client expectations
• Broad portfolio of customizable recruiting services designed to meet the hiring needs of any organization
• Over 1,000 successful placements to date spanning all aspects of supply chain management
• Unparalleled expertise featured in various supply chain talent media journals & news outlets
Partial list of positions filled:
• Chief Supply Chain Officer • EVP of Global Supply Chain • VP of Supply Chain • Dir. of Supply Chain Management • VP of Logistics • VP of Distribution • VP of Transportation • Dir. of Global Warehousing • Dir. of Transportation • Dir. of Global QA
• VP of Procurement • Dir. of Global Procurement • Dir. of Supplier Development • VP of Supply Management • VP of Inventory Management • Dir. of Supply Management • Dir. of Replenishment • VP of Operations • Materials Manager • Dir. of Operational Excellence