Pravin Shinde (1527229 MBA Sec-C)

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Supply chain professionals: A study of competencies, use of

technologies, and future challenges
Prajogo Daniel, Sohal Amrik
International Journal of Operations & Production Management
33
11/12
1532-1554
2013
Emerald Group Publishing, Limited
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1462451922?accountid=38885

Brief Introduction:
This research paper was conducted in the field of Supply chain management. The problem
definition was to identify the competencies and skills required for supply chain managers for
effective performance of an organisation. It also included various supply chain technologies
that should be implemented at a global level so as to enhance the productive efficiency of
organisation.
Supply chain has emerged as an important factor in todays competitive environment. For any
business, in order to sustain in the market they should derive high competitiveness with
integration of supply chain. The field of SCM has changed rapidly in recent years and these
changes are due to change in globalisation, business surroundings and advanced technologies.
In future for the advancements in this field or to deliver operational performance there is need
of highly skilled and qualified supply chain managers. They should have best decision
making capability, good planning skills, strategic thinking capability etc.
In order to study these factors a survey was conducted across the Australian companies to get
the answers from the supply chain professionals working there. Basically, the survey was
conducted to examine three areas:
(1) What are the competencies and skills of supply chain professionals to effectively manage
global supply chains?
(2) What is the extent of usage of supply chain technologies?
(3) What are the future challenges perceived by supply chain professionals?
Structure of Paper:
Section 1: They have given a brief introduction about supply chain management, why it is
important for an organisation to improve its operational performance, how decision taken by
supply chain managers affects the growth of any organisation.

Section 2: The paper stated that survey was conducted across Australian organisations to
identify the solutions to the areas explained above from different supply chain professionals.
Section 3: A brief literature review was given in SCM field. They stated the works done by
different authors in SCM with broader areas covered under it. Literature relevant to above
three areas are also discussed.
Section 4: They have stated the research methodology used in this paper.
Section 5: The results have been presented for the survey conducted and are also compared
with the previous findings in those three areas.
Section 6: The final conclusion is presented.
Research Methodology:
Basically, a survey was conducted across the Australian organisations in consultation with
GS1 Australia (Part of GS1 Global) which comprises of different questionnaire to be asked to
supply chain professionals working for these organisations. This survey was conducted to
collect data in relation with those three areas discussed above. A predefined set of
questionnaire was mailed to 921 individuals out of whom they received 148 responses.
The questions were designed based on sources from different journal articles and public
media. The sample collected consists of managers from different industry sectors like
manufacturing companies, medical and healthcare, information technology and
telecommunications/electronics etc. It involved responding people from small, medium and
large sized companies.
Major Findings/Results:
Basically the responses collected were presented on a five-point Likert scale where 1 not
significant and 5 critical.
Competencies and skills for supply chain professionals:
Skill set
Communication
and teamwork
skills
Technological
skills

Enterprise skills
Compliance and
legal knowledge

Ability to work effectively with individuals and

groups/teams
Ability to manage relationships in diverse contexts
Ability to make use of numerical techniques for
decision making (e.g. forecasting and scheduling)
Project management skills and ability to lead major
projects
Ability to manage risks in supply chain and their
associated issues
Ability to manage the change within the local context
Understanding of contractual and legal/regulatory
aspects of the business.

Mean Score
4.39
4.23
4.10
4.09
4.11
4.00
Ranging
from 3.51 to

Awareness of ethical issues at the national level.

3.77
The responses for the skills from Supply chain technologies, future challenges for supply
chains (Environmental issues, Impact of globalisation, Supply chain integration, Supply chain
training and development, impact of information technology, Supply chain responsiveness)
are also collected and for details we can refer the web link of the paper given above
Criticism:
The above paper was very decent and research conducted was very relevant to the field of
supply chain management. The information collected through survey will help many
organisations to access and improve their performance. As well as top level management
individuals will be able to recognise the desired candidate while recruitment for different
supply chain managerial roles. The statistical responses collected from 1 to 5 pointer scale are
very intuitive and will exactly identify the emerging skills needed in supply chain
professionals for productive work.
The research methodology conducted was restricted ones because they considered only
Australian organisations and the professionals working there. Hence there was lack of views
considering global perspective in the three examining areas discussed above. As well as the
postal questionnaire designed was sent to many individual but the response ratio was
considerably less i.e. only 14 percent. They should have conducted by physically visiting the
organisations and collecting the answers from the professionals on paper printed with those
set of questions.
The findings from the survey were appropriate for further research in SCM field. The
Reponses collected were up to the mark that is the answers were compared with the previous
findings and it found that they were actually similar. The most important skills in respective
fields of SCM stated higher accuracy facts wise.
Certain skill sets like Understanding of contractual and legal/regulatory aspects of the
business, Respect for diversity, social justice principles, the environment and corporate
Governance, Awareness of ethical issues at the national and international level were given
very low mean score which on global level are important. Hence the facts here are somewhat
contradicted. As well as for certain skill sets they could not achieve ordinal value of mean
scores and they just stated the ranging figures which will create a problem in future for
further investigation in the respective fields for organisations. But it creates a challenge for
individuals to perform research in these areas henceforth.
The logical flow of content was in structured manner but it included many literature review
work, it is important but they should have included some theoretical concepts related to SCM
field as well. Otherwise the content was up to date, the statistical figures and descriptive
statements were properly referenced and the synchronisations of concepts with applications
were practically implemented in the survey conducted.