Supply chain and purchasing services: two fast changing sectors!
Supply chain and purchasing services: two fast changing sectors!
A great variety of jobs, attractive salaries and great international opportunities, purchasing and/or supply chain managers are booming as these sectors are becoming more and more visible. Additionally, they benefit from the boosting effect the new robotic and digital technologies are generating.
Global economy turned our way of doing business up side down. Exchanging goods, locally or internationally, requires today competitive logistics and modern purchasing departments.In transports and logistics alone, more than 540,000 jobs will be opened by 2022 according to a report the French employment center (Pôle Emploi) issued.
Previously less valued, probably because we could not see how strategic they were (competitive intelligence, business development, organization, globalization, investments, risk management etc.), these jobs are becoming more and more attractive for younger graduates. Many related training programs are opening in France and in other countries. emlyon business school decided to follow through by creating a program combining both areas: the MSc in Global Supply Chain & Purchasing Management, and to take it to the highest level on a global scale.
The double expertise in operations and strategy, a key professional asset Having an exhaustive global vision of the business value chain is the core value of this new MSc. For Eric David, program director, having both supply chain and purchasing services in one and a single program “is innovative and was born from the fact that both sectors have a lot in common. Students thus have the possibility to acquire transverse competences for several months before specializing during the last term.”
Having this double expertise allows future graduates to gain a strategic vision based on the whole range of company requirements: physical flows, sales forecasts, planning, supply management, all constituting key elements, which when commanded, contribute to building the future of companies.
New technologies, the sector’s Eldorado
With the rising power of technologies, new needs are emerging in the sector of supply chain and purchasing services. Not only for digital technologies (analytics, big data, AI, blockchain, cyber security, geo-tracking, traceability, telecommunications), but it is also true for robotics (computerized machines, autonomous vehicles, smart buildings, IoT, additive manufacturing, enhanced reality, on-board electronics etc.) are now the key to the supply chain and to suppliers’ ecosystems. Opportunities are tremendous, notably in an economical context marked by the emerging “on-demand” approach. Applications and feasibility are implemented rapidly in projects jointly carried out with our School’s partner companies. Globalization, the x factor
Held in English on both our French and Asian campuses, this program is resolutely global. “Half of our students are from outside of France. In addition to English and their native language, we want our future graduates to be able to speak a third language, including some basic French”, Eric David underlined. A one-week Learning Trip in California complements the strong international orientation of this program.
The constantly growing major economic interconnections between G20 and BRICS countries and worldwide, are pushing companies into recruiting international profiles. This appetite for new languages and culture, and the desire to discover the world are as many career boosters for those who seize such opportunities. Eric David, former supply chain director in several multinational and intermediate companies, having worked in 17 different countries, is living proof.
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