On the other hand, the skills of obsolete people in the logistics sector are just as necessary as they are, perhaps even more so. Almost all logistics companies now use IT software for companies, such as ERP suites, to manage their supply chains, and digital logistics professionals often have to make decisions about the acquisition and implementation of these advanced software products. Scholars usually distinguish between learning as a process and learning as a result, the former requiring a deep understanding of complex phenomena before learning results (Noe et al. 2017; Fenwick, 2006). The separation of learning as a process of results-oriented views is of great importance from a theoretical and practical point of view (Wielenga-Meijer, 2010), since the learning results depend on the quality of the learning process .

In the trifecta of people, processes and technology, your human personnel are the most complex and easiest to overlook. The right processes that are tailored to the right technology, but are performed by the wrong people with the wrong skills, is a disaster formula. Like the supply chain, the workforce needs to be modernized with new opportunities and new priorities for this digitally activated era.

APQC research has consistently shown that business acumen and soft skills are among the most important and most sought-after skills across the supply chain. Mentoring programs that help workers develop these skills are sometimes included as part of a broader development program (for example, a leadership development program for workers with high potential), but they can also act as independent tutoring initiatives. Given the strong learning component in the SC profession, Supply Chain Headhunters Human resource managers must increase the learning attitude in the requested profile at the expense of pure SCM skills. Such a strategy can also counteract the shortage of SC professionals by increasing the number of potential candidates. Finally, Academic program providers and developers must increasingly consider and emphasize the learning dimension in the SC profession, and view the curriculum to better match students and prepare for future learning and working at SCM.

That is why this study is intended to investigate the way in which SC professionals develop their professional skills at work. While we have not yet seen the impact on consumers, these costs should lower margins to a level that consumers will have to share in the future in the form of higher prices for products and services. Meanwhile, companies need to ensure they have the most talented negotiators and leaders who lead their purchasing and supply chain functions.

Another way would be to develop the proposals in this document in testable hypotheses and to conduct quantitative studies. Future research may also quantitatively examine the proposed relative contribution of each learning mechanism for junior and senior SC professionals, as proposed in Figure 2. Finally, it would be interesting to explore how to transfer individual learning from SC professionals to higher social levels, such as teams and organizations. Only a minority of SCM behavioral literature crosses the line between levels of individual and social research.

Given the strong overlap between the major SCM activities and essential learning mechanisms, we believe that learning, that is, developing learning skills, is key to success as a SC professional By analyzing the actual work of SC professionals, the results show that learning from three essential learning mechanisms coincides with a variety of important SCM activities. While these learning mechanisms are an essential part of the learning process, they also connect to central parts of SCM’s daily work. Rather than explaining how these learning mechanisms contributed to learning, respondents noted how they improved supply chain performance, further strengthens the link between learning mechanisms and key SCM activities for SC professionals Respondents often presented collaboration as an effective learning mechanism for knowledge acquisition both inside and outside the supply chain.

What we have found may be surprising and a window on the fabric of successful supply chain organizations. Before delivery, operations had to be brought back ashore, bringing supplies closer to production, or both. For inventory management strategies, many were hurt by trying to get thin during pandemic times, while others struggled to unload excess inventory due to declining demand.

Leading companies use advanced digital tools to learn what it takes to build new skills on request, both within and between industries. Many use AI tools to match skills comparable from old roles to new roles to enable responsible training across the supply chain. At the same time, however, it also exposed the need for companies to diversify their sources of supply outside a single country or region and gain a deeper understanding of their extensive ecosystem, including their supplier suppliers. Supplier diversification has already gained ground in recent years, as the increased costs and geopolitical risk of trade wars have led organizations to complement their traditional supply networks with infrastructure in a second country, usually lower costs. COVID-19, however, emphasized how those strategies could have been superficial at best, as many production sites are still highly dependent on the same suppliers. The challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic have undoubtedly not revealed the interdependent or global nature of supply chains; rather, they emphasized that most organizations are not configured to manage this interconnectivity when adverse effects occur.