Supply chain professionals love challenge, teamwork, and the impact they have on the core of their business. But in the boom! survey, 28% reported plans to change jobs in the coming year (echoing the LinkedIn data referenced above), a higher rate than before the pandemic. The top two reasons for leaving were inability to achieve career goals fast enough (31%) and desire to better use their skills and current abilities (20%), factors that grow even stronger as they advance in their careers, trumping the search for better pay and benefits. What happens if that ambition is not fulfilled? You lose your most mature talent, with the greatest knowledge and institutional memory.
How can you get supply chain talent to stay? By investing in their professional development, the second highest priority boom! survey respondents ranked. Advanced analytics (35%), digital transformation (33%) and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML, 32%) were three of the top four areas listed as topics of interest for professional development. How can AI/ML help these professionals advance in their career and do more with what they know?
In fact, more than half of the boom! respondents ranked “visible, empowering senior leadership with a clear, well-communicated strategic vision” as the most important resource needed to help them in their role. Another 35% wished for leaders like Lizet, who are willing to support and implement change. Because moving from spreadsheets to digitally integrated tools entails a digital transformation, which won’t happen on its own. In spite of our wishes, there are no magic wands in supply chain.
Giving supply chain managers better, integrated tools will break them out of spreadsheet prison and make it easier to collaborate, working together in teams to make the impact they desire. Removing tedium from their tasks with AI/ML can free them to use more of their current skills and learn new ones. But fear can get in the way for those who worry that AI/ML will automate them out of a job.
While discussions of an autonomous supply chain can feed fear, turn the discussion around by emphasizing that AI/ML works best when it complements human intelligence. AI/ML models literally learn from data, but when data is disrupted by black swan events the learning is interrupted. In these times we must rely on human intelligence to make decisions, just as we did early in the pandemic.
Supply chain professionals want to use their current skills more and learn new ones. They want access to a single version of the truth working in a digitally integrated world so they can plan concurrently. They want leadership with vision willing to make change. Digital transformations that include AI/ML can empower and motivate planners on all these dimensions. Supply chains are only as good as the humans who run them, rendering a supply chain labor shortage a significant risk. People are our most valuable asset. Listen to what your supply chain professionals want and invest in the technology to give them what they need.
Mitchell-Guthrie has an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also received her BA in political science as a Morehead Scholar. She has been active in many roles within INFORMS (the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences), including serving as the chair and vice chair of the Analytics Certification Board and secretary of the Analytics Society.
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