Mind the gap, mate: A critical supply/demand mismatch

Anyone returning from a visit to the United Kingdom is likely to be much taken with the signature admonition from London's Tube, designed to keep people from stepping into the open space between subway trains and the platform, risking either death or life-altering maiming. We have another gap to deal with, and a failure to do so could easily have economic life-altering negative consequences.

The gap in question is the comprehensive talent shortage that afflicts nearly every facet of supply chain management. The problem goes well beyond truck operators, although the driver shortage is staggering, with a looming shortfall numbering in the hundreds of thousands. It's also about a shortage of comparable magnitude in analytic talent—not to mention in forklift drivers, order selectors, and customer service specialists. The list could go on and on.

All this goes a long way toward explaining why we are, in the collective, experiencing a nearly unprecedented boom in corporate efforts to capture, develop, and retain top-level performers in supply chain management. The forward-looking organizations are investing significantly in educating, training, recruiting, and rewarding human resources at all levels and in all supply chain functions. Many, regrettably, are not. They will be the ones hearing Ross Perot's giant sucking sound as their key employees run like the wind into the arms of progressive companies as economic recovery continues.

At the end of the day, however, these initiatives are focused on getting a bigger slice of a pie that is too small to feed the entire supply chain community. Getting more than one's fair share of drivers, for example, does nothing to alleviate the overall industry shortage. One vital question becomes, "What are we doing, as an industry, as a nation, to create a bigger pie—an adequate talent pool at all levels in all supply chain functions?"

The short answer is, "Not nearly enough."

In some functional areas, immigration could provide some ongoing relief, difficult as that message might be to accept while the overall economy still struggles. Retraining displaced workers from other industries can also help take the edge off resource shortages in operational supply chain functionality. But these, unless pursued on a broad scale, could turn out to be mere bandages.

One of the most important developments in growing the supply chain resource base and talent pool has been Walgreens' initiative in integrating disabled workers into supply chain operations and management. Senior Vice President Randy Lewis's vision and commitment have created a heretofore unrecognized talent pool. And the concept is rolling out into many other companies' operations.

But the total solution needs to be broader, deeper, more comprehensive, national, and sustainable—not to mention starting earlier in individuals' education and career progression. We cannot solve the entire challenge in this space, nor can we define the entire solution. But we do know that we, as a nation, must solve the calculus of the equation.

Whatever shape the solution might take, there will be roles for academia, business, and government. And we need to recognize that current solutions in those arenas are not filling all the gaps that need to be plugged.

WHERE WE FALL SHORT TODAY
The gaps begin to show themselves in the current generation of supply chain management practitioners. We don't have enough visionary leaders. The weeds are full of people in leadership positions who are merely managers, at best, and miscast dweebs at worst. In mid-level populations, fluency in the application of analytic tools tends to be limited, and not everyone realizes that PowerPoint is not an analytic tool.

Functional specialists, in both management and execution, too often have a view of the supply chain that includes not much more than their siloed responsibilities. The concept of a holistic and integrated end-to-end supply chain is, to them, something that academics and consultants natter on about, interrupting their focus on the task at hand.

Many, but not nearly enough, members of senior management teams get what supply chain is all about, and there is an unhealthy residual focus on supply chain activities as costs to be reduced, rather than as investments to be leveraged for corporate success.

Further, peer organizations within the company usually have no clue about the role, power, and contribution of supply chain management, and how it needs to interact with them, even how it can work with them for collaborative cross-functional solutions.

The next wave of leaders, practitioners, analysts, managers, and other associates shows promise, but is far from promising a solution.

WELL-EDUCATED YET ILL-PREPARED
Although there are more logistics and supply chain management curricula in colleges, universities, community colleges, and even high schools than ever before, the output is not filling all of the industry's needs. We are turning out graduates with incredible analytic skills and tools, and unprecedented exposure to advanced supply chain and logistics concepts. Yet industry is not completely happy with these resources.

Perhaps the solution lies in more and better collaboration between business and academia. Certainly, there are roles for both in developing supply chain talent for now and for the future. But where do today's graduates fail to meet either needs or expectations?

For starters, they don't grasp the big picture, in two significant dimensions. One is that end-to-end supply chain concept. They can say the words, but they too often look at the supply chain as a collection of functions, rather than as an integrated whole.

Then there's the woeful under-appreciation of how, where, and to what extent supply chain management contributes to corporate performance—and ultimately, success or failure. This partly reflects innocence of how and why supply chain management needs to link into the corporate mission and with the strategies that support it.

It also reveals an abysmal lack of familiarity and comfort with the language of finance and enterprise performance. Things like ROA, ROI, ROE, EBITD, and free cash flow. This severely limits the practitioner's comprehension of the full value of his or her efforts and the ability to communicate effectively with senior management.

Reflecting a failing of the incumbent generation, the highly educated newcomers don't get the difference between management and leadership, and they have not learned the roles and value of each. They, sadly, gravitate more toward a management perspective.

In a possibly related development, the elements of sustainable change management are not among their skill sets, and change is more often seen as a matter of announcement than a problem with cultural, behavioral, and attitudinal dimensions.

While the newbies may be reasonably good at working in teams, they have very little in the way of skills or appreciation in relationship building and maintenance. This is deadly enough internally, but is doubly destructive in external relationships with customers, suppliers, and service providers.

In general, young people are coming out of school prepared to rely extensively on brainpower and analytic skills to succeed, to the near-exclusion of the so-called "soft" skills that are becoming essential to individual and organizational success in the 21st century.

Finally, and not surprisingly, the new kids are short on experience. Maybe more corporate projects as part of curricula could help, and perhaps more internships could take the edge off its perception. But many young people don't take the time to gain employment experience between picking up a B.S. and an M.B.A.

ADDRESSING THE CONTENT SHORTFALL
As for how to solve the content shortfall problem, the answers are not completely obvious. We might make a case for addressing more of the gaps outlined above in academic curricula. But at what cost? With time provided by the elimination or de-emphasis of what?

Certainly, individual companies could build many of the needed skills in individualized development programs. But on what schedule, given the immediacy of the need? And at what investment level, given imperatives for performance and productivity?

External education and training to cover many of the issues is also a possibility but raises many of the same questions.

IN CONCLUSION
So, here we are. Not enough people to meet resource needs in supply chain management. People on the job who aren't measuring up to today's needs. A new generation that needs both new skills and seasoning to take us into the future.

Our work is cut out for us. And this is a set of challenges that we **ital{must} meet if we are to truly lead in a global environment.

Whoops! That gap is a little bigger than we might have imagined. Maybe it could swallow us up.