Supply chain/procurement consulting
Hi there,
Am having a look at the supply chain/procurement consulting industry at the moment, on behalf of a lazy housemate!
What do you think is the learning opportunity in this area for someone starting their career vs. strategy consulting let's say. Also, do you think that the exit opportunities would be relatively broad after a few years?
Thanks
I personally find Supply Chain quite interesting, but I'm very analytical in nature. There is certainly a lot of work in the field, and I recently saw in HBR (I think) an article talking about the real future of supply chain being with "quants" who can start to hedge supply chain risk etc.
Often you will also help in redesigning how the procurement/supply chain organization works, which is interesting as well.
As for exit opportunities, there are a lot, but I couldn't compare them to Strategy Consulting. That being said, at my clients I've now seen 2 of 3 MBB's doing work that certainly wasn't strategy. In fact at one, we were doing the big picture work and they were doing the process analysis. (Of course this is just my anecdotes, I still have a feeling a greater percentage of their work is strategy compared to ours).
TT
Strategy Consulting to Supply Chain Management Consulting? (Originally Posted: 11/08/2011)
Does anyone have experience with supply chain management consulting?
I'm considering making the jump from a senior analyst/consultant role at a boutique strategy consulting firm (pre-MBA level) to a supply chain company that also has SCM services. I'm tempted to make the jump, since it comes with a large pay increase (~55%) but hesitant since I've had no prior supply chain experience.
I was hoping to get some thoughts from those in the field, particularly those that have made similar jumps in terms of the actual work, career prospects, inroads into industry, etc.
I work with a few, and a good friend does independent work in Lean and Supply chain. Honestly, it's always seemed pretty interesting to me, and I remember one consultant who managed to cut ~20% out of an oilfield services company's procurement costs.....procurement had about $8BB in spend, so there are some pretty substantial (and measurable) results.
As for career prospects it pays well in my area of the country, industry jobs at the Director/VP level seem to be around $200-300k+ all in (from anecdotal comments).
There is a lot of literature out there, six sigma, process design / restructuring, lean management, theory of constraints etc. I also know there is a pretty solid certification program for supply chain if you like it early on as it will probably help with proposals and getting some credibility.
Honestly, I'd do supply chain for awhile. Even if you don't like it, you've gained a pretty important skill that is transferable.
Cheers,
TT
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