Supply Chain Management – the Hot Ticket for Business Majors

The logistics of business operations has become a field where things go a lot faster with a lot more precision than they did ten years ago. Inventory management is an area where manufacturing concerns put major emphasis on the savings that can be realized with empty warehouse shelves. Raw materials and parts that aren’t in stock until it’s time to use them don’t tie up cash just waiting to be used. Many operations management degrees focus on efficiency, which in the case of warehousing means something entirely different than it did ten years ago.

There are now graduate programs that focus on supply chain management. For many MBA graduates who have been working for some years, it’s a concept that wasn’t taught as a primary business focus ten or fifteen years ago, and the technology that is now employed was not then in place. Penn State and the University of San Francisco program in supply chain logistics online for executives who don’t have time to get to class.

Supply chain management has also come to the fore in business analysis because of the globalization of many industries. Offshore manufacturing has supplanted a large piece of the U.S. industrial base that flourished in the twentieth century. White collar businesses are also shipping business modules offshore: Indian accounting graduates are now churning out tax return material for U.S. accounting firms. Some engineering firms are sending work to foreign countries for visual workups. Supply chain management is not limited to warehousing products and product components.

Kaplan University offers an MBA degree online with emphasis on supply chain logistics. University of Phoenix has a bachelor’s in business degree with emphasis on “integrated supply chain and operations management.” There are degree options in the field at many levels, although the certificate programs are designed for business graduates.

It’s also important to note that IT degree programs focused on information systems often focus on supply chain management as a primary business function for computer modeling. Graduates from some information technology degrees aren’t far from qualifying as logistics experts for certain types of businesses today.

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