What Can I Do with a Supply Chain Management Degree?

From the world events of 2020 and on, every­one in the US has undoubt­ed­ly heard the term “sup­ply chain” more than any oth­er time in their lives. But for the last cou­ple of decades, sup­ply chain and logis­tics man­age­ment has been one of the fastest-grow­ing and most dynam­ic fields in the world. Why should you get into sup­ply chain man­age­ment, and how do you do it?

What is Supply Chain Management (SCM)?

Sup­ply chain and logis­tics refer to one of the pri­ma­ry busi­ness man­age­ment process­es, Sup­ply chain and logis­tics man­age­ment is best under­stood if viewed as a sub­spe­cial­ty against the back­drop of the more sig­nif­i­cant trans­porta­tion industry.

Sup­ply chain man­age­ment is the pro­fes­sion­al admin­is­tra­tion of the move­ment of goods/services. It includes many com­po­nents that begin with raw mate­r­i­al sourc­ing and end with the deliv­ery of an end prod­uct to a consumer.

Sup­ply chain man­agers and logis­ti­cians spe­cial­ize in the pro­ce­dur­al design, imple­men­ta­tion, and fol­low-through of trans­porta­tion poli­cies that have the capa­bil­i­ty of meet­ing con­sumer needs around the world or across the street.

As you con­sid­er the avail­able careers in sup­ply chain man­age­ment and logis­tics, be cer­tain you look for the com­plete answers to these ques­tions before mak­ing a final decision –

• What is glob­al sup­ply chain management?
• What is the val­ue of sup­ply chain man­age­ment in terms of busi­ness models?
• What is sup­ply chain management’s val­ue in the mod­ern busi­ness model?

Sup­ply chain man­age­ment is gen­er­al­ly bro­ken down into five fun­da­men­tal elements.

• The Plan­ning Stage – this is the stage where the devel­op­ment of the over­all sup­ply chain strat­e­gy is devel­oped to ensure pro­duc­tion effi­cien­cy and to avoid bot­tle­necks in deliv­ery schedules.
• The remain­ing stages- Sourc­ing of Raw Materials,

• Man­u­fac­tur­ing and Warehousing
• Inven­to­ry Con­trol & Enabling
• Dis­tri­b­u­tion, Delivery &
• Returns) are equal­ly as impor­tant, with most com­pa­nies find­ing suc­cess by imple­ment­ing easy-to-nav­i­gate web­sites with above-aver­age cus­tomer ser­vice, qual­i­ty prod­ucts, and professionalism.

Accreditation for Supply Chain Management Programs

Final­iz­ing a deci­sion as to a future career or edu­ca­tion path­way is a far-reach­ing deci­sion that may impact your life well into mid­dle age, which eas­i­ly explains just how fun­da­men­tal­ly impor­tant this deci­sion is. In the realm of logis­tics & sup­ply chain man­age­ment, stu­dents should look to enroll in pro­grams and degrees that offer accred­it­ed sup­ply chain man­age­ment cours­es — maybe even a relat­ed intern­ship to apply the­o­ret­i­cal knowl­edge to real-world situations.

The most direct way to deter­mine if the sup­ply chain degree pro­gram you are inter­est­ed in is worth the effort and tuition is to con­firm if this sup­ply chain pro­gram (or the school) has received accreditation.

Accred­i­ta­tion is the for­mal­ized process by which a pro­gram or school is eval­u­at­ed against a set of pre­de­ter­mined cri­te­ria set forth by an edu­ca­tion agency or indus­try experts. The for­mal­ized process is per­formed by an inde­pen­dent, neu­tral orga­ni­za­tion. It offers poten­tial stu­dents the insight they need regard­ing the qual­i­ty and specifics of the uni­ver­si­ty, a school with­in the uni­ver­si­ty, or a spe­cif­ic program.

There are two fun­da­men­tal types of aca­d­e­m­ic accred­i­ta­tion award­ed in the Unit­ed States. Each of these is dis­cussed below.

Regional Accreditation

Aca­d­e­m­ic, region­al accred­i­ta­tion is admin­is­tered by the Unit­ed States Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Region­al accred­i­ta­tion is the old­est type of accred­i­ta­tion in the nation – admin­is­tered by six region­al agencies.

CHEA-over­seen agen­cies are respon­si­ble for the assess­ment of a school or col­lege — ulti­mate­ly issu­ing accred­i­ta­tion if the school meets the estab­lished criteria.

Region­al accred­i­ta­tion pro­vides poten­tial degree can­di­dates with cer­tain­ty regard­ing the post-sec­ondary school or degree pro­gram in which they have a seri­ous inter­est in attend­ing. Accred­i­ta­tion plays an impor­tant role, espe­cial­ly for those stu­dents who have plans to trans­fer to anoth­er school and need to bring their earned cred­its with them to apply to a master’s lev­el program’s requirements.

Specialized Accreditation

In the world of spe­cial­ized sup­ply chain man­age­ment pro­gram­mat­ic accred­i­ta­tion (i.e., accred­it­ed sup­ply chain man­age­ment cours­es), rel­e­vant pro­grams are gen­er­al­ly offered aca­d­e­m­ic spe­cial­ties relat­ed to busi­ness and its many inter-relat­ed dis­ci­plines. As such, spe­cial­ized accred­i­ta­tion is typ­i­cal­ly award­ed by the busi­ness-relat­ed accred­i­ta­tion agen­cies that include the AACSB, the IACBE, or ACBSP, for exam­ple., among others.

Types of Supply Chain Management Degrees at the Bachelor’s Level

Bachelor’s degrees in sup­ply chain man­age­ment are typ­i­cal­ly com­plet­ed over a four-year peri­od dur­ing which logis­ti­cians and sup­ply chain specialists/students learn how to opti­mize man­u­fac­tur­ing and trans­porta­tion effi­cien­cies. As you con­sid­er the var­i­ous sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree options, be sure to answer these impor­tant and rel­e­vant ques­tions before mak­ing a final edu­ca­tion decision –

• What is a degree in sup­ply chain man­age­ment, and how long will it take to fin­ish the pro­gram if you are study­ing full-time? Part-time?
• What can I do with a sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree?
• What is a sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree, and how do entry-lev­el salaries com­pare to sim­i­lar occupations?
• Is there a dif­fer­ence between on-cam­pus or online sup­ply chain man­age­ment degrees?
• Do online degrees in sup­ply chain man­age­ment require the same time to com­plete as their on-cam­pus counterparts?
• Can a sup­ply chain man­age­ment online degree receive spe­cial­ized accreditation?

Most degrees in sup­ply chain man­age­ment will require degree can­di­dates to com­plete 120–126 semes­ter cred­its (which is equiv­a­lent to 180 quar­ter cred­its). Like most bac­calau­re­ate sup­ply chain man­age­ment degrees, stu­dents will be tasked with com­plet­ing a series of gen­er­al edu­ca­tion class­es as well core and elec­tive class­es relat­ed to the degree as well as the student’s inter­ests. Because many sup­ply chain man­age­ment degrees online (or cam­pus-based) are offered by busi­ness colleges/schools, a sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree is often an aca­d­e­m­ic spe­cial­ty or sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree track with a heavy busi­ness influence.

The busi­ness core cur­ricu­lum of most degrees in sup­ply chain man­age­ment help stu­dents devel­op the busi­ness skills required to suc­ceed after earn­ing their bachelor’s sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree.

Con­cen­tra­tions for cam­pus-based or online sup­ply chain man­age­ment degrees explore these impor­tant areas with­in a tra­di­tion­al sup­ply chain man­age­ment online degree, to name a few –

• Project Man­age­ment

Project man­age­ment is one of the more pop­u­lar online sup­ply chain man­age­ment degrees or con­cen­tra­tions which includes course­work delin­eat­ing the essen­tial sup­ply chain ele­ments of plan­ning, imple­ment­ing, and mea­sur­ing busi­ness efforts/initiatives. Project man­age­ment majors learn to accu­rate­ly iden­ti­fy resources, design bud­gets and learn to incor­po­rate stake­hold­er feed­back while main­tain­ing sched­ules that meet dead­lines and keep projects on track

• Lead­er­ship

Stu­dents enrolled in one of the many online degrees in sup­ply chain man­age­ment with an empha­sis on lead­er­ship explore class­es that include team build­ing, con­flict man­age­ment, and rel­e­vant communication.

• Entre­pre­neur­ship

These sup­ply chain man­age­ment degrees pro­vide a cross-dis­ci­pli­nary approach that includes iden­ti­fy­ing busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties and fund­ing sources.

• Inter­na­tion­al Business

Because busi­ness oper­ates with­in a larg­er glob­al envi­ron­ment, inter­na­tion­al sup­ply chain man­age­ment degrees online explore the rela­tion­ship among inter­na­tion­al part­ners fol­low­ing inter­na­tion­al com­merce laws.

Licenses & Certifications in Supply Chain Management

If you are seri­ous­ly and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly inter­est­ed in one of the many entry lev­el sup­ply chain man­age­ment jobs or sim­ply want to be qual­i­fied for one of the bet­ter-pay­ing sup­ply chain and logis­tics man­age­ment jobs, enrolling in one of the many sup­ply chain man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion online pro­grams may offer the most direct path to your career objectives.

With many cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in sup­ply chain man­age­ment from which to choose, it is impor­tant to ask and answer these essen­tial queries –

• Which sup­ply chain man­ag­er cer­ti­fi­ca­tion options would best fit your needs and background?
• Will my sup­ply chain man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion salary dif­fer from my salary before earn­ing the certification?
• Is there one cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in logis­tics and sup­ply chain man­age­ment that is pre­ferred by employ­ers that would help land one of the high­er-pay­ing jobs in sup­ply chain man­age­ment and logistics??

Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing cam­pus-based or online sup­ply chain man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion options as you begin to refine your think­ing about the jobs in oper­a­tions and sup­ply chain man­age­ment of interest –

• The Asso­ci­a­tion for Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment (APICS) offers these sup­ply chain man­age­ment and logis­tics cer­ti­fi­ca­tion options — 
  • The Cer­ti­fied Sup­ply Chain Pro­fes­sion­al Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion – CSCP
  • The Sup­ply Chain Oper­a­tions Ref­er­ence Endorse­ment -SCOR‑P
• The Insti­tute for Sup­ply Man­age­ment (ISM) offers these cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in sup­ply chain management – 
  • The Cer­ti­fied Pro­fes­sion­al in Sup­ply Man­age­ment – CPSM
  • The Cer­ti­fied Pro­fes­sion­al in Sup­pli­er Diver­si­ty – CPSD
• The Coun­cil of Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment (CSCM) offers sev­er­al lev­els of the SCPro cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in sup­ply chain man­age­ment online and in a tra­di­tion­al classroom.
• The Nation­al Con­tract Man­age­ment Asso­ci­a­tion (NCMA) – offers a vari­ety of cam­pus-based sup­ply chain man­ag­er cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and online sup­ply chain man­age­ment cer­ti­fi­ca­tion options for indus­try professionals. 

In addi­tion, SOLE – the Inter­na­tion­al Soci­ety of Logis­tics offers var­i­ous ben­e­fits, which include option­al sup­ply chain man­age­ment and logis­tics cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties. Choos­ing to earn a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in sup­ply chain man­age­ment online or on a near­by cam­pus is an intel­li­gent way to cre­ate pro­fes­sion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties that may increase your salary.

Logistics and Supply Chain Management Jobs

Entry-lev­el jobs in sup­ply chain man­age­ment and logis­tics are present in most eco­nom­ic sec­tors, although the exact sup­ply chain man­ag­er descrip­tion and each sup­ply chain man­age­ment respon­si­bil­i­ties may dif­fer slightly.

While each eco­nom­ic sec­tor may dif­fer, the roles of a sup­ply chain man­ag­er with­in each will gen­er­al­ly be the same. As such, the oper­a­tions and sup­ply chain man­age­ment job descrip­tion for a posi­tion in the auto­mo­bile sec­tor wouldn’t be very dif­fer­ent from the sup­ply chain man­ag­er job descrip­tion for some­one else work­ing in event man­age­ment or the sup­ply chain man­ag­er tasks for a pro­fes­sion­al in sports management.

Why Are Operation and Supply Chain Management Jobs So Important?

Sup­ply chain and logis­tics man­age­ment jobs (and there­fore the sup­ply chain man­ag­er job respon­si­bil­i­ties) can be applied in a sup­port­ive role to almost every busi­ness. This is because the fun­da­men­tal sup­ply chain man­ag­er role is to ensure each com­pa­ny meets or sur­pass­es its eco­nom­ic or rev­enue models/projections. In fact, tech­no­log­i­cal advances have refined the sup­ply chain man­ag­er job descrip­tion and salary options in the recent past, with many spe­cial­ties that have been cre­at­ed to fill these jobs in oper­a­tions and sup­ply chain management.

Addi­tion­al­ly, it is impor­tant to answer these ques­tions about avail­able jobs with a sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree –

• What is a sup­ply chain man­ag­er job descrip­tion, and does it dif­fer from a logistician?
• Where can you find an accu­rate sup­ply chain man­ag­er definition?
• What does a sup­ply chain man­ag­er do; are there sup­ply chain man­age­ment entry lev­el jobs avail­able with a bachelor’s degree?
• What are the spe­cif­ic sup­ply chain man­age­ment job require­ments for entry lev­el sup­ply chain man­age­ment jobs?
• Are there entry lev­el jobs in sup­ply chain man­age­ment that can be done remotely?
• Which jobs in sup­ply chain man­age­ment and logis­tics offer the best ben­e­fits package?

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, logis­tic and sup­ply chain man­age­ment jobs work as an impor­tant con­trol fac­tor to help mit­i­gate loss­es and main­tain con­sis­tent qual­i­ty in pro­duc­tion, which enables you to under­stand why jobs with sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree are always in demand. Sup­ply chain man­age­ment is rec­og­nized to be one of the most effi­cient ways to con­trol man­u­fac­tur­ing costs is to ensure man­u­fac­tur­ing meets demand – avoid­ing cost­ly over­sup­plies or under sup­plies, which is a prime exam­ple of a missed sales oppor­tu­ni­ty. Logis­tics and sup­ply chain man­age­ment is impor­tant domes­ti­cal­ly and internationally.

What Are Available Logistic and Supply Chain Management Job Options?

As not­ed above, the task or the sup­ply chain man­ag­er respon­si­bil­i­ty list is like­ly to be sim­i­lar inde­pen­dent of the sup­ply chain man­ag­er descrip­tion or spe­cif­ic indus­try. Still won­der­ing how the answer to the ques­tion – What is a Sup­ply Chain Man­ag­er?, relates to you specif­i­cal­ly? Con­sid­er these logis­tics and sup­ply chain man­age­ment jobs if you hold or plan to pur­sue a sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree.

Supply Chain Managerial (SCM) Specialist

Appli­cants with the skills to fill jobs with a sup­ply chain man­age­ment degree pro­vide the employ­ing com­pa­ny with the tal­ents required to max­i­mize the business’s man­u­fac­tur­ing mod­el. Sup­ply chain man­agers are an inte­gral part of man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es that impact the busi­ness from prod­uct devel­op­ment through the receipt by the end user, the con­sumer. Sup­ply chain man­age­ment respon­si­bil­i­ties include the capac­i­ty to iden­ti­fy and imple­ment opti­miza­tion pro­ce­dures regard­ing safe­ty, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and efficiency.

Warehousing Manager

Ware­house logis­tic and sup­ply chain man­age­ment jobs are those indi­vid­u­als who are respon­si­ble for over­see­ing the man­age­ment and move­ment of goods in a stor­age facil­i­ty. As a ware­house man­ag­er, the sup­ply chain man­ag­er def­i­n­i­tion will focus on the man­age­ment of prop­er­ty, sys­tems, and process­es to ensure goods are dis­patched as planned and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tar­gets are met.

Purchase Manager

Pur­chas­ing oper­a­tion and sup­ply chain man­age­ment jobs are also adver­tised as sup­ply man­agers or pub­lish­ing direc­tors. Although there are avail­able sup­ply chain man­age­ment entry lev­el jobs for pur­chas­ing man­agers, the real­i­ty is that this posi­tion may require some pro­fes­sion­al experience.

Supply Chain Management Jobs Outlook & Salary Data

Accord­ing to the fed’s Occu­pa­tion­al Out­look Hand­book cre­at­ed by the BLS, there were approx­i­mate­ly 188,000 pro­fes­sion­al logis­ti­cians and sup­ply chain pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in the Unit­ed States in 2020. The medi­an logis­ti­cians and sup­ply chain man­agers salary for 2020 was $76,270 per year, which trans­lates to medi­an sup­ply change man­age­ment salaries at the hourly lev­el of $36.67.

Note, the medi­an sup­ply chain man­age­ment and logis­tics salary fig­ure rep­re­sents the sta­tis­ti­cal point in the sup­ply chain man­ag­er salary con­tin­u­um where a) — there are an equal amount of sup­ply chain man­age­ment salary employ­ees who earn more than the medi­an sup­ply chain man­age­ment salary and an equal amount who earn less than the medi­an sup­ply chain man­age­ment salary.

In addi­tion to this impres­sive medi­an sup­ply chain man­ag­er salary options, the antic­i­pat­ed job growth for a logis­tics and sup­ply chain man­age­ment salary is 4% over the next decade, which would cre­ate more than 8,000 new sup­ply chain and man­age­r­i­al posi­tions through 2029 a sol­id sup­ply chain man­age­ment jobs outlook.

Clear­ly, the aver­age start­ing salary for sup­ply chain man­age­ment for new grad­u­ates will depend on their expe­ri­ence, edu­ca­tion, and field of inter­est, but sup­ply chain man­age­ment start­ing salary options will like­ly be near $50,000 per year, with the high­est start­ing salary for sup­ply chain man­age­ment in the most demand fields.

The top-pay­ing states for sup­ply chain man­age­ment salaries are as follows –

The indus­tries and gen­er­al sec­tors that are ranked among the top pay­ing for sup­ply chain man­age­ment entry lev­el salary employ­ees & work­ers, includ­ing some of the high­est sup­ply chain man­age­ment salaries, are as follows –

The indus­tries that offer the high­est employ­ment lev­els for those in the logis­tics and sup­ply chain field are as follows. -

Trans­porta­tion, Stor­age, & Dis­tri­b­u­tion Man­agers Salary Data

Many sup­ply chain degree grad­u­ates will find reward­ing careers with­in the many trans­porta­tion, stor­age, and dis­tri­b­u­tion sec­tor opportunities –

Accord­ing to the fed’s Occu­pa­tion­al Out­look Hand­book cre­at­ed by the BLS, the medi­an 2020 annu­al salary for trans­porta­tion, stor­age, and dis­tri­b­u­tion man­agers was $96,390 per year, which trans­lates to medi­an sup­ply change man­age­ment salaries at the hourly lev­el of $46.34. The per­centiles for this occu­pa­tion are as follows -

The top-pay­ing states for trans­porta­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion & stor­age salaries are as follows –

Professional Organizations in Supply Chain and Logistics Management

Pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions are typ­i­cal­ly devel­oped and main­tained by indus­try insid­ers and experts who have a mis­sion to ensure the profession’s expe­ri­enced and novice workers/company own­ers have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve them­selves and the indus­try they represent.

Many pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions offer a vari­ety of mem­ber­ship ben­e­fits designed to help new grad­u­ates find their pro­fes­sion­al foot­ing, which ulti­mate­ly will help them and move past some of the start­ing salary for sup­ply chain man­age­ment lim­i­ta­tions through men­tor­ship and edu­ca­tion opportunities.

In addi­tion, a sup­ply chain man­age­ment start­ing salary can be sup­ple­ment­ed by employ­ers who offer to pay to fur­ther your education

Pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions and sup­port com­pa­nies are designed to sup­port indus­tries – from lead­ers to com­pa­nies to work­ing pro­fes­sion­als, by advo­cat­ing for those indus­try issues in need of leg­isla­tive change. Options may include, in part, -

• Net­work­ing Events
• Employ­ment Boards &Relevant Seminars
• Con­tin­u­ing Education
• Men­tor­ing Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Advo­ca­cy, to name a few.

There are a num­ber of sup­ply chain man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions in Amer­i­ca – many of which offer the tools, expe­ri­ence, and poten­tial to help improve the logis­tic and sup­ply chain man­age­ment salary for those just begin­ning their career.

• The Asso­ci­a­tion for Oper­a­tions Man­age­ment APICs
• The Insti­tute for the Oper­a­tions Research & the Man­age­ment Sci­ences INFORMS
• The Pro­duc­tion & Oper­a­tions Man­age­ment Soci­ety POMS
• The Insti­tute for Sup­ply Man­age­ment ISM
• The Sup­ply Chain Coun­cil SCC
• The Asso­ci­a­tion for Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment ASCM
• The Coun­cil of Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment Pro­fes­sion­als CSCMP
• The Insti­tute for Sup­ply Man­age­ment — ISM

Relat­ed Rankings:

25 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Sup­ply Chain Management

15 Best Online Bach­e­lor’s in Sup­ply Chain Management

10 Fastest Online Bach­e­lor’s in Sup­ply Chain Management

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Sup­ply Chain Management