Who is a Supply Chain Consultant? Key Responsibilities, Skills & Salary 2024

• Who is a Supply Chain Consultant?
• Key Job Responsibilities of Supply Chain Consultant
• Required Qualification/Education
• What makes you qualified for this job?
• Top Companies/Organizations Hiring Supply Chain Consultant
• Supply Chain Consultant Salary Statistics

Who is a Supply Chain Consultant?

A supply chain consultant is an individual who has to help his clients streamline their logistics network. He has to work closely with the company’s management teams to identify any problem that may occur with inventory, distribution, and storage. Similarly, a supply chain consultant has to come up with different ways to increase the overall efficiency and reduce cost as well. He has to consult with clients and analyze each step of the supply chain. Moreover, he has to propose different alternatives to the clients in the most effective possible manner.

This article contains detailed information about who a supply chain consultant is, what are his key responsibilities and other details relevant to this job title. To enhance your career prospects, consider enrolling in some top-notch Supply Chain Analytics training.

Related: Best + Free Inventory Management Training Classes

Key Responsibilities of a Supply Chain Consultant

Supply chain consultants have to work super hard to make sure everything is in place. They have to take care of multiple things at the same time including;

• Managing the development and life cycle of special packaging SKUs.
• Supply chain consultants have to assist in the procurement and development of new suppliers for products that are still in the FDA approval stages.
• They have to manage all types of procurement activities. This includes RFPs as well.
• Next, they have to manage the production and warehouse teams and make sure the DOD policies and corporate rules and regulations comply.
• Similarly, they are required to investigate the manufacturing of new medical products and make sure they are as per the FDA-regulated environment.
• They are required to train their clients to use RFP procedures, negotiations, supplier conditioning, and strategic sourcing process.
• In addition, they have to assist the transition from existing legacy ERP applications to PeopleSoft by investigating and troubleshooting all kinds of errors.
• Next, they are required to create different implementation strategies which can improve supply chain logistics and supplier relationships for the most significant pieces of equipment.
• Then they have to guide the sourcing and finance department as to how new KPI can be implemented for monitoring commodities performance.
• Similarly, it is a supply chain consultant’s job to consult their clients about the efficient use of their ERP and SCM methods and how they can be used to plan all the resources in the business enterprise effectively.
• Lastly, they have to conduct, determine, and document functional requirements for operational, systems, and even technical logistics information architectures.

Required Qualification/Education

To become a supply chain consultant, you need a bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, operations management, or any related field at minimum. With that, some companies require additional qualifications including work experience and graduate degree etc.

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What makes you qualified for this job?

Every job role demands a certain skill set that helps you outperform the job. A supply chain consultant also needs to develop some skills to work efficiently and fulfill all the requirements this job has to offer.

Hard Skills:

• Know-how of how to conduct ad-hoc reports for procurement personnel using SQL is required.
• He should know what SQL is and how to use it for analyzing tables in databases with billions of rows.
• Similarly, he has to know how to generate value by the use of KPI and how supplier performance can be improved.
• Next, he should know how to perform a gap analysis to identify the important modifications to the proposed WMS.
• He must have the expertise to assess how technology can be used to map processes and have the capability to use existing client systems as a user.
• Next, a deeper exploration of emotional intelligence is important considering these unprecedented times of crisis. This means a supply chain consultant should have the ability to act as a change catalyst and adapt according to the current requirements.
• Moreover, the know-how of the digital supply chain is important as the world is rapidly heading towards digital transformation so one has to stay updated on all main aspects.

Soft Skills:

• Strong analytical skills are required to grasp the core issues of a situation quickly. It involves covering business scenarios and knowing what numbers to look for and how to extrapolate the correct inferences from a set of data.
• With that management capability and the ability to make vital decisions and then execute the resulting actions is also required.
• Similarly, good interpersonal communication skills play an important part to strengthen your position.
• Next, the ability to negotiate with others in a way that represents a win for all parties is very important.

In-Demand Certifications

Earning certification helps an individual to strengthen their career and become successful to a great extent. It not only increases their knowledge but also validates one’s skills to a certain extent. As a supply chain consultant, you can consider following certifications for boosting your career:

• SOLE Certified Professional Logistician (CPL)
• ISM Certified Professional in Supply Management (CPSM)

Top Companies/Organizations Hiring Supply Chain Consultant

A career as a supply chain consultant can be quite rewarding given you are fully devoted to the job and have the right skills. This job role offers the opportunity to work with recognized companies and industries where you can help improve their supply chains and logistics operations as you see fit.

Top companies like Maine Pointe, Bain & Company, Deloitte, EY, Boston Consulting Group, GEP, Alvarez & Marsal, Pollen Consulting Group, and many others are always looking for skilled supply chain consultants to hire.

Supply chain consultants usually work in industries like healthcare, hospitality management, education, banking, finance, etc.

Related: Best Paying Supply Chain Management Jobs

Supply Chain Consultant Salary Statistics

This section contains salary statistics of supply chain consultant working in different countries.

USA:

The average annual salary of a supply chain consultant working in the US can make around $107,087.

Canada:

Working as a supply chain consultant in Canada helps you make around CA$64,701.

UK:

In England, a supply chain consultant can expect to make an average annual salary of £62,758.

India:

In India, a supply chain consultant makes an average annual salary of ₹1,328,032.

Australia:

Supply chain consultants working in Australia usually earn around A$105,000 per annual.

References/Sources:

• https://www.glassdoor.com/
• https://www.indeed.com/
• Please note that mentioned salary stats are as of August, 2023.

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