An MBA Course to Manage a Supply Chain

It is time for the MBA student to decide which field he wants to specialize in. He considers the traditional fields like finance and marketing, but abandons them because there are already so many students who are working in this field, and it is hard to compete and get admission in these courses. Even if he were to get into a course, it would be harder to get a good placement because there is so much competition in the job market, and everybody wants that plush office in an investment bank or that great role as a marketing manager for an FMCG.

The student examines what other opportunities he has and finds that there are many MBA courses available in the non-traditional fields. There are so many new disciplines that have come up these days to serve the varied needs of industry, and each of these disciplines needs managers to make them work. They provide a plethora of opportunities that surprisingly many students have not heard of. The competition in these fields is also less, and it also means that graduates are likely to get higher starting salaries as the numbers of candidates are few and far between.

One such field that is gaining in popularity is supply chain management. It is an exciting field to work in because the large numbers of new companies setting up shop in the country means that there is a huge demand for managers who can get the products from the manufacturing centres to the delivery centres, and to any other location that is required by the company.
The student looks at the starting salaries offered by companies in this field and finds that they are quite impressive. Sure, the hours are long, and the work can be never ending. After all, companies do not stop functioning, especially those in the manufacturing sector. Logistics is a 24/7 operation, and the manager really does have to stay on his toes to make sure that the product goes from point A to point B to point C, seamlessly and as per schedule.

There will be hiccups along the way, the chain might get disrupted and the manager could be woken up at any time during the night or called upon at any time during the day to solve problems. But then again that is why he is being paid the big bucks and that is why he is doing the MBA course, so that he can learn how to solve those problems and how to handle the job.
Unlike finance, there is nothing regular about supply chain management. Every order, every project, and every operation presents its own set of challenges and when the manager starts a new day he knows that it is going to be different from the day before. He knows that as he begins the day he does not know what waits for him and he will have to be prepared to be flexible and face it with a fresh mind.
For the student who does not want a simple and monotonous nine-to-five job, who does not want to do the same thing again and again, who wants to deal with fresh challenges every time he goes to work, nothing could be better. Every day is a new day in supply chain management and a chance for the student to learn something new, and a chance to prove his worth in the outside world.

As the student makes his way through the course he will learn about accounting, he will pick up marketing skills, he will learn about operations, he will know how purchasing is done, and he will understand what the gurus of the business world were saying when they were imparting their pearls of wisdom. In short, he will know everything about how a business is run, and when he places his foot through the doors of a multi-national company, he will have the confidence that no matter what department he is posted in, or what operation he is asked to run, he can handle it all because his MBA course has given him training in all the disciplines and all the skills to handle a multi-national chain.