Among the many career options, Supply Chain Product Managers stand out with their unique strengths. This article will provide an in-depth analysis of the three core advantages of supply chain product managers, including the large industry capacity, high professional threshold, and relative tolerance of age, and provide practical entry strategies for those who are interested in entering the industry, helping you start a wonderful career chapter in the supply chain field.
Thanks to your love, my article: “Review” from 0 to 1 to understand WMS system switching: a practical guide for supply chain novices is liked by everyone, and some people have added me to WeChat one after another, chatting about a lot of topics, many of which are talking to me about their own confusion, there are students who are about to graduate, there are college students who are not happy with their work for a year or two after graduation, and there are also R&D and testing brothers who have been working for many years.
This puts a lot of pressure on me, I can’t guide everyone’s career, I can only give you a suggestion based on my more than ten years of experience in the retail supply chain: Why don’t you pay more attention to the product manager of the supply chain?
Why do I suggest this? Reason:
- The capacity is large enough: the supply chain leader involves many positions and job requirements are very different, and he is a major, not an industry.
- The professional threshold is high enough: systematic professional knowledge, systematic thinking ability requirements and scenarios are not accessible on a daily basis, which is also a job that requires strong practicality, so it is difficult to enter this major
- Age is relatively insensitive: Judging from the age of current practitioners, they are generally much more tolerant than the age of C-end business practitioners. And people with all kinds of thinking and personality can find their corresponding position
Disadvantages: As a product manager in the logistics domain, you really have to go to a warehouse on the outskirts of the city to follow the distribution vehicle research site, which is not very friendly to girls and timid people; If you are a supply chain product manager, such as forecasting & planning, you need to understand some algorithms, and the threshold is relatively high; If you are a supply chain order operation product manager, you need structured thinking and systematic thinking, and you are better at end-to-end thinking, of course, these are all thresholds, crossing over is the threshold of blocking others, and not being able to cross is blocking your threshold.
Why is it so specific? Of course, if you do supply chain-related business, it is also very good, if you do compound type, that is, do supply chain digital transformation related, such as production and research position-related, but as far as product manager is concerned, it is a position that can attack the business, and you can honestly do the product.
1. Large capacity
This feature can be divided into two levels:
First of all, the supply chain is a specialty, it is not an industry, understand, so it can be combined with the retail industry to form a FMCG fresh supply chain, or it can be combined with the manufacturing/chemical industry to form a lean supply chain, although these industries have different requirements for the supply chain, but the general process is the same; So this is a relatively large major. Then these industries are all advocated by the state, industry requirements, and the evolution of individual enterprises, and they are currently doing digital transformation, that is, the evolution of offline business standardization and process –> informatization –> digitalization –> digital intelligence. Therefore, information talents are a relatively large demand gap for compound talents.
I just say that it is still very abstract and vague, so let me first introduce the supply chain full job map:
What do you think? From the perspective of the core chain, is the chain long enough, there are enough job nodes, and each job node contains relatively deep policy logic? Yes, this is the complex and attractive part of the supply chain, if the organization is properly coordinated, then the team members of all nodes are working smoothly, the capital turnover efficiency is high, if there is a place where the organization and team coordination are not good, the professional ability will lead to the overall work quality of the supply chain, the collaboration efficiency is low; The coordination of the whole organization is based on information communication capabilities, basic data consistency and data analysis capabilities are all contents of digital transformation.
Digital transformation is divided into two parts: one is offline business, through standardization and process, so as to land in the information system, through the continuous application of the information system and data flow and precipitation, so as to lay the foundation for data analysis, for data cleaning, formatting and assembly of business components, so as to form different data analysis and data early warning and other data actions. The other part is to rely on precipitated data, iterate the original business operation strategy, reorganize the company’s organizational structure, redistribute the organization’s work content, set performance, and replace personnel or organizations, which is the most difficult part of transformation.
We need to pay attention to the first part of digital transformation, so what does the landing information system include? The following diagram shows what functions are included in each system:
Introduction to the core functions and typical scenarios of each supply chain system
HR human resource management system
Core Features:
HR systems are used to manage and organize human resources in enterprises, including employee information management, compensation and benefits management, performance evaluation, etc. Through HR systems, enterprises can achieve comprehensive management and development of human resources, improve employee satisfaction and organizational efficiency.
Typical scenarios:
Usage scenarios: Manufacturing, commerce and other enterprises of all sizes need to integrate multi-departmental businesses.
Relationship with other systems: Provide overall business framework and basic data for other systems, interact with MES, WMS, etc. to obtain real-time data such as production and inventory to assist in decision-making, receive APS planning results, QMS quality data, etc. to improve management, and cooperate with SCM, PLM, TMS to achieve supply chain, product, transportation and other links.
EAM Enterprise Resource Management System
Core Features:
EAM systems are used to manage and maintain a business’s assets, including equipment, machines, and more. Through the EAM system, enterprises can realize the planning, procurement, maintenance and scrapping management of assets, and improve asset utilization and maintenance efficiency.
PLM product lifecycle management
Core Features:
PLM systems are used to manage the entire life cycle of products, including information and process management at various stages such as design, development, manufacturing, and after-sales. Through PLM systems, enterprises can achieve centralized management and collaborative design of product data, improving the efficiency and quality of product development.
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: accelerate the product launch process, improve product quality, and achieve effective management of product data and knowledge inheritance.
Use scenarios: high-tech enterprises that focus on R&D innovation and rapid product upgrading.
Relationship with other systems: Transfer product data to ERP for production and cost accounting; MES apply its process data for production; Collaborate with SCM to ensure the supply chain of new products; Provide product-related parameter assistance scheduling for APS.
ERP Enterprise Resource Planning
Core Features:
ERP systems are the core systems of digital enterprises that integrate and manage information from various business areas within the enterprise. It includes modules such as procurement, production, sales, and finance to achieve unified planning and coordination of resources. Through ERP systems, enterprises can achieve order management, inventory control, financial management and other functions, improving efficiency and management levels.
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: Integrate enterprise resources, break down departmental barriers, optimize business processes, improve operational efficiency and data accuracy, and facilitate comprehensive management of enterprises.
Usage scenarios: Manufacturing, commerce and other enterprises of all sizes need to integrate multi-departmental businesses.
Relationship with other systems: Provide overall business framework and basic data for other systems, interact with MES, WMS, etc. to obtain real-time data such as production and inventory to assist in decision-making, receive APS planning results, QMS quality data, etc. to improve management, and cooperate with SCM, PLM, TMS to achieve supply chain, product, transportation and other links.
SCM supplier management system
Core Features:
SCM systems are used to manage and optimize the supply chain processes of enterprises, including supplier selection, material procurement, inventory management, logistics and distribution, etc. Through the SCM system, enterprises can achieve supply chain coordination and visual management, improving the response speed and efficiency of the supply chain.
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: ensure the stability and efficiency of the supply chain, improve supply chain response speed, and reduce procurement and logistics costs.
Use scenarios: large manufacturing enterprises, enterprises with many and complex supply chain links.
Relationship with other systems: integration with ERP to share data to assist in resource planning; MES production affects material supply arrangements; Collaborate with WMS to manage inventory and logistics; Optimize transportation distribution with TMS; PLM new product information impacts supply chain construction.
APS Advanced Planning & Scheduling
Core Features:
Formulate scientific and reasonable production plans and schedules based on various constraints (such as equipment capacity, personnel arrangement, material supply, etc.), such as order prioritization and production task allocation.
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: Improve equipment utilization and order delivery rate, quickly respond to order changes, and optimize production resource allocation.
Use scenarios: Order-driven, complex production processes or limited production capacity enterprises that require fine production scheduling.
Relationship with other systems: Obtain order and resource data from ERP, provide detailed schedules for MES, consider inventory materials in conjunction with WMS, and plan with reference to PLM product data influenced by SCM supply information.
MES manufacturing execution system
Core Features:
MES systems are used to monitor and execute real-time data during the production process, including production progress, equipment status, product quality, etc. Through MES systems, enterprises can realize real-time monitoring and optimization of production processes, improving production efficiency and product quality.
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: ensure the accurate execution of production plans, improve production efficiency and product quality stability, and achieve refined management of production processes.
Use scenarios: Manufacturing enterprises with complex production processes that need to finely manage workshop operations.
Relationship with other systems: Obtain production plans from ERP and provide feedback on execution; Cooperate with WMS to ensure material supply and finished product warehousing; Combine QMS to control production quality; Production activities are carried out according to APS schedules.
QMS quality management system
Core Features:
Quality management is embedded in the core process, for raw materials, semi-finished products, finished products, packaging auxiliary materials before the input or output of the operation nodes to do commodity quality control, the core focus is on commodity standards, as well as the change of quality of commodities in the circulation process (such as fresh products: bananas), and the linkage of supplier performance under the whole process quality control
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: Strictly control product quality, ensure that products meet quality standards, and reduce quality risks and costs.
Usage scenarios: Enterprises with strict requirements for product quality and many quality control links.
Relationship with other systems: feedback quality data to ERP to influence costs and production decisions; Monitor production quality in combination with MES; Quality control affected by WMS storage conditions; and SCM to ensure the quality of all aspects of the supply chain; Executed according to PLM design quality requirements.
Financial management system
Core Features:
Financial management is a digital tool used by enterprises to integrate and manage financial processes and data, involving the conversion of business documents into financial vouchers, and the execution of budgeting, reimbursement, approval, statements, reconciliation, cost analysis, business and financial integration and data intelligence
Typical scenarios:
Key benefits: Automate business data to financial data processes, data integration and analysis, improve financial efficiency, and optimize decision-making
Usage scenarios: Both large and medium-sized enterprises are involved
Relationship with other systems: docking with ERP system for document flow, financial vouchers with business and finance systems, and planning management with ERP system.
BI business intelligence system
Core Features:
BI systems are used to extract, organize, and analyze information from enterprise data, supporting decision-making and management analysis. Through BI systems, enterprises can conduct data mining and visual analysis, discover business trends and potential opportunities, and help enterprises conduct data-driven operations.
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: This is the core battlefield of digital transformation and the data foundation for enterprise business analysis.
Usage scenarios: core data analysis of enterprise supply chain and brief purchase, sale and inventory
Relationship with other systems: Connect with each system and conduct layer-by-layer data analysis. Including the document flow and status and order data of the ERP system, it is connected with logistics data to analyze the logistics operation status, and the operation domain is opened up to analyze the production status and capital investment of the enterprise
LOMS logistics order system
Core Features:
The LOMS system is a system for comprehensive management of enterprise orders, generally including: order processing, order confirmation, order status management, etc. LOMS can improve the operational efficiency of the logistics process by managing and tracking orders placed by customers, dynamically grasping the progress and completion of orders.
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: Format external orders, display order execution status, and intercept/release orders in the distribution domain
Usage scenarios: The volume of logistics documents is large, and the external system is complex, and the document flow is heterogeneous scenarios
Relationship with other systems: Interface with ERP
WMS warehouse management system
Core Features:
WMS manages a series of processes such as warehousing, shelving, moving, picking, packaging, and outbound warehouses, usually with automatic identification technology, using barcodes, scanning guns and other tools, the process is fine and controllable, and the results are fast and accurate, which can help enterprises accurately and efficiently carry out comprehensive management of warehouses.
Typical scenarios:
Key benefits: improve the efficiency of goods in and out of the warehouse, accurately manage inventory, reduce inventory costs, and reduce warehousing operation errors.
Usage scenarios: Enterprises with large storage volume, frequent warehousing and warehousing, and emphasis on warehousing management.
Relationship with other systems: Provide accurate inventory data to ERP, cooperate with MES to complete the inbound and outbound of production materials, and provide TMS with basic information on goods for transportation arrangements due to SCM logistics planning.
TMS transportation management system
Core Features:
TMS system is a system that comprehensively manages the transportation system of the entire enterprise. It can carry out comprehensive and detailed planning, tracking, statistics and assessment of vehicles, drivers, lines, etc., and manage and analyze vehicle fuel consumption and personnel costs, greatly improving operational efficiency and reducing transportation costs.
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: improve transportation efficiency, reduce transportation costs, and ensure timely and accurate distribution of goods.
Usage scenarios: Enterprises with large product transportation volume and wide distribution range.
Relationship with other systems: integration with ERP to capture logistics needs; Transportation tasks are triggered by WMS outbound information; Collaborate with SCM to complete transportation in the supply chain.
BMS expense management system
Core Features:
BMS system is a management system for the operation efficiency and cost analysis of the enterprise logistics system, which can calculate the receivables and payables of various expenses for logistics warehousing, transportation, and external value-added business, and analyze the use of operating expenses in various dimensions, so as to reduce costs and improve efficiency
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: Clarify logistics costs and operational efficiency, and do PDCA correction for operation stuck points
Usage scenarios: logistics enterprises or large retail, manufacturing/chemical enterprises, enterprises with operating cost needs
Relationship with other systems: Load and unload cost analysis in association with WMS, and cost analysis for inventory handling. Analyze the shipping cost in connection with TMS
CRM customer relationship management system
Core Features:
CRM systems are used to manage and maintain relationships with customers, including customer data management, sales opportunity tracking, customer service, and more. Through CRM systems, businesses can better understand customer needs, provide personalized services, and optimize sales and marketing strategies through customer data analysis.
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: maintain customer relationships, precipitate value customers according to the funnel
Use Cases: 2B customers, and 2C customers
Relationship with other systems: Associate with the order center to obtain customer transaction records, connect with the member center to obtain membership levels, etc
Front-end warehouse/store operation system
Core Features:
The store operation system of the retail industry is mainly responsible for the receipt of goods, quality control, inventory management, store POS cashier, display, price, task engine, on-site management and other functions, mainly to manage the operation and management of stores/front warehouses in an orderly manner
Typical scenarios:
Key advantages: Improve store operation efficiency, reduce store operating costs, ensure full shelf display and accurate inventory
Usage scenarios: offline stores, front-end warehouses
Relationship with other systems: product docking with TMS system, promotional price docking with price center, and settlement with order center.
Each system includes many functional modules: for example, the ERP system involves: order management, inventory control, price management, business and finance modules, S&OP and other functional modules, and each functional module or functional module group corresponds to the product manager – R&D – testing – data analysis The entire vertical team is responsible, and in order to ensure the smooth progress of the project, the project management team is also specially configured. Therefore, for product managers engaged in supply chains, it is a huge job cluster
After talking about the supply chain-related production and research positions within a single enterprise, let’s talk about another dimension of large capacity, corresponding to many B-end enterprises:
The current economic environment requires enterprises to shift from rough operation to refined operation, which is not laying off employees (of course, there are many layoffs in enterprises now, after all, this is immediate), searching for details, but shortening the delivery cycle or providing service value (such as increasing personalized services).
For example, the original delivery of a piece of equipment has a cycle of 6 months, and the single profit is 60,000 yuan; Now the cycle is 1 month, and the single profit is 10,000 yuan. This is shortening the lead time, but the total profit remains the same. This requires refined operations to improve efficiency
For example, the current retail industry is to provide service value, in the whole scenario of people-goods-field, by enhancing the elements of “field” (the goods are the goods you want, the price is the price you want, the quality is the quality you want, and the display/circulation/layout/shopping service of the store) to enhance the emotional identity to achieve the purpose of repurchase.
In response to the above changes, the support of production and research is required, and the digital transformation of enterprises is divided into several ways: one is Wumart or Yonghui, which directly recruits its own production and research team, and begins to customize the entire supply chain system, basically maintaining a scale of 1,000-2,000 people; One is to introduce mature systems on the market, do their own operation and development, this will basically maintain a team of 200-400 people, which is more common for medium-sized enterprises, the privatization of mature systems is deployed within local enterprises, the other is small enterprises, using general solutions, the company’s business processes and data are running on the SaaS system, and the function update is updated with the update of the SaaS system.
There are many types of SaaS companies here, such as a CRM system that can correspond to the operation of a company, a company that is responsible for a certain domain such as a logistics system (such as Ruite), and a company that is responsible for a whole set of solutions, such as Duodian Wumart.
These are all opportunities for supply chain product managers.
2. The threshold is high, the professionalism is strong enough and the scene is relatively closed.
The supply chain is divided into three layers: the flow of information drives the logistics, and the flow of logistics drives the cash flow, thus forming the distribution of interests of each entity in the chain. Most profit models, such as the profitability of C-end apps, are generally the flow of information flow – cash flow (for example, travel bloggers upload videos to the Douyin platform, and after customers watch the videos, the platform shares the profits to travel bloggers); Therefore, the supply chain has an additional layer of physical circulation compared to other fields, as shown in the figure below:
At the same time, the internal supply chain of a single entity (such as a company) is divided into planning layer (S&OP) – operation layer (procurement & production) – execution layer (distribution & return), the following figure from the planning-procurement-production-distribution-return process to express the content involved in each layer and the corresponding indicator parameters, which shows the complexity of the business
Corresponding to various indicators:
These work matters all involve professional knowledge reserves, which need to be divided into sections, layer by layer learning, and the learning process needs to be combined with actual combat, which leads to abstract content and long-term learning leading to many people being discouraged. Thus forming a high threshold.
3. People who are relatively insensitive to age and have a variety of thinking and personalities can find their corresponding position
An interesting phenomenon is that in a company (such as Meituan or JD.com), the average age of their C-end positions is 26 or 27 years old, but the average age in the supply chain related departments is 32-34 years old, because:
For example, the logistics domain needs to be closely connected with the procurement and supply field, the procurement supply and marketing domain and the logistics domain are closely connected at the same time, and the operation and processing field is closely related to the procurement and logistics field. The marketing area is closely linked to the inventory part of logistics, distribution, and procurement supply.
The supply chain is a special position with more actual combat than theory, more experience, and the accumulation of experience takes time, so as a product manager, you must first understand the language of business, to the point of equal communication, this time accumulation is relatively long, each industry and company business model is different, so the landing plan is also different, and it is necessary to constantly iterate the actual combat plan to be effective
According to the above figure, the supply chain is divided into: planning-procurement-manufacturing-delivery, and the capabilities required in each field are different, as shown in the figure below:
4. Summary
Well, I have finished introducing, do you feel the huge supply chain, whether it is business or digital transformation of production and research, its huge means that there is more corresponding job support; The supply chain is highly professional, which means that it is not easy to enter; The supply chain requires practicality, which means that it is necessary to be close to the front line to do demand research; Different sections of the supply chain have different requirements for thinking ability, cross-departmental connection, team management, and execution, which shows that people with different ways of thinking and doing styles can find their own place in different sections.
