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The Challenges before the Supply Chain Management and Logistics Industry


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A look at the challenges before the supply chain management and logistics industry is instructive. Huge figures sit rather incongruously with the reality of the industry, which is that while from a universal point of view, the industry has been growing at a steady rate and is set to continue the upward trend; it has its own set of challenges and inequalities, depending on the market one is analyzing. The challenges before the supply chain management and logistics industry need to be looked at, if one were to analyze the supply chain management and logistics industry.

Let us start with a look at the size of the supply chain management and logistics industry.

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Impressive overall figuresThe supply chain management and logistics industry employs over six million workers of various cadres in the US alone, again a fair indication of its enormous size. The good news is that by 2018, the industry is expected to need nearly a million and a half jobs. What factors have pushed this industry into such growth figures?

From almost a decade, the supply chain management and logistics industry has been seeing new and rapid changes and developments. These developments have mostly been in high-specialty areas such as marketing, data analytics, management and human resources, are involved. The reason for which the industry is in need of such high specialization jobs is that technology has made such forays into the segment that models on which most supply chain-dependent businesses were built are no longer viable.

What are the challenges before the supply chain management and logistics industry?The challenges before the supply chain management and logistics industry are dispersed based on the market one is looking at. The major challenge for the mature markets such as the US and the other markets in the west is in finding new recruits despite its being an industry that is in need of workers. The main challenges before the supply chain management and logistics industry in advanced countries are:

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Challenges before the supply chain management and logistics industry in developing economiesOn the other hand, the problems of developing markets such India, where the retail industry is growing at a rapid pace, entertaining hopes of fueling the growth prospects of the supply chain and logistics industry, are of a different nature. In developing countries, despite the recent high rate of growth in this industry; the problems concern lack of good infrastructure, lack of governmental regulation for an industry that largely is seen as belonging to the unorganized sector, and challenges to warehousing, all of which are directly related to the supply chain and logistics industry.

supply-chain-management-and-logistics-challengesA country like India has a long way to go before it can build the kind of infrastructure of the kind seen in the developed countries. Although it has a huge network of railroads and roads; the quality is pathetically low, affecting the efficiency of the supply chain. Delivery gets affected in an environment of poor infrastructure and low implementation of technology, although India is relatively stronger in the latter area. Logistics and warehousing need to improve in a large measure if the demand for growth in this sector has to be matched by the requisite infrastructure.

Infrastructure is the very backbone of this industry, and this is one of the biggest areas of weaknesses in India. This places major handicaps and hurdles right at the very heart of the industry that is poised for huge growth. A number of steps need to be taken if the challenges before the supply chain management and logistics industry have to be overcome.

 

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