Women in Supply Chain Management in India
Diversity and gender equality in the workplace has been a topic of discussion for several decades around the globe and even in India. Same is the case with the discussion topic “women in supply chain management”. I will start the discussion starting from B-Schools. In B-Schools, more students prefer to take finance and marketing as their specialization rather than operations or supply chain management. Major reason being the earning difference, but somehow operations and supply chain management also get an impression of interacting with workers and truck drivers, that is completely wrong.
Digitization and Data Science in Supply Chain Transformation
Today’s supply chain management professionals do planning and control of demand, operations, materials, procurement, capacity, distribution, logistics, transportation, etc. and design/transform supply chain management strategy, network, resources, etc. Supply chain managers are increasingly getting involved in digitizing every aspect of supply chain management and transforming supply chain by getting deeper insights using data science.
I remember, when I was a student in my engineering college, there were less than 1% girl students. That time, engineering was not considered as an appropriate profession for women. With increasing opportunities available in information technology field, more girls take up engineering as information technology jobs do not require physical hard work and working in harsh environment. Similarly, girl students have also increased in B-Schools. But, the proportion of students taking up operations/supply chain management as specialization has not increased much.
Women Representation in Supply Chain Workforce
In “2024 Women in Supply Chain Survey” done by Gartner-AWESOME, supply chain management workforce found to have 40% women. However, less women are found in leadership roles, like CSCO – Chief Supply Chain Officer. Reports from ASCM (Association for Supply Chain Management, formerly APICS) indicate that while the supply chain field has historically been male dominated, there’s a growing trend of more women entering the profession. Surveys from ASCM provide data on the gender distribution of supply chain management professionals, which gives an indirect indication of certification trends. For example, some surveys show that around 39 percent of respondents were women. It is important to understand that the percentage of women in the general supply chain workforce, and the percentage of women holding certifications may vary.
Ending Remarks
Our database at KnoWerX Education also shows that less than 10% women get APICS certified. Usually, women’s earnings are additional income to run the household and family. There is also a gap between pay scale of men and women. Women have a greater focus on family rather than on the career. In one of the APICS Conferences, I was talking to an American woman consultant in the field of supply chain management working for one of the top consulting firms in the US. She shared her career journey and told me that she refused promotion as it required relocation. She did not want to be away from family, especially her children.
However, in my opinion, in the future to come, more women will choose supply chain management as their profession and more women will get certified to accelerate their growth in their career in India.
— Ravindra K. Tulsyan, MTech DBF CFPIM CIRM CSCP SCOR-P PLS CLTD DDPP DDLP CTSC
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