How does a professional organization like the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals spread the word about supply chain careers? And where does academia fit in? Ted Stank, Bruce Chair of Supply Chain Management and executive director of the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee’s Haslam College of Business, explains.

The value of today’s CSCMP, versus its early incarnation as the National Council of Physical Distribution Management, is like “apples to oranges,” Stank says. Sixty years ago, “we weren’t talking about integrated logistics,” and there wasn’t much of a formalized effort to educate professionals about the discipline.

All of that has changed dramatically in the ensuing years. The financial crisis of 2008-2009, along with the more recent COVID-19 pandemic, made the public aware of the importance of global supply chains.

Universities have stepped up as well. The University of Tennessee graduates 430 students each year with a degree in supply chain management, says Stank, compared with maybe 50 graduates with a transportation degree in those earlier years.

It’s getting easier to gain recognition for the supply chain profession, and communicating to young people that it offers them an engaging career. Today, says Stank, they’re more likely to have “seats at the strategy table.”

For its part, a professional organization like CSCMP “provides an umbrella around a recognizable source of information that you can trust,” Stank says. Such intelligence can help to convey the true nature of a growing industry, and make it more appealing to students. There’s also an invaluable networking opportunity that conveys knowledge and opens up career possibilities, he says.

It's vital for universities to equip students with knowledge of the industry, Stank says, but they should also be told that “they need to leave university with the mindset that this is where their learning starts.”