Auto Manufacturing Has To Activate Leadership Talent Supply Chain

What comes to your mind when you hear `Supply Chain’ in the manufacturing context? Often people would refer to supply chain as the backbone of the entire organisation or the industry which ensures smooth flow of goods from the place it is manufactured to the place it is sold. The good news is that organisations invest millions to keep improving the way they manage the supply chain. They invest in building the transportation network, tools, supply chain management software and more. But the bad news is that organisations invest the least on the talent that runs this backbone.

- Amogh Deshmukh

While organisations have not invested in talent, there are a few other challenges the industry has faced over the years. Thanks to the high paying jobs in the new age industries like IT/ITES and now the Start-ups, there has been steady talent erosion from the engineering colleges. Almost for two decades the students who were the ‘A’ talent have picked industries other than their core specialisations. Not to mention the brain drain that has steadily happened to the US, Europe and Australia over the years. This has left the manufacturing sector with the ‘B’ talent and it has been forced to manage with that.

Couple that with poor investment in talent development. The feedback has been that the middle layers of the organisations are looking weak and senior leaders are showing less confidence in the readiness of their talent. DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast has shown a downward trend in the leader readiness scores.

Another challenge is all the baby boomers, who have given their blood and sweat to the organisation, are on the verge of retirement. Most manufacturing organisations have one common problem; their heroes are going to retire. If you look closely at many auto companies, some senior leaders have already got extensions as there is no one below them to replace them.