Many call the work of a logistician a profession of the 21st century. What is the reason for this? Who is a logistician and what functions does he carry out? This will be discussed later.
Who is a logistician?
Delivering the right products from one point to another according to the assigned dates is a very important task. It is even more important to keep the product safe and sound. It is such a specialist as a logistician who manages supply chains and controls the efficient transportation and delivery of the necessary products. It is immediately worth noting that any profession in the field of logistics is considered very complex and difficult. So, to become a high-quality specialist in the field of supply management, you must have very developed thinking, know foreign languages, and have excellent organizational skills. Tracking a large number of different kinds of goods is not so simple, and doing it in a quality manner is all the more so.
Where should a person study in order to be able to work as a logistician and manage supply chains? What are the responsibilities of the specialists in question? This will be described later.
Education required for work
In the field of logistics, you can work with both higher and secondary education. However, the number of duties, rights, as well as remuneration in this case will be significantly different.
A person with a secondary vocational education can only work as an assistant logistician or manager. To fully manage supply chains for people who have not graduated from a university, if it succeeds, it is with great difficulty. It is also worth noting that far from everywhere there are jobs for people without higher education. Due to the narrow focus, as well as due to a number of other factors, getting a job in question for a person with only a secondary education will not be so simple.
Things are completely different with people who still have higher education. So, people who graduated from economic universities in the relevant specialty have every right to get a job in any free workplace. Perhaps it’s worth highlighting the main educational institutions where you can get the necessary education. This is the Higher School of Economics (in Moscow at Lubyanka), MIIT, MADI and the famous St. Petersburg State University. In any of these universities there is a specialty called "Logistics and Supply Chain Management."
What should a logistician know?
As mentioned above, a specialist in the field of logistics must have a very extensive body of knowledge. What specific disciplines is required to know the employee in question qualitatively? Here are just a few of them:
- Fundamentals of economic and mathematical methods.
- The basics of logistics supply, distribution, production, warehousing, etc.
- Logistic project management.
- Control over transportation, unloading and loading operations.
- Fundamentals of information systems and technologies.
- Fundamentals of Economics.
- Basics of supply planning.
- Risk management in the field of logistics.
- Control over logistics systems and much more.
A specialist, on whose shoulders lies the management of supply chains, must really know very many things. Moreover, the employee in the field of logistics is also obliged to constantly improve and supplement his knowledge. This is due to the fact that technologies are constantly being modernized, and therefore it is unlikely that the logistician will be able to work with several university knowledge for several decades.
Skills required for work
Of course, the mere knowledge to carry out their work functions will not be enough for the logistician. A specialist whose tasks include the logistics management of supply chains must also have certain skills, abilities and character traits.
What exactly can be highlighted here?
- Knowledge of several foreign languages. It is quite obvious that in work related to transportation, it is impossible to do without negotiations with foreign citizens; especially if the company is foreign.
- Communication skills. To know several languages is completely insufficient, it is also necessary to be able to correctly express your thoughts and requirements. This applies to the native language. A quality specialist is simply obliged to have a competent, clear and precise speech.
- Work with software. In the age of computer technology, you simply cannot do without the ability to correctly handle programs. This is especially true for workers whose functions are to manage logistics, supply chains, transportation, etc.
It is also worth noting that a high-quality specialist is also obliged to possess such character traits as stress resistance, high working capacity, organizational functions, etc.
Logistics Responsibilities
As already mentioned, the scope of logistics is incredibly vast. It employs a large number of workers performing a variety of functions. However, there is still the opportunity to highlight the most generalized responsibilities.
So, it is worth noting that in the considered professional environment, the employees are assigned the following duties:
- Work with all sorts of people. This includes customers, suppliers, operators, etc.
- Work with documentation.
- Planning for orders and deliveries.
- Negotiations with customs.
- Supply chain management.
- Routing and more.
The logistician really has a lot of functions. However, everything depends mainly on the level and skill level available.
Where can I work?
Almost no problems should arise for a graduate of an educational institution with a degree in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Universities often themselves offer students options for vacancies. And due to the fact that the profession in question today is incredibly relevant and in demand, a person with a proper education will simply have a wide variety of employment opportunities.
And yet, where exactly can the specialist in question work? It can be distinguished:
- transport companies (Russian Railways, various airlines, etc.);
- cargo handling;
- customs services;
- industrial enterprises and many other places.
Supply management and logistics are needed in almost every manufacturing enterprise. And this is a huge advantage in this area: a person who wants to connect his life with the work in question will definitely not have problems with employment.
About Logistics Career
What can be said about the career of the specialist in question? As in any other labor sphere, professional development can be earned only by accumulating proper experience and improving working skills.
However, in the field of supply chain management there is one important feature. In short, it consists in the fact that there are simply a lot of opportunities for so-called self-improvement. Thus, a specialist can intensively study new foreign languages, develop his own specialized programs, improve his communication skills, bring documentation work to automatic, etc. Thanks to all this, almost any specialist who does not even have a higher education and works as an assistant will be able to achieve professional heights.
About the rights and responsibilities of the logistician
A logistics specialist, like any other employee, has certain professional rights. What exactly can be highlighted here? Here is what the special job description of the employee fixes:
- the right to all state guarantees and benefits established by the state;
- the right to timely payment of salaries;
- the right to demand from the bosses all the necessary documentation for work;
- the right to offer management ideas and suggestions for improving the organization's work;
- the right to refuse to perform work in case of obvious violations entailing a lack of optimal working conditions;
- the right to improve their qualifications;
- the right to involve specialists from other professional areas to provide the necessary assistance (but subject to agreement with the authorities).
Thus, a fairly wide range of rights is assigned to a specialist who has the responsibility to manage supply chains. At the enterprise, however, logisticians also have a large share of responsibility for all actions performed. In particular, it is worth highlighting that the employee is liable:
- for offenses or crimes committed in the workplace;
- for complete failure or improper performance of their duties;
- for staying at the workplace while intoxicated;
- for violation of established safety rules.
Pros and cons of the profession
The logistics profession has both a number of advantages and a number of disadvantages. What are some of the benefits of work? This includes, of course:
- Demand and relevance of the profession.
- High income.
- Ability to practice speaking in a foreign language.
- Continuous self-improvement.
Perhaps the profession has other advantages. Above were mentioned only the most basic advantages. And what are the disadvantages here?
- Quite a dense load, and as a result - stress.
- Work in the industrial zone (of course, you can find work in a clean office; however, the very concept of supply chain management is structured so that the specialty is practically inseparable from production).
The advantages of the profession, of course, more. And this is not at all surprising: logistics is a truly prestigious and important area.