Global Supply Chain Management

1.5 Credits · Level: Graduate

In his book “Door to door,” Edward Humes writes that coffee beans can travel a distance greater than the Earth’s circumference before they are used to make a cup of coffee. Ponder this fact next time you are enjoying a cup. Think about the decisions that thousands of managers working for hundreds of companies had to make to facilitate the physical, informational, and financial flows associated with the coffee trade. In this course, we shall learn Supply Chain Management--- the best practices for orchestrating the physical, informational, and financial flows to enable the creation of goods and services from the moment of raw materials procurement to the final delivery to customers. If simple products, like coffee, have such long supply chains, what about complex products, like phones and airplanes? Should supply chains for iPhones or Boeing 787 airplanes be managed the same way as supply chains for coffee? What do the supply chains of Google and Facebook? What about supply chains for life-saving vaccines, microchips, and lithium batteries? You should take this course to find out. The significance of supply chains cannot be overstated; they are the driving force behind economic value creation, connecting people and industries on a global scale. They are remarkable when they work well. But the COVID-19 pandemic has brought supply chain fragility to everyone’s attention. What are the best practices for managing supply chain risk? What are the tools that can help? You should take this course to find out. Powerful forces, looming threats, and new exciting technologies shape modern supply chains. Global warming and terrorism, wars and geo-political rivalries, AI and other forms of automation are changing the world. How will supply chains look in the future? Will they be less global? Will they be more transparent? Will there be more or fewer disruptions to the three flows? Will coffee beans stop circumnavigating the globe? Only the future will tell, but you should take this course to acquire the right frameworks to think about these questions. Supply chains are akin to the Matrix; understanding how they function and being able to control them bestows newfound power upon managers, investors, and regulators alike. Whether you aspire to excel in your managerial role, make informed investment decisions, or shape policies that influence supply chain dynamics, this course will provide you with invaluable knowledge and skills.