Value Chain Management

Introduction

Management extends beyond a single company. A company is dependent on money, supplies, services, and knowledge from a range of suppliers and customers, often spread out over the global business landscape. Unlike most other MSc specialisations, which focus on management within the individual company, the MSc in Strategic Value Chain Management (SVCM) deals with managing the global value chains that the company is part of. The SVCM programme enables graduates to manage the exchanges and relationships with these suppliers and customers, thereby gaining access to external resources required for realising corporate strategy.

Companies often refer to this MSc programme as industrial or B2B procurement/purchasing and sales/marketing. But this management task is not just about buying and selling or marketing products, services, and knowledge on global markets. The SVCM manager becomes responsible for managing, developing, and coordinating a complex range of exchanges with customers and suppliers. The cornerstones of this MSc programme are learnings about the management of the economic and social exchange between the company and other companies in its value chain. Students also become familiar with understanding and managing the legal and technological exchanges, although the former is not a primary focus on the education.

Moreover, the SVCM programme enables candidates to become boundary spanners. Boundary spanners manage these exchanges through relationships with customers and suppliers by building bridge across organisational boundaries, essentially linking their own company with complex chains and network of suppliers and customers across the world. The boundary spanner must establish and develop relationship with other boundary spanners representing various customers and suppliers, but at the same time also maintain a strategic perspective of how one buyer-supplier exchange is dependent on the surrounding network. Strategic decision-making is therefore an essential part of value chain management.

Some key responsibilities of the boundary spanner

Companies are facing an increasing level of complexity in their efforts of managing their position in global value chains, and a MSC in SVCM will find her- or himself right in the middle of managing these exciting challenges:

1. Innovation: It is well known that much innovation originates in the interfaces between customers and suppliers in global value chains. Managers must develop and facilitate initiatives that innovate processes, products, and services in relationships with key customers and suppliers.
2. Sustainability: Sustainability is becoming a key demand from stakeholders in the corporate network. Not just the company itself, but the interconnected chains of suppliers and customers that the company operates in, must be sustainable, making this a key topic for an MSc in SVCM.
3. Risk management: COVID 19, climate change and global shortages among other things, mean that risk management has become an integral part of managing global value chains.

In order to keep a state-of-the-art understanding of these and other SVCM challenges, and incorporate them into our teaching, the programme is handled by a specialised team of researchers with close interactions with corporations operating in global value chains, and at the same time carrying out high quality scientific research into prominent SVCM topics. A range of managers and executives from this corporate network will give guest lectures in the courses, providing the newest insights into the managerial challenges that these companies are facing. The high relevance of the SVCM programme can also be seen from the list of companies that present or former graduates are employed in, including Lego, Vestas, Novo Nordisk, Unilever, Lidl, Bestseller and Danfoss.

Careers

Job opportunities for SVCM graduates are exceptional, given that almost all companies in the global business environment operate in extended value chains. As a starting point, the SVCM graduate is perfectly prepared for a job in both the sales/marketing and procurement functions, and some choose to alternate between the two in the course of their careers. These functions are heavily populated in many companies, and candidates have the opportunity to rise all the way from junior positions through middle management and into top management in their career. Typical early career positions are Category Manager, Supply Account Manager, Key Account Manager, Product Manager and Marketing Manager. There are also a high number of available specialised positions such as Supply Risk Specialist, Supply Market Analyst, Customer Portfolio Analyst, Customer Account Developer or Franchise/Joint Venture/Alliance manager. SVCM candidates are also highly attractive to consultancies. Procurement and sales/marketing consultants’ services are high in demand, and there are both general and specialised consultancies that offer jobs as consultants. Since SMEs are typically very active in their global value chains, they also represent valuable job opportunities. In addition, SVCM graduates are ideally suited to enter the graduate programs of most large companies.