Looking to pursue a career in Logistics? Logistics deals with many vital things such as managing the distribution of goods on a global scale and linking the customers with items such as food, water, clothing and healthcare.
Embarking on a logistics career might not be too difficult as this field is still actively hiring. As you can guess, the widely global scale company exactly needs a lot of workforces, of course with adequate skills demands.
There are certain personal qualities and core competencies necessary for success in logistics career and grouped into technology-related, people-related and general management skills.
Technology-skills
- IT literacy – is the minimum skill every logistician must have! Like any other job, IT literacy is required to increase operational efficiency and competitiveness. When you are a logistics manager, this ability would be very helpful in some cases like computer modelling or project management.
- MIS (Management Information System) – is the centre of the logistics company. Don’t worry! Employers would not ask you to write programs if you are not a tech-expert! This business needs you to analyse the best from the system so that the operations could run smoothly.
People-related skills
- Leadership – when you are in a manager or supervisor position of logistics job, good leadership affects so much on how your business runs optimally. Being consistently clear on objectives, valuing the contributions of staff and colleagues and gaining their respects are some attitudes to manage your people and lead them to their highest productivity.
- Communication – it is important to communicate clearly to both colleagues and customers to make the business thrive optimally. In this fast-paced communication technology, keep in touch with others becomes much easier, but language gap might occur as this global business possibly deals with people across countries. Take a short foreign language course is an excellent idea to improve your communication skills.
- Team building – one thing for sure to work in logistics management is that you will work with many people as a team. Integrating people with different roles and responsibilities to keep working together in the most efficient manner is a team challenge you have to face in this field.
Management skills
- Numeracy – this does not mean that logistics business needs a math graduate. Numeracy skills enable you to read and analyse data.
- Problem-solving – issues would occur every single day, but if you have problem-solving skills, it will be easier to investigate them and solve it efficiently.
- Decision- making – Logistics fields demand the managers to be great decision makers whom are not only fair but works the best for the company, the employees and the customers.
- Project management – such skills are of growing importance across both logistics and transport as people increasingly work in cross-functional teams
Seems hard to accomplish? No, never say it’s impossible as those skills can be picked up while you are doing your job. The key point to successfully run this career is that you have a positive attitude and a willingness to learn!
This article was first published here.