MBA in Supply Chain Management expertise track Maastricht School of Management

The MBA is a generalist management program, but at MSM you can choose from different expertise tracks to fully align your MBA with your career ambitions, or to challenge yourself in new and unexplored areas.

Supply Chain Management is an integral part of businesses and is essential to the success of a company and its customer satisfaction. Business success requires a perfect design, organization, control, and planning of the supply chain. The Supply Chain Management MBA expertise track offers courses in Driving change in the Supply Chain, Managing Supply Change Trade-Offs and Alignment, Industry 4.0, and the digital Supply Chain and Sustainable Supply Chains for the Future.

Driving change in the Supply Chain

Change is a constant, and this is particularly true for the Supply Chain. To this, we should add the keyword of complexity: Supply Chain is almost by default cross-functional, cross-national, cross-cultural, cross-company. In addition, Supply Chain encompasses many challenges such as physical goods flow challenges, IT challenges financial challenges, people challenges. The capacity to understand change, and to design and manage projects is a critical skill for anyone involved in supply chains at the management level. This is especially true in the cross-functional environment crossing company boundaries at the heart of the supply chain. In this course, you will obtain a broad understanding of the basics of project management and change management, within the context of the complexities of supply chain issues. This workshop-based course provides an overview of the tools needed to successfully manage supply chain projects.

Managing Supply Chain Trade-Offs and Alignment

Many decisions in the supply chain have multiple potential consequences, not necessarily all favorable to the company. The cross-functional or even cross-company nature of the supply chain makes that on many occasions the pros and cons of a single decision are not equally spread across the stakeholders involved, Taking this into consideration, it becomes clear that managing such trade-offs is a big challenge. In this course alignment is the critical word and we zoom in to alignment from three different angles: supply chain decisions and working capital, Sales & Operations Planning / Integrated Business Planning (S&OP and IBP), and purchasing & supplier collaboration.

Industry 4.0 and the Digital Supply Chain

It seems clear that we are right in the middle of a technological paradigm shift and some even speak about the 6th Kondratieff or Schumpeter wave we are entering into, or the 4th Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). It also seems clear that this amount of technological change will have a profound impact on the supply chain. The term ‘no-touch supply chain’ has already been coined on a number of platforms. In this course, we will explore these technological developments. Technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Big Data, Virtual and Augmented reality, and the concept of digital twins will be placed in the context of the supply chain area, so that you will understand what these technologies are about, but moreover how to evaluate the opportunities and threats from the perspective of business and supply chain.

Sustainable Supply Chains for the Future

There is a growing understanding of the limitations of resources on the planet. Companies are increasingly expected to behave like ‘responsible citizens’ and climate change is solidly on the map of politicians and business people alike. In this course, you will learn how to put some well-known frameworks, like CSR, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the Triple Bottom Line, and the Circular Economy into the context of supply chain management. We will look at how the supply chain can play a fundamental role in making business more sustainable in the long run. As part of this course, we will use a business simulation game, called The Blue Connection. In this simulation game, you will work with fellow students in teams to turn a loss-making company around and make it more circular in order to become more profitable.

After completing this specialization you will have gained the knowledge, insights, and tools to successfully manage supply chain projects and trade-offs. You will be able to evaluate the impact of new technologies on the supply chain and you will understand how the supply chain can play a fundamental role in making business more sustainable.

The Supply Chain Management MBA expertise track offers courses in:

• Supply Chain Integration for Competitive Advantage
• Managing Supply Change Trade-Offs and Alignment
• Industry 4.0 and the digital Supply Chain
• Sustainable Supply Chains for the Future