Supply Chain Analyst

If inefficiency makes you shudder (whether you observe it in the grocery store checkout line or in the DMV waiting room), and the best part about ordering a goodie online is tracking the package’s arrival to your front door, a career as a Supply Chain Analyst might be right for you. As a Supply Chain Analyst, you navigate the maze that is a retailer’s stock room, and organize all the moving parts to make them run more efficiently.

Supply Chain Analysts examine workflow and find ways to streamline a business’s processes. You also analyze supply and demand so companies don’t run out of popular items, or inadvertently stock up on things they don’t use often. Your typical duties include quantitative analysis, cost benefit analysis, data mining, data modeling, and database management.

First and foremost, your job is about making transactions go smoother, not about increasing an employee’s workload to pump out more merchandise. On the contrary, your work makes things easier for the average employee because you cut out unnecessary steps or introduce new protocols that fill in gaps in the pipeline.

For instance, if using outdated software to create shipping labels is causing the warehouse to process fewer packages a day, you analyze the impact of that problem and present your findings to the company’s top brass. Your report includes information about income lost versus the cost of buying new software, as well as numbers that show the dramatic spike in productivity and customer satisfaction that would take place when that software is implemented. Ultimately, the work that you do results in more productive employees, and better and faster services for customers.