Career & Salary Guide - Logistics Executive

by Kim Winter on 2012-10-20 11:53:08

Employers across Australia are adopting a back-to-basics approach with a focus on core commercial skills when hiring across a wide range of positions. Anna Game-Lopata reports.

Leaders who can conduct financial and strategic analysis can help companies understand trends impacting the business and make them well placed for expansion. They can also identify cost savings; an activity always on the modern company’s agenda. So it’s not surprising, people with this kind of skill-set are particularly in demand.

In Australia, tertiary qualifications including business, commerce, economics, and social sciences remain the most in-demand credentials for mid to senior level executives.

Exclusive market intelligence from leading global recruitment firm Logistics Executive Recruitment (Logistics Executive) points to an increased demand for commercial roles.

In addition, Logistics Executive’s 2012-13 Supply Chain Employment Market Survey, produced annually for SupplyChain Review’s Career and Salary Guide, shows an increased demand for distribution, warehousing, procurement and inventory executives across the extended supply chain.

In particular, the survey shows the mining, resources, agriculture, manufacturing, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), retail and pharmaceutical sectors are on the hunt for business improvement, change management skills and commercial acumen.

Logistics Executive CEO Kim Winter says building talent pools for in-demand roles from within logistics ranks continues to be challenging but the good news is the industry has been able to recruit from outside its traditional space.

“We’ve been able to introduce excellent candidates from other sectors including the manufacturing, information technology, FMCG and retail sectors where demand has softened over the last 12 months,” Winter says.

“In the last 12 months we made twice as many placements in commercial, finance and business improvement positions in Western Australia and almost as many on the eastern seaboard as we did in the previous year.”

Winter also says employers are also looking for candidates with analytical skills, proficient in the most popular and up-to-date system and software applications. “New systems are being rolled out to improve efficiencies, but many organisations continue to require candidates with advanced knowledge of traditional software programs, such as Microsoft Excel, and experience using enterprise resource planning systems such as SAP and Oracle,” he says.

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